As the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics approach, ice hockey is once again stepping into the global spotlight. The return of NHL players to Olympic competition for the first time since 2014, combined with the rise of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), has elevated interest in the sport across both the men’s and women’s games.
For USA Hockey, however, the Olympic moment represents far more than a medal chase. It is a chance to energize future generations, expand participation, and ensure the sport grows in a way that is both safe and sustainable. At the center of that long-term vision is chief financial officer Kelly Mahncke, whose role extends well beyond managing budgets. Ahead of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, USA Hockey’s CFO plays the long game with artificial intelligence, reshaping how the organization uses data, technology, and analytics to support its mission.
Redefining the Modern CFO Role at USA Hockey
Kelly Mahncke joined USA Hockey in January 2019 at its headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Like many CFOs today, she quickly found herself immersed not only in finance, but also in technology strategy, digital transformation, and emerging AI capabilities. Her situation, however, came with a unique challenge: USA Hockey is a nonprofit organization serving roughly 1.2 million members, where community impact and player safety matter just as much as financial performance.
When Mahncke arrived, she discovered that the organization had been pursuing an ambitious — but ultimately unsustainable — approach to technology. USA Hockey was attempting to build its own mass email tools, customer relationship management systems, project management platforms, and other proprietary software, with hopes of eventually monetizing them.
“We’re not a technology company,” Mahncke said, noting that the approach simply wasn’t practical or cost-effective.
Resetting IT and Building a Strong Digital Foundation
Recognizing the need for change, Mahncke initiated a sweeping reset of USA Hockey’s IT strategy. A major component was a “lift and shift” of decades of historical data — some dating back to the early 1990s — into the cloud. This move improved data redundancy, resilience, and long-term accessibility, while also addressing years of accumulated technical debt.
The organization moved away from custom-built platforms and toward best-in-class SaaS solutions wherever possible. At the same time, Mahncke focused on rebuilding the IT function itself, forming an IT subcommittee with board volunteers and prioritizing talent with the right mix of technical and business skills.
In hindsight, the timing proved fortunate. Much of the foundational work was completed before the pandemic halted in-person sports and forced USA Hockey into a period of operational survival.
Using Data and AI to Drive Smarter Decisions
Today, that rebuilt digital infrastructure is enabling the organization’s next phase: leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence to support better decision-making across the business. Mahncke said the first step was simply understanding what data existed and how it connected across systems.
“We needed to walk before we ran,” she explained.
Membership data became the natural starting point. USA Hockey memberships — required for players, coaches, officials, and volunteers participating in sanctioned events — account for about 65% of the organization’s revenue. With cleaner, more connected data, the finance team can now ask deeper strategic questions: What is the lifetime value of a member? How much does it cost to acquire and retain players or officials? What happens to cash flow if renewals occur earlier in the season?
AI’s Role in Advancing Player Safety
One of the most impactful uses of AI at USA Hockey extends beyond traditional finance into player safety. The organization operates a captive insurance company that provides accident coverage for members. Historically, claims data was limited largely to cost figures.
That is changing. By digitizing claims and capturing richer details — such as when an injury occurred during a game, where on the ice it happened, what body part was affected, and whether a penalty was involved — USA Hockey can now analyze injury patterns in far greater depth. Over time, AI-powered analytics could identify trends by age group, game period, or injury type, and feed those insights back to coaches, officials, and safety committees.
“If you prevent even one injury,” Mahncke said, “it means the world to that person and their family.”
In the future, those insights could also help equipment manufacturers design safer helmets, pads, and protective gear.
A Measured and Responsible Approach to AI
Mahncke works closely with the IT team, meeting twice a week and partnering with a dedicated project manager who connects technology initiatives with business needs. Current priorities include consolidating event management into a single SaaS platform, expanding analytics and AI capabilities, and modernizing a long-overdue registry portal that must handle complex, hockey-specific rules.
Internally, USA Hockey is taking a cautious, thoughtful approach to AI adoption. With a workforce that spans early-career professionals to employees with decades of experience, Mahncke has focused first on establishing clear privacy and AI governance policies. Only then is the organization encouraging broader experimentation with tools such as Microsoft Copilot.
Growing the Game Beyond the Olympics
With millions of viewers tuning into Olympic hockey, Mahncke believes the global attention can only help the sport. Visibility inspires kids and adults alike, including those who may never have considered playing hockey before.
Growing the game, she said, means retaining core members while also welcoming new participants from different ages, backgrounds, and communities — all while making safety a top priority.
“So many kids watch these games and at some point they think, ‘I’m going to play in the NHL’ or ‘I’m going to play hockey in the Olympics,’” Mahncke said. “That helps grow our game because if you can see it, you can do it.”
