Inside Boston Fleet Goaltender Abbey Levy's Viral Pads

Hockey uniforms and gear are largely as expected for a sport that preaches the team over the individual, with little more than names and numbers changing from player to player. However, goaltenders have long been the exception to that rule, and that’s something Abbey Levy takes to heart.

Levy, who signed with the PWHL's Boston Fleet on June 20 after two seasons with the New York Sirens, made waves on October 19 when she unveiled her eye-popping gear for the season. However, this isn’t the first time she’s sported a stylish setup. She’s customized her gear since the option was first made available to her as a student at Minnesota State University, Mankato, in 2019. That said, this year’s set is perhaps Levy’s most ambitious yet, with multiple types of Boston icons incorporated.

“I know the Fleet is like a fleet of ships,” Levy told The Ice Garden. “So I was thinking water, perfect. Let's make the whole pads water, and then let's get some boats in there, and then always a skyline because that's like my normal thing I do with pads.”

However, Boston’s skyline proved to be a bit of a challenge to transfer onto pads. Levy knew which buildings she wanted to feature, but Boston’s skyline is not laid out uniformly. So, she and her artist partner at Bauer had to take some creative liberties to feature it all.

“The Boston skyline is a little bit, like, different, because your main building's over here in Boston, but then all the other buildings are [elsewhere],” Levy said. “So you kind of have to make your own skyline with it. I really wanted the John Hancock, I wanted the Pru, I wanted the horse, of course, and then I wanted the churches, the Zakim, but we kind of had to finagle it so it would look like a skyline. And there were a lot of questions about it, like this isn't accurate, and I'm like, yeah, I know it's not accurate. Boston doesn't have a [straight] skyline…It [was] not easy to do, but I'm happy with the outcome.”

Levy says her pad design is one of the first things she thinks of after joining a new team. She draws the initial design herself, and then she and her artist partner go back and forth, perfecting it.

“Every pad I've made, I've drawn a concept out for him,” Levy said. “He's an artist, so he has his own ways of thinking of things, and then I have my own ways of thinking of things. But I'll make TikToks of my process, how I design a pad, and it typically starts with me drawing it out for him, sending it to him, [then] he comes up with a design, then I bounce back, and it's just back and forth for months on little tweaks.”

However, it’s not just the two of them that design the gear. Levy’s family also plays a role in it. Historically, her young brother, AJ, who is also a goaltender, has helped her work out her designs. Last season, it was her younger sister, Alexandra, who came up with the idea to put the Statue of Liberty torch on her blocker. As for this go-around, Levy originally planned on a simpler design, featuring the water background with just two ships. However, her older brother, Harrison, insisted on the final, more ambitious design. 

“[I’m a] huge fan of Paul Revere and needed to get that guy involved,” Harrison said via text message. “Also, how do you not incorporate the cities? That’s the whole point of playing for a city.”

While custom goalie masks have been around for decades, highly customized pads are relatively new to the scene. Levy believes it’s something that can help set the women’s game apart.

“I think it's just so different, and it's something that the men's game has never seen before,” Levy said. “So I want to bring it into the picture for the women's game, at least. I know it causes so much chatter. There's people that really love it and there's people that really hate it, but that just means you're doing something good in life, I think, if you have haters and lovers. So I think it's a good little talking point that we have in the women's game, at least, because now I see women are designing pads like crazy now, so it's kind of become normal for us to do stuff like this.”

With so many different setups over the years, one wouldn't blame Levy for struggling to pick a favorite. And it's true, there is something about each one that still stands out to her as particularly great. For these Boston ones, she loves the water background. For the sets she made with the New York Sirens, it was how monumental they were to her native New York, with the Statue of Liberty in the middle surrounded by the city’s iconic buildings. However, in terms of all-time favorites, she said her Boston College and Team USA pads stick out above the rest of the pack.

“I love the USA set I made, I thought that one was the most creative I've gotten,” Levy said. “... [my] Boston College [ones] that say Boston's College on the top, those ones are just amazing, because it's a little dig at everyone else. But the USA ones were definitely my favorite.”

While Levy’s pads have arrived to the delight of fans, her mask remains a mystery to the public. She played coy about what exactly it will look like, but hinted it will share a similarity to last season’s New York mask, which was designed by her mom’s preschool class.

“There is a part two to the whole children’s mask that I did,” Levy said. “There will be something special dedicated to the community of Boston that we’re doing.”