Disney surprises Central Florida girl’s hockey club with new locker room

MAITLAND, Fla. - The Central Florida Hockey Club’s Lady Bears got a big surprise on Saturday. 

Their locker room at the Ice Den received a makeover. They were gifted the remodel by Disney in honor of Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 movie release. 

The lead character in the film is Riley, who plays ice hockey.

"Honestly, seeing the girls' reaction to everything was breathtaking, seeing how this was paved for the younger girls," Peyton Compton said.

"We’re normally surrounded by boys. We like it in here because now we have more people around us. So we have our own room just to be us," Ambriella Leisten said.

View of the theatre marquis at the world premiere of Pixar's "Inside Out 2" at El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, California on June 10, 2024. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP) (Photo by MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

"I can’t imagine that more little girls won’t want to play hockey. It was so exciting to see how much emphasis they had on a sport that we love," Lady Bears director Sondra Pacey said.

The Lady Bears are a travel club and have been around since 2017. The club gives girls aged eight through 19, the opportunity to compete against some of the best in the region.

They say the investment in their locker room proves what they already know, that they belong in the sport.

"It makes us feel way more included because we’re always with the boys and we never had our own space. It definitely lit up the little girls faces," Lizzy Curtis said.