Back at Bright: Olympians Return to Home Ice

A journey of more than 5,000 miles and a plane ride of over 15 hours separates Cambridge, Mass., from Sochi, Russia. That was the trip that Harvard women’s ice hockey coach Katey Stone, along with senior forward Lyndsey Fry and junior defenseman Michelle Picard, embarked upon in February 2014 to compete for the United States at the Winter Olympics.

But even though all three took the trip from the same city, the road to Sochi has varied for each team member.

Stone, Harvard’s veteran coach starting her 20th season with the Crimson, had coached the U.S. national team to one silver and two gold medals in the past three years of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) championships.

A Connecticut native, Stone grew up on the New England hockey scene and became the winningest coach in the history of Division I women’s ice hockey in 2010.

Stone was chosen as the coach of Team USA in June 2012, making her the first-ever female coach of a U.S. Olympic hockey team in the sport’s history.

But the call to serve her country from the bench came with a price—the end of her streak of 19 consecutive years coaching from behind the boards in Cambridge.

The coaching duties for the 2013-2014 season were passed on to then-assistant coach Maura Crowell, who had been the Crimson’s second in command for the previous three seasons. With Stone away, Crowell stepped in as interim head coach and led Harvard to a 23-7-4 record and a berth in the NCAA tournament.

“I think it’s really important to be yourself when you are a head coach, even if it is an interim role,” said Crowell, now associate head coach. “That being said, a lot of the knowledge I gained as an assistant for three years with Katey obviously went into play with what we were teaching the kids. I tried to keep a lot of the staples of Harvard hockey in the system.”

Picard, a native of Tauton, Mass., had played for the U.S. U-18 team on her way to becoming an Olympian.

Fry, who participated in the same national program, had taken a more unconventional route up the junior ranks from her warm-weather hometown. The Chandler, Ariz., native has been playing hockey since a young age and attributes her success to her community and family.

“For me personally, [the Olympic experience] had so much to do with my family and everyone who supported me back home,” Fry said. “I’m from Arizona, which is not exactly the hockey capital of the world, but the great thing is that the hockey community there is so small and tight-knit. So when I first stepped onto the ice in Sochi for practice, just seeing those Olympic rings, all I could think of was all the people who had ever supported me.”

Over the course of last season, Stone, Fry, and Picard were never away from the team for long, holding Olympic training right outside of the Boston area in Bedford, Mass.

Fry even lived in Cambridge during the year off, enabling her to stay connected with Harvard hockey while training with Team USA.

Stone, too, kept tabs on her team from afar, often coming to practices and games to support her players and coaching staff.

“I love my job at Harvard and love the program that we built here,” Stone said. “I always had an eye on what they were doing and kept in contact with the coaching staff while staying focused on the task at hand, which was coaching the Olympic team.”

After going 3-2 in the Sochi Olympics and bringing a silver medal back to the United States, Stone, Fry and Picard are back at home in the Bright-Landry Hockey Center for the 2014-2015 season. Both Fry and Picard posted ice time in all five of Team USA’s contests, although neither of the duo managed to tally any points for the Olympic squad.

The transition back to the Crimson has been seamless for both players and coach, as they return to familiar surroundings with a renewed appetite for success.

“Coming back is awesome,” Fry said. “I absolutely love it…. I missed these kids so much. It’s just so fun, and we have a blast every day. During those months that we were training [for the Olympics], four people still had to get cut. That was really stressful, so it’s nice to be able to play, have fun, and work hard.”

The returners certainly have some catching up to do with the team both on and off the ice. After a year away from Harvard, they join a team that includes two classes of players whom they must become acquainted with.

Since the 2012-2013 season—the last time Fry and Picard took the ice for Harvard—14 players have joined the roster. This includes six freshmen and eight sophomores who have yet to play a game under Stone’s coaching style.

“There are two classes of kids that need to get to know me and I [need to] get to know them, versus just one freshman class,” Stone said. “With the sophomores there’s an adjustment period, and we’re sensing it now. So I’m going to try and spend a fair amount of time with them so they can get to know what my expectations are.”

Under Crowell last year, the Crimson notched the team’s second-highest winning percentage in the last five seasons, while finishing second in the ECAC regular season behind Clarkson, the eventual national champion.

A 2-1 loss to Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA tournament proved that Harvard could compete with some of the top hockey programs in the country.

This year, the hopes of maintaining that competitive edge have prospered, as the Olympians return to Cambridge with a renewed energy and excitement that comes with being back around a team they love and know well.

That said, the overall mindset of the team has not changed drastically since last year.

“I think every year we try to instill some key work ethics into our program,” Crowell said. “Number one is working hard. We have a bigger roster this year and a lot of depth. With that comes a lot of new faces and making sure that they’re brought along and taught how to be fast, be aggressive, and be a really good puck possession team. I think we’re heading in that direction.”

A silver medal is not the only thing that the Olympians have brought back from Sochi.

Competing for Team USA gave the trio a chance to bring invaluable of the sport knowledge back to Harvard, and they are eager to share those tips with fellow teammates and coaches.

For Stone, the time with Team USA allowed her to become acquainted with a new and different mode of training.

“[When you coach an Olympic team], you’re really coaching for a 10-day tournament in February as opposed to coaching for the team to play every week,” Stone said. “It’s a different mindset and a different preparation model, but I enjoyed it. It gave me an opportunity to focus on coaching and learn more about the sport.”

This season’s squad will continue to strive toward and improve upon the success of last year’s team.
Looking to pick up right where it left off two seasons ago, Harvard women’s hockey now occupies center stage for all members of the team.

“Our goals are definitely to win as many games as we can,” Picard said. “At the end of the day, we want to win a national championship. We just have to take it one day at a time and makes sure we are playing Harvard hockey every day and getting better every day.”

—Staff writer Ariel Smolik-Valles can be reached at asmolikvalles@college.harvard.edu.