My Words: A Dream Come True

I was a freshman in high school when I committed to play for the Wisconsin women’s hockey team, but I knew in my heart that UW was the place for me years earlier.

I first visited Madison the summer before seventh grade. Being from the Boston area, I always thought that I was going to end up at a Boston school whether it would be Boston College or Harvard, one of those places. I always dreamed of going there just because everyone who grew up in my situation – going to a Boston prep school and playing hockey – you usually went to one of those places.

It just so happens that Jackie Crum, a UW assistant coach, saw me play in the under-14 national championships and reached out to my dad and told him the only reason she bothered to call was because I wasn’t born in Massachusetts – I was born in New York City and lived there for 9 years – so she thought there might be a chance that I might want to leave Boston one day.

“We’re going to see this school, Wisconsin,’’ my dad said. “I know you want to go to a Boston school, but trust me on this one. I think you’re going to like it.’’

Three NCAA titles, hundreds of friends, millions of experiences and countless fond memories later, I think my dad was onto something.

The second I got to town and walked into LaBahn Arena I knew I wanted to play here. The following summer I went to the Badger Camp, where I spent a lot of time with the coaches and players. It just made me fall in love with Wisconsin even more.

I wanted to commit right then and there, but my parents, James and Erika, said that I was too young to make such an important decision about my future. So, for the next two years, I compared every college that I visited – including BC, Harvard, Quinnipiac, Princeton and Yale – to Wisconsin and not a single one lived up to it. After every visit my dad would say, “Better than Wisconsin?’’ and I’d say, “No.’’

I think it was in the fall of my freshman year of high school that my dad said, “I think you’ve seen enough. I think you know what you want, so let’s go out to Madison, see a game and you can tell the coaches in person that you want to go there.’’

I’ll never forget that visit because of Mark Johnson.

When I told Coach that I wanted to be a Badger, he kind of jumped up and did an air fist-bump with a big smile on his face. Seeing how excited he was really solidified that idea that this was going to be the place for me.

He’s not an emotional guy outwardly, but him showing that little bit of a reaction – of how much he wanted me to be there – reciprocated how much I wanted to go there. That was really cool for me to see, especially as a high school freshman.

At one point he talked about what I needed to do to work on in my game, what he liked about my game and what he thought I could be as a player. Then he pointed at a wall in the UW hockey office of the five Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winners and said, “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you could find yourself on that wall someday.’’

That someday came during an unforgettable March weekend in Minneapolis when my name was announced as the 28th winner and the sixth Wisconsin player to win the Patty Kaz.

There’s a hallway on the lower level of LaBahn that I walk down every single day – past the stretch where huge photos of Sarah Bauer, Jessie Vetter, Meghan Duggan, Brianna Decker and Ann-Renee Desbiens are on display – and they are all seen as legends. The idea that I’m No. 6 has still not sunk in whatsoever.

It speaks to the talent level at UW that my teammates, Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards, were the other two finalists for the award given to the top NCAA Division I women’s player.

It’s so hard to say that I’m the best player because so many players on our team could have been named the best in the country. When you have world-class players like KK (Caroline Harvey), Laila, Ava McNaughton and Kirsten Simms, everyone brought something different to the table.

I’m proud of the records that I helped set along the way, but I’m prouder for how this team persevered in the face of great pressure on a weekly basis.   

I don’t think that me being named the Patty Kaz winner takes anything away from anyone else’s season or the contributions and the achievements that they had this year. It depends on who you ask, but I think each one of our contributions were insane. 

Those contributions came from a variety of places to help us win our eighth NCAA title. For most of the game against Ohio State, there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to win. But on that last shift before the penalty shot was called, I think we hit like three of four posts and, for the first time all game it hit me that, “The hockey gods don’t want us to win.’’ There were so many opportunities that we never would have missed in any other game, but they just weren’t going in, so a little seed of doubt was planted in my brain.

But when the penalty shot was called with 18.9 seconds left in regulation – a video review determined that a Buckeyes player closed her hand on the puck while it was in the crease – I thought, “OK, maybe there is someone up there looking out for us.’’

When Coach asked “Who wants it?’’ my first thought was, “I want the game on my stick.’’ It would have been one of the coolest opportunities to have.

But I also knew that, day in and day out, all the times we practiced penalty shots or shootouts, I know who’s the best at them and who would give our team the best chance to win. That was Simms. Her skill set was made for a moment like that. My eyes went immediately to Simms and I was waiting for her to raise her hand.

I had no doubt she’d make it and send the game into overtime, which she did with a move we’d all seen dozens of times in practice. When Simms scored off a rebound in OT, I felt a mix of joy, relief and exuberance. We hadn’t played our best game, but we still found a way to get the job done against a great team, avenging our only loss of the season.

One thing is for certain: The NCAA championship trophy weighs a lot more than the Patty Kaz.  

The end of my college career has made me realize something very important: Madison is now my home.

I feel like the people here have become my family. Even the fans – the ones I don’t know super-well, but wait up in the concourse after the game and talk to me – I think everyone connected to Wisconsin women’s hockey has become my family. It’s made me want to play for something bigger than just a title or an award.

Every single game that we went out there, I felt I was playing for something bigger than myself, even bigger than our team. That’s how special the community is.

Speaking of special, there’s Coach Johnson.

The biggest thing that sets him apart from any other coach is the fact he doesn’t want to be in the spotlight at all. He wants to make it about anyone but himself. He doesn’t want to take any credit.

Part of that is off the ice with the media and everything, but when we have success on the power play or a particular scoring play, he likes to give the credit to us. Part of it, too, is when we go out there and make a mistake, we know that when we get back to the bench, he’s not going to yell at us, he’s not going to bench us.

Everyone who plays for him does so without the fear of making a mistake or him getting mad or punishing us. He truly lets us play free and creatively. I don’t think I’ve ever played for a coach who lets us do our own thing while learning from our mistakes.

He’s very hands off, but he knows exactly the right time when he needs to step in and say something or give us a little pep talk. Because he’s a man of so few words that when he does speak, it’s so meaningful.

Someone asked me recently to described my favorite non-hockey moment at UW. Mine comes from summers in Madison where we’re lifting and skating in the early mornings, but then we have the rest of the day to ourselves. We’d rent a pontoon once or twice on Lake Mendota, maybe go tubing. It felt like we’re at summer camp. It demonstrated that we’re not just a team that hangs out with each other, we’re a group of really good friends, great family members, that just happen to be really good at hockey, too.

When I look back 10, 20 years from now, I’m going to remember less about the scores of games and things like that and more of the memories with each one of my teammates.

I think I was in middle school and I had this notebook where I wrote down everything I wanted to accomplish, like making the U.S. under-18 team, earning a Division I scholarship and winning an Olympic gold medal.

I ended up changing from that notebook to printing out pictures of each of my goals and taping them inside my closet and every morning when I would get dressed, I’d see those goals and remember what I’ve set out to accomplish and why I do what I do every day.

Throughout the years here, I’ve been able to take some of those things down, like playing with the U.S. senior national team and winning an NCAA title. The only two things left on that wall are the Patty Kazmaier Award and the Olympic gold medal.

I’m excited because when I finally got a chance to go home, I took one of those pictures down and that was a pretty cool moment.