Veteran Bellamy has eye on Olympic gold
Veteran Bellamy has eye on Olympic gold
The 25 final candidates for the U.S. Olympic team started a residency program in the Boston area in September, practicing for the international games of the “Bring on the World” tour that led up to the announcement of the 21-member team during the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.
Since then, it’s been a handful of scrimmages against boys prep teams, weight training and conditioning, and attention-to-detail practices under the watchful eye of Harvard coach — and former UNH two-sport standout — Katey Stone.
“Before, people might have been playing a little nervous, not knowing if they were going to make the team,” said Bellamy. “Now that the team’s set, we’re just working hard every single day, perfecting the little things.”
Team USA practiced in front a few dozen fans at the Belmont Hill School on Monday. Bellamy was one of the 11 players with Olympic experience, players who know a bit more about what to expect in Sochi — and also how painful it was to lose the gold-medal game in the 2010 Vancouver Games to Canada, 2-0.
“She’s an outstanding stand-up defenseman,” said U.S. captain Meghan Duggan, the former Wisconsin star. “She does the little things, does what we need to do in the ‘D’ zone. She plays good solid ‘D’ and has got a heck of a shot, and she’s an incredible leader in the locker room.”
This is the first time Team USA doesn’t have a playing tie to the iconic 1998 team, the one that featured New Hampshire natives Tara Mounsey, Katie King and Tricia Dunn, plus UNH products Karyn Bye, Colleen Coyne and Sue Merz, and won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey in dramatic fashion.
Every player has a good story to tell, from elder stateswoman Julie Chu, who at 31 will be playing in her fourth Olympics and has already embarked on her second career as a college coach, to first-timers like Carpenter, the 19-year-old scoring whiz out of Boston College whose father, Bobby, was an American hockey pioneer back in the ’80s.
Bellamy grew up in Westfield, Mass., closer to New York State than Boston, and got her first pair of skates at age 5. Growing up in a family with two brothers and a sister, and regularly playing against boys, she brings a gritty, physical edge to a game that’s not billed as all that physical.
“Kacey’s a great force back there,” said 20-year-old defenseman Michelle Picard. “She’s intense, but in a good way. She’s definitely someone to look up to. She’s helped to keep us all together and show us the ropes a little bit.”
The UNH program Bellamy starred for, helping it reach Frozen Fours in 2006 and ’08, has been through some rough years recently as programs like Boston College and Boston University have invested more in their programs, collected better recruits and passed it for the lead in Hockey East.
UNH coach Brian McCloskey was fired in December for what the university termed “inappropriate physical contact” with a player stemming from an incident during a Nov. 30 game. McCloskey answered back earlier this month, in a letter to the school’s board of trustees that accuses the university of defamation, breach of contract and wrongful termination.
Bellamy gave her former coach a vote of support, though she has watched the issue play out from afar. In an interview earlier this month with New Hampshire Magazine she termed her UNH experience, “Incredible. I could not have asked for a better college that brought me amazing teammates, coaches and families to help me succeed.”
Her focus these past few years has been solely on these Games, no graduate degree to pursue or balancing a job, just hockey and working with Boston-area strength and conditioning guru Mike Boyle.
“I like to write a lot, read,” she said. “I definitely want to get into coaching. I volunteered at UNH in 2010-11, so getting some experience there. We do a lot of clinics with youth teams. I definitely want to get into the coaching world when I’m done playing.”
