Hockey's Captains of Industry

Archambeau and Whitney skate away with the goods.


By Paul Perillo

One comes from a hockey hotbed, the other from an area where the game is more of an afterthought. One is a conservative, stay-at-home defense player, the other as skilled and talented a scorer as any in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).

Erica Archambeau and Brooke Whitney didn’t have much in common when they joined Heather Linstad’s women’s hockey team as freshmen four yea

Brooke Whitney (left) and Erica Archambeau

rs ago. Today, though, they are both instrumental parts of second-year coach Joy Woog’s operation, which enjoys a lofty number-four national ranking after a 14–1 start.

“We worked very hard on team building and developing chemistry during the off-season,” says Woog, who took over just before the start of last season, after Linstad left for UConn. “We needed some of last year’s juniors to step up and become leaders. My captains have done that.”

Those captains are, of course, Whitney and Archambeau. Whitney grew up in the tiny community of Snohomish, Washington, where finding other girls’ teams to compete with was a major challenge. She played on boys’ teams for thirteen years before finally getting the chance to showcase her talents on a girls’ traveling team during her senior year in high school.

Her hockey obsession had kicked in thanks to a baby-sitter with a backyard rink. “Her name was Mrs. B., and her husband was a physical education teacher who always had us doing something,” Whitney says. “Her children were into hockey, and I got into skating every day and just got the bug. I would just skate out there for hours until my parents came to pick me up.”

Whitney’s been among the Huskies’ leading scorers each year since arriving on Huntington Avenue. Last season, she was named a second-team All-American after leading Northeastern in goals and scoring with a 26–14–40 line.

She opened some eyes last April when she was one of fifteen players selected from an open tryout to participate in a ten-day tryout in Lake Placid for the Olympic team. She played five games with the national squad, and though she didn’t make the team, she’s looking at 2006 as a realistic goal.

Archambeau comes from the tiny town of Pelkie on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where hockey is taken very seriously. Even so, she had similar troubles finding women’s teams to skate with.

“I played in high school on a boys’ team for a year, and then I joined a traveling team downstate,” Archambeau says. “But it was extremely difficult on my parents, who had to take me ten hours one way just to have me play in two games in a weekend. It was the only way [women’s college coaches] were ever going to see me play.”

Archambeau graduated from Chassell High School with a class of just twenty-six students. Three months later, after arriving in Boston, she was overwhelmed by Northeastern’s size.

“It was a bit of a shock for me,” says Archambeau. “And I was surprised by how big women’s hockey is here. All the lifting and skating make it like a full-time job. But it’s been a very enjoyable experience.”

Once Archambeau adapted, she became a rock on the Huskies’ blue line. Though she had just seven goals in ninety-eight career games heading into this season, her value cannot be adequately measured by statistics.

“Our team is really developing a lot of confidence and continues to get better,” Woog says. “Erica and Brooke are major reasons for that. They keep everyone on the same page. We’re starting to see the results of that.”

Woog credits an impressive early-season two-game sweep at St. Lawrence, ranked third at the time, for triggering the Huskies’ fast start. The coach and her captains were quick to point out, however, that the first part of their schedule worked more to their advantage and the going would get tougher.

This season, the ECAC split into two divisions. Northeastern joined the other Hockey East members plus UConn, Quinnipiac, and Niagara in the Eastern division; the Ivy League schools, Colgate, and St. Lawrence formed the Northern division. And Hockey East has made a commitment to form a women’s league no later than 2004, and hopes to do so sooner with the addition of BU, Merrimack, or one of the UMass schools.

Woog believes this will only strengthen the sport. “It’s a huge deal for us,” she says. “The ECAC has a hand in everything—different sports, Divisions I, II, and III. Hockey East is just hockey, and that’s a huge commitment. All the coaches are very excited.”


Freesytling, Diving off the Deep End

ortheastern enrolls roughly 3,000 incoming freshmen each year, so imagine Julie Cowgill and Katie Mailman’s surprise when they found themselves roommates.

They were both planning to join Roy Coates’s swimming and diving team, and there they were, living together at White Hall as first-year students.

“It’s something we s

Julie Cowgill (left) and Katie Mailman.

till laugh about today,” Cowgill says of their chance pairing in 1998. “We were randomly put together, and that just doesn’t happen. Roy and [diving coach] Brad Snodgrass couldn’t believe it when we told them.”

Four years later, it’s no accident that NU has won the last two America East titles and is poised to make it three in a row. A large part of that success is Cowgill and Mailman, who continue to room together and this season are the Husky team’s captains. Cowgill is a stellar performer in the distance events, such as the 1,000-meter freestyle and the 200-meter backstroke. Mailman is one of the top divers in the East.

“We look for very hard-working people—we’re able to attract that kind of athlete to Northeastern,” Coates says. “Actually, the girls do a great job with the recruiting. I get the prospects on campus, then the kids get them in here to compete. We’ve had some success, but I believe this team is even better than we’ve been the last two years.”

It’s easy to see why Coates feels this way. Mailman, from Falmouth, Maine, is the conference’s reigning Diver of the Year and the university’s record holder in the 1-meter event. She also excels at the 3-meter. Mailman finished first an amazing thirteen times as a junior, never falling lower than third all season.

Cowgill racked up ten top-three finishes a year ago in the distance events. A Falmouth, Massachusetts, native who now hails from Weston, Cowgill was also instrumental in guiding two sisters, Katie and Kristen Kane, to Northeastern. Sophomore Katie and freshman Kristen, from Wareham, are both top performers in the breaststroke.

And Coates’s talent and recruiting connections don’t end there. Emily White, the team MVP in 2000 as a freshman, returns as a dominant swimmer in the butterfly; last season she broke NU’s record in the 200-meter butterfly in her very first meet. After going home to Hartland, Wisconsin, over the summer, White brought Katie Schmaling from nearby New Berlin back to campus with her. Junior Jill Vance, an all-conference performer a year ago, competes in the freestyle events.

All performed well at the start of the season, when Northeastern took each of its first four meets, including the opener against arch-rival Boston University.

Mailman narrowly missed qualifying for the NCAA championships last season. Coates believes this could be her year. “She missed the NCAAs by one spot,” Coates says. “This season, she’ll have an even better opportunity to qualify. She’s already picked up where she left off, by finishing first in all our early meets.”

Coach Snodgrass will also have a young protégée to work with. Adela Gavozdea of Sibiu, Romania, e-mailed Coates last year, looking for an opportunity to showcase her talents at Northeastern.

“We get e-mails like that all the time,” Coates says. “Those athletes aren’t always qualified academically or athletically. We got real lucky with Adela, who’s more than qualified on both counts.”