Coppell Chronicle Vol. 5, No. 44
Coppell Hockey Player Coming Home as Pro • Lakeside Students Will Spend Year at New Tech • Attendance Zone Tweaks Discussed in Detail • The Biscuit Bar Has Gone Belly-Up
If you need a last-minute gift for someone who lives or works in Coppell — like, perhaps, your kid’s teacher at a Coppell ISD school — I have an idea:
Coppell Hockey Player Coming Home as Pro
When Hannah Bilka was very young, she would tag along to her older brother’s hockey practices and games. Intrigued by the sport’s speed and excitement, Hannah thought she might like to give hockey a try. But her dad wasn’t so hot on that idea.
“I didn’t want a girl playing hockey,” longtime Coppell resident Dan Bilka said. “I didn’t think it was cool.”
Two decades later, Dan has come around on what turned out to be a really cool idea. Hannah happened to be a natural. Now 24, she has an NCAA championship on her resume, and there’s a good chance she’ll be named to the U.S. Olympic team next month. One week from today, she will play at the American Airlines Center in Dallas for the first time as a professional hockey player, and her proud papa has invited more than 50 people to the game.
“I’m doing the dad thing,” he said with a chuckle.
The Dec. 28 game between Hannah’s Seattle Torrent squad and the New York Sirens is part of the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s “Takeover Tour,” which is designed to drum up interest in cities other than the eight that host PWHL teams. Although this will be Hannah’s first game in the Dallas Stars’ arena as a professional, she has played there before. When she was about 10 years old, her team got to take the ice between periods of a Stars game.
“I remember it vividly. It was a cool experience,” she said during a phone interview on Thursday, the day after she scored a goal and assisted on two others in the Torrent’s 4-1 win over the Ottawa Charge.
Next Sunday’s game won’t be the first time Hannah’s name booms through the American Airlines Center’s speakers. The Stars produced a video about her in 2024, a few months before she was the fourth pick in the PWHL draft.
Not long after Hannah was drafted, her parents received a congratulatory message from Duane Masengill, one of her former teachers at Coppell Middle School North who might be the biggest hockey fan ever employed by Coppell ISD. His sons were both on the Coppell High School hockey team, and one of them, Erik Masengill, plays for Maryville University in St. Louis.
Duane still had a 2013 email in his inbox from Patricia Bilka, who advised Hannah’s teachers that her sixth-grader would miss a week’s worth of classes because she’d be playing in a tournament in Sweden. Masengill replied to that email last year to say, “I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of Hannah! I have enjoyed seeing her develop into an amazing hockey player.”
As Hannah’s hockey skills developed, she and her parents realized the former Town Center Texan would have to leave home to find the proper level of competition. After spending her freshman year at New Tech High, she enrolled at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, a boarding school in Minnesota. That was just the beginning of her far-flung travels related to hockey.
She played at Boston College for four years, but when the NCAA granted athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hannah thought it would be smarter to gain one more season of collegiate experience before going pro. So she enrolled at Ohio State University for one season, and that season culminated in a national championship. She tallied 22 goals and 26 assists while starting all 39 of the Buckeyes’ games.
Hannah was drafted by the Boston Fleet in 2024, but the team left her available for this year’s expansion draft, which led to a cross-country move to Seattle. The day after that draft, the Fleet posted a highlight reel on social media to thank Hannah for her efforts as a rookie.
Hannah is one of two Texans playing in the PWHL. The other, Allyson Simpson, grew up in Frisco and also played at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. She will be on the opposite side of the ice next Sunday, playing for the New York Sirens.
But Hannah was the only Texan representing the United States during a recent “Rivalry Series” against Canada. Those four games, which Team USA swept, were a tryout for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, and Hannah recorded three assists.
Although she’s played for Team USA in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Women’s World Championships three times, winning a gold medal in 2023 and silvers in 2022 and 2024, Hannah didn’t make the cut for the 2022 Olympics in China. She hopes to hear her name when the roster for the Italy Games is unveiled in January.
“I feel like I put my best foot forward,” she said.
Lakeside Students Will Spend Year at New Tech
Lakeside Elementary School will be a construction site during the 2026-2027 academic year, so its students will be educated at the former home of New Tech High during those renovations.
That plan was mentioned during the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees meeting on Dec. 15, when the trustees discussed four projects related to the bond package that voters approved in 2023. One of those projects is additions and renovations at Lakeside; another involves converting a portion of Coppell High School into a new home for New Tech.