FIRE AND ICE
Women's hockey team rises from the ashes to play another day
By Michael Keegan
Near the end of a subpar season that was supposed to be their last as varsity athletes, who could have blamed the Northeastern women's hockey players if they had packed it in early? Especially on the night of February 13, as they trailed Boston College in the third period of the Beanpot tournament finals after blowing a two-goal lead. But when N.U. fought back to win the game in overtime and claim its twelfth Beanpot title in eighteen years, the uncertain future of the program seemed unimportant for an instant. [Winning the Beanpot] was probably the best moment last year," says senior captain Jessica Wagner, who was named the tournament's most valuable player.
It turns out the team's feelings of euphoria weren't so fleeting. In early March, just days before the hockey season ended, the players and coach Heather Linstad received news that the university had scrapped its plans to demote women's hockey to club status. The decision by athletics officials to shelve women's varsity hockey in the first place, as part of a comprehensive athletics restructuring initiative, had stunned players and coaches alike, considering the program has arguably been Northeastern's most successful sport of the past two decades. Besides the twelve Beanpot trophies, the lady icers can lay claim to two Eastern College Athletic Conference titles, the de facto national championship of women's collegiate hockey. Several Northeastern players have achieved stardom beyond Huntington Avenue. Three Husky alumnae are members of the U.S. national team and three players on this year's squad have been invited to the national camp.
"Everybody views Northeastern as one of the top three to five programs," says Karen Kaye, head coach at the University of New Hampshire. "That was one of the more shocking parts to the whole prospect [of the sport being demoted]. Given the fact that this is a growing sport and a real exciting time, it came as a big surprise that one of the leading programs was in danger."
Linstad says she never really believed her team would fall victim to the athletics department restructuring plan, which was crafted by athletics director Barry Gallup to bring the sports program into full compliance with gender equity laws. "I never really thought that they would get rid of us," she says. "This sport is really taking off nationally, and we've had some great success here."
According to Linstad, the program-and women's hockey in general-has one of the most promising futures of any collegiate sport. "There's been an explosion in this sport," she says. "Last year alone I had about seventy letters from girls inquiring to play the sport. In a nonrecruiting year, which last year basically was because [athletics officials] said, 'Don't recruit, because you're not going to have a program,' we have about twelve freshmen coming in just to play women's hockey. Women's hockey is just taking off, and I think we can stay a front-runner."
New Hampshire's Kaye agrees: "Women's hockey has really emerged in the past few years and is growing in the Midwest. We expect even more growth once it's introduced in the 1998 Olympics."
Northeastern players say the thought of losing their sport took its toll, but they never gave up hope of a last-minute reprieve. "We tried to not forget about it, but put it off to the side until the end of the season and deal with it then. That way we could have a strong season and that would hopefully help us with our struggle to get the sport back," junior Keri-Anne Allan says.
"There certainly was that extra incentive: to prove that we belonged," adds Wagner. "But it was hard to concentrate because we were all so hurt over it, and we couldn't believe that this was going to happen."
Despite her optimism, Linstad says there was a "lot of unraveling" and fear of the unknown among team members last winter. "You had players sitting in the locker room talking to their teammates saying, 'Oh, by the way, are you transferring?' And, 'Is that coach looking at you?' That affected us. And it affected me," she says.
As a result, the Huskies stumbled to their first-ever losing season and dropped four of their last five games, including a double-overtime loss to Dartmouth in the quarterfinals of the ECAC championships.
Ironically, it was budget cuts that spared the team from varsity extinction. Rather than fund the start-up of women's softball, Gallup saved women's hockey, with its proven track record and its more than twenty-five female student-athletes. "In order for us to be in compliance [with federal gender equity laws], it was better for us to keep an existing, successful women's sport," Gallup says. "Barring dramatic changes at the university, keeping women's hockey as a varsity sport is certainly something that we don't plan to change in the near future."
As they gear up for the 1996 season, both coach and players are determined to validate Gallup's decision to restore the program. "I see a lot of momentum entering this year because people realize that we should have been better last year," Linstad says. "I think when the players sat down and looked at it, they realized that they used last season as an excuse more than a tool to be better. They look at it now as, 'Boy, we really blew it.' "
Adds Allan, "We want to do well this year and show people that they shouldn't have dropped us."
CSSS HALL OF FAME
Rudolph Honored As Third Inductee
Wilma Rudolph, the late Olympic champion sprinter who inspired other African-Americans and young women to participate in track and field, will be honored posthumously in November as the third inductee into Northeastern's Center for the Study of Sport in Society Hall of Fame. She will join boxing legend Muhammad Ali and former Boston Celtics coach and president Arnold "Red" Auerbach in the hall, which honors people from the world of sports who make a significant contribution to society beyond the game.
Plagued by illness as a child-she couldn't walk until the age of eleven-Rudolph persevered to become the top female sprinter in the world. She captured three gold medals in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. After retiring from competition in 1962, Rudolph became the American goodwill ambassador to French West Africa. In 1982 she founded the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, which provides opportunities for boys and girls to compete in sports and excel in academics. In 1993 President Bill Clinton honored her with the National Sports Award.
Rudolph's induction will take place November 19 during the center's twelfth annual awards banquet at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. The awards night will be dedicated to former Northeastern President John Curry, whom center directors credit as a driving force behind the institute during his tenure.
The center will also present its annual Giant Step Awards, which honor significant contributions of sports figures. Honorees are: student-athletes Jennifer Rizzotti and Michael Watson; David Clark, a Swedish baseball coach; Paul Tagliabue, commissioner of the National Football League, and Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL players' union; Loretta Claiborne, a motivational speaker for the Special Olympics; Anita DeFrantz, an Olympic organizer and medalist; and Billy Payne, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.
In addition, Home Box Office's interview roundtable, Real Sports with Bryant Gumble, will be presented with the Excellence in Sports Journalism Award.
