Last year, Annie Pankowski was one of the youngest U.S. players to take part in the pre-Olympic Bring on the World Tour as the squad prepared for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

The 19-year-old forward from Laguna Hills, California, appeared in three games for Team USA and recorded one assist. But when the final Olympic roster was announced, Pankowski was not among the 21 finalists.

“It was definitely a tough experience,” Pankowski said. “It was a lot of fun, and I grew a lot. It definitely pushed me to be a lot better.”

She showcased those lessons in September at USA Hockey's Women's National Team Evaluation Camp at the University of New England.

“Coming into a camp like this, I am not as nervous,” she said. “I am not as overwhelmed.”

It showed. In October, Pankowski was named to the 23-woman team for the Four Nations Cup. The event, which begins Nov. 4 in Kamloops, B.C., is her second Four Nations Cup.

Pankowski is one of the rising stars on the U.S. women’s national team.

After playing high school hockey at the North American Hockey Academy in Stowe, Vermont, where she had 318 points over four seasons, Pankowski began her freshman season at the University of Wisconsin this fall. She hopes to help the Badgers return to the NCAA Frozen Four. They lost to the University of Minnesota in the national semifinals last season.

“I think it will be a really good year,” said Pankowski, who has one goal and 10 assists through six games so far this season. “Most of our team has been training in the summer together, so we are already pretty close as freshmen. We have a lot of talent, we have five girls on the Canadian side that are going [to their national] camp as well, which is cool to see.”

She won't be the first in her family to play college hockey. Older sister Ali Pankowski is a senior captain at Princeton University.

“We always grew up playing together,” the younger Pankowski said. “She's a year older than me, so every other year we were on the same team together. We were the sisters that couldn’t go against each other because we were so competitive. I am pretty sure she’s the main driving factor to me getting where I am at.”

Annie won't have worry about facing Ali in the regular season, however. Wisconsin won't face Princeton unless they meet in the postseason.

Like many kids in Southern California, Pankowski grew up playing roller hockey.

“I grew up playing roller hockey with the boys, and my boys' team decided to go to ice hockey,” Pankowski said. “I played boys' [hockey] until I was 12, and I played a couple of years with the Lady [Anaheim] Ducks.”

Growing up, Pankowski said she looked up to players such as current U.S. national team members Hilary Knight and Meghan Duggan. However, her biggest idol was one of the early stars of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.

“I was a huge Paul Kariya fan growing up,” Pankowski said.

Kariya, who won the Hobey Baker Award and led the University of Maine to a national title in 1993, played 15 seasons in the NHL, nine of those seasons in Anaheim.

Along with fellow forward Teemu Selanne, Kariya was the face of the young Ducks franchise for most of the 1990s and 2000s. But Pankowski doesn't feel the pressure to be the face of women's hockey in Southern California.

“I wouldn't say pressure but rather an opportunity for me to come back and be a role model for the girls,” Pankowski said. “Because I never had one from California.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.