By Jared Sugerman
The 2006-07 season marked the end of an era for Northeastern women’s hockey.
When the class of 2006 graduated just a few months before the start of the season, it took not only its diplomas, but also a golden memory. When they first arrived on campus, the women’s hockey team was closing a run from 1980-2002 that included 424 wins and only 159 losses. Since that time, the team has compiled a 38-106 record.
The Huskies’ fall was precipitated by the abrupt resignation of former head coach Joy Woog just before the start of the 2004-05 season. Northeastern quickly found Woog’s replacement, hiring Northeastern alumna, Olympian and the then-reigning Eastern College Athletic Conference women’s hockey coach of the year, Laura Schuler. In 2004, her third year at UMass Boston, Schuler led a first year team to a 13-12-1 record, and an ECAC semi-final berth.
However, success at Northeastern has not come quite as quickly for Schuler as it did at UMass Boston, finishing the 2006-07 season with a 5-26-2 (4-15-2 Hockey East) record. Schuler has maneuvered around a number of obstacles with the Huskies that she never encountered in her previous position.
“At UMass [Boston], I was given an opportunity where when I came into the program I had a full year to recruit, whereas here, I kind of got thrown into it really, really late in the process and missed a whole recruiting class,” Schuler said.
But Schuler isn’t making excuses. Her recruiting classes have yielded very talented athletes. Last season first saw Chelsey Jones start with the Huskies after graduating from Stillwater Area High School in Minn., where she became the school’s all-time leading scorer and was named a finalist for the Minnesota’s Ms. Hockey award. In her first season at Northeastern, Jones led the Huskies in scoring with 16 goals and 11 assists. She was an unanimous Hockey East All-Rookie pick.
This season, Schuler added goaltender Leah Sulyma to the roster. Although Schuler has yet to officially announce the year’s starting goaltender, Sulyma is reportedly competing with senior Sarah Belliveau for the position.
“Right now it’s still up in the air to see who we’re going to go with,” Schuler said. “But I think it’s great to have that competition between the two of them because it’s going to push them to be better.”
Schuler also adds forwards Lori Antflick (Thornhill, Ontario), Kristi Kehoe (Bakersfield, Calif.), Autumn Prouty (Temecula, Calif.), Alyssa Wohlfeiler (Saugus, Calif.), and defenseman Ashley Wiater (Upper Holland, Penn.) into the lineup.
“We’ve only had a few practices so far, but just to watch them in our practices and watch them go through some of our drills, they’re picking it up so easy,” Schuler said. “I think that their transition is going to be just that much easier.”
Though the 2007-2008 Northeastern women’s hockey team is full of youth and potential, the coaching staff, which in addition to Schuler includes former Husky and US Olympic goaltender Chanda Gunn, also welcomes the return of several key veterans players to this year’s roster.
Sophomore goalie Sydney Arbelbide and junior goalie Stacey Scott will compete with Belliveau and Sulyma for playing time between the pipes. Arbelbide, Scott, and Belliveau started at least 10 games last season.
Also returning is the second leading scorer from last year’s team, senior forward Nikki Petrich. Petrich will don the captain’s C during the 2007-2008 campaign, with junior defenders Brenna Frost and Erin Reil as her assistant captains.
Thus far, Schuler has been particularly impressed with the leadership her upperclassmen have provided.
“For [the younger players] to see how hard both our seniors are working, I think it’s just setting the tone,” Schuler said. “They’re telling everybody they want it. They want to do well this year.”
Schuler said she believes the team can come out with a stronger season than last years.
“A lot of those games could have went our way,” Schuler said. “I feel like we’re starting to get there with the quality of the kids that we’re starting to bring back into the program. We just need to add to that core.”
The Huskies kick off their season Saturday, Sept. 29 with an exhibition game against the Mississauga Jr. Chiefs at Matthews Arena at 2 p.m. The regular season begins Friday, Oct. 5 at Minnesota at 7 p.m.
The first regular season game at Matthews Arena will be Saturday Oct. 20 against Niagara at 2 p.m.
Last season, the Huskies got off to a strong start, winning their two exhibition matches to start the season against the Bluewater Jr. Hawks and the Toronto Jr. Aeros. Northeastern then dropped the first five regular season games.
