Maddie Murphy remembers her “Welcome to College Hockey” moment.
It was Boston College against Boston University in another spirited installment of the Battle of Comm. Ave last season. Murphy, a former Dexter Southfield star, was still just at the start of her freshman season with the Eagles.
She got a taste of the intensity right away.
“I just got buried in front of the net,” Murphy (Dorchester, Mass.) said. “Our goalie made the save, and I kind of turned to defend the net. Then, I just ended up on top of my goalie.
“You’re trying to defend your goalie, but then you just get knocked over. You would think in prep hockey, that’s a penalty, but the refs are obviously very different here. The physicality 100 percent gets to a point where you think, ‘Whoa, the refs are just going to let us play.’”
Murphy’s experience isn’t unlike that of others who have made the same jump from New England girls prep to women’s college hockey.
“I don’t think anything really prepares you until you’re in it,” said former Deerfield and BC defender Keri Clougherty. “I remember feeling like I was a top in my first game. I felt like I was just spinning around, and everyone was going so fast while I was barely moving.”
Most players and coaches will echo that the pace ramps up at the next level, and so does the physicality. Meanwhile, the margin for error shrinks.
Former Nobles standout forward Molly MacCurtain remembers experiencing those differences in her first practices with Northeastern a year ago. Practice days felt like game days, showing up to the rink earlier, seeing the training staff if needed, watching film and sticking to a routine.
“It was a completely different level,” MacCurtain (Reading, Mass.) said. “When you got on the ice … everyone goes 110 percent every shift. Everyone sees the ice so well. Everyone’s so skilled.”
The hockey side almost becomes more like a job, not to mention balancing classes and other non-hockey commitments.
“In prep, we practiced an hour, maybe an hour and a half every day, but here it’s like you have a two-hour practice, you have an hour lift, you have meetings, team meals and you’re with the team the whole time,” Murphy said. “It’s really time-consuming. I’d say the time management part is something that trips people up, at least it did for me in the beginning of the year.”
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Groton coach Tim LeRoy has heard similar feedback from his alumni in the collegiate ranks over the years.
Even after successful prep careers, players still face big adjustments at the collegiate level, whether it’s Division 1 or Division 3, because of the increased intensity on and off the ice.
“I think for all of us (coaches), we want to give these kids the best experience and prepare them for that step up,” LeRoy said. “At the same time, I’m a teacher, and I’m a coach. These girls are going to class, and they have multiple commitments during the week. I would love to push them, but at the same time, hockey is not their job here. It’s about everything else. So, I also think that’s a valuable piece. They’re so much more prepared to go to college and take care of themselves.”
When that first game finally comes, it’s a rush of emotions, be it excitement or nerves.
For Murphy, it was a “surreal” experience, having the spotlight on her during the national anthem, while family and friends adorned the stands.
MacCurtain, meanwhile, remembers the feelings that flooded in when she took the ice for the first time with the Huskies, a win over rival BU.
“It’s a moment I’d been thinking of for years and years, really my whole life,” MacCurtain said. “So that was a surreal thing, like, ‘Wow, this is really happening. I’m not in the stands watching as a fan in high school or middle school.’ That was really cool. It was a lot of excitement, and obviously nerves as well.”
Clougherty (Lynn, Mass.) opened her career with BC on the road at Penn State. She vividly remembers everything about the experience, including exactly what she felt when the moment hit her.
“They were reading the starting lineups, and I just stood there and took a deep breath in, thinking, ‘OK, this is it. This is the culmination of everything you’ve been working toward for the last 15 years,’ which is crazy,” Clougherty said. “It was kind of like I had made it, but then I had to do it. So that was a really cool experience, but also one that helped me take a step back and think of why I’m here and why I’m enjoying it.”
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That appreciation also helped Clougherty find her footing as freshman year went on.
“It helped take a little bit of pressure off myself,” she said, realizing, “I’m here for a reason, even though it can be hard to see that your freshman year. I still use that gratitude lens now. I feel like gratitude and confidence go hand in hand.”
For many players, the real work starts when they finally land that college commitment. The focus shifts to being in a position to succeed when they set foot on campus for those first practices.
That work continues once arriving on campus.
“I definitely had to work for and earn my playing time, which was a new thing for me,” MacCurtain said. “On your team and the teams you’re playing against, everyone’s big, everyone’s strong, everyone’s fast. Putting in the work off the ice is more important when you get to this level because everyone knows how to shoot a puck and stickhandle.”
Simply arriving at the next level isn’t enough. It then becomes about getting the most out of the opportunity ahead. You never know when time will be up on your career.
“I always tell these kids as they go off, ‘You’ve got to enjoy these next four years. This could be the last trip for you playing hockey,’” LeRoy said. “You’ve got to do everything you can to prepare yourself and push yourself because you’ve got to not only enjoy the experience, but they’re playing such a hard game these days.
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“For us, we get such a great opportunity to hopefully help them keep going with their careers, but now it’s like a job. Playing time’s not guaranteed, and you've got to earn every single opportunity. It could be a lot, but at the end of the day, playing college hockey is exciting.”
Most often, the players that hit the ground running all have common traits: their work ethic, their compete level and their off-ice details with conditioning and film work.
“I think for a lot of those kids who make that jump and have kind of an easier transition, I think it’s really because of stuff that they did off the ice, too, which really separates the kids at times,” LeRoy said.
If they could give their younger selves any advice, each of Clougherty, MacCurtain and Murphy would say to take a deep breath and not fixate on the small things.
“There’s so much going on in your life that’s new, and these little moments that happen, you might overthink,” MacCurtain said. “If it was a bad rep or a bad shift, whatever it might be, just taking a moment to think, ‘Is this gonna matter tomorrow? Is this gonna matter next week? Is this gonna matter in a month?’ … That next play mentality, I think I could have used a little more, especially because I would get in my head really easily, and then that can obviously spiral.”
Murphy would go back and speak up with questions she wished she had asked.
“I would sit there with my questions. If I didn’t ask them, no one would answer them,” Murphy said. “Looking back, I realized that I’m surrounded by older players, coaches and trainers who all want to help you, and they’re there for your questions. … No one’s not going to answer your question. It just helps the team all around.”
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Clougherty now has a coach’s perspective to go along with her recent playing experience. She knows what the freshmen arriving at Robert Morris last season were feeling, and she knows what the freshmen entering Merrimack this season will go through.
“It’s such a universal experience with the nerves and everything. I don’t know if there’s a freshman that isn’t nervous, right?” Clougherty said. “That was one of my favorite things last year, working with the freshmen and connecting with them on a personal level. We helped them move into their dorms, and being there for them is something that hit home for me when I was a freshman, having those people in your corner.
“By the time we hit the ice, they trusted that they were there for a reason. When I felt comfortable on a team, in a locker room, with the coaching staff, it allowed me to prosper more on the ice.”
