When you have as many freshmen as you have seniors dotting your roster, and the game you’re playing is an all-hands-on-deck-sport such as hockey, you can feel pretty sure you’re looking at a pretty long season. A bunch of seniors usually means extended play due to a postseason invite. An overload at the freshmen level, meanwhile, can often translate into youth, inexperience and rebuilding – and a long season, period.

With the Big Green girls hockey program splitting its senior-to-freshman ratio right down the middle this season at five each, the season’s outcome might still have been in doubt. After tossing four juniors and three sophomores into the mix, however, it appeared Deerfield’s long season would take the latter course.

“We were a young team this year and therefore, had some rebuilding to do,” said coach Genevieve Triganne of a team that went 6-17-1 on the season.  “The kids hung in there all season long, however. They took their lumps and learned from the experience. “

Triganne’s praise of her players’ ability to hang in there all season long certainly rang a chord, as her charges claim to fame may have well been that trait. Of the 17 losses they suffered, 10 of them came by a margin of two goals or less. And the close calls followed them all season long. Their first loss – in their second game of the season – came via a two-goal deficit, while they went down to defeat in their season finale by a two-goal margin as well.

Not all the close ones went the other way for the Big Green this season, however, as it hung in there to knock off Exeter by a 2-1 margin in overtime, while it outlasted Andover by a 1-0 count. If Deerfield were able to reverse heartbreaking 1-0 losses to Hotchkiss and Pomfret and 2-1 setbacks by Northfield Mount Hermon and New Hampton, it could have closed down the season inching toward a 500 season.

The good news out of all this is inevitable, despite still having a young squad, Triganne will have plenty of experience. In fact, probably the best news of all is that she has her top six scorers returning to the roster.

That list of firepower is led by Kayla O’Connor (14), who finished the season with 19 points on eight goals and 11 assists. Second on that list is Katherine Jackson (15), who was named this year’s Most Valuable Player after collecting five goals and 10 assists for 15 points. Next in line is Devinne Cullinane (14), who produced 14 points on nine goals and five assists. Senior forward Mettler Growney , meanwhile,  carted off the team’s Seventh Player Award.

Maryanne Iodice (14), the team’s top scoring defenseman this winter, contributed four goals and five assists to the cause, as Lucy Lytle (15) had seven points via a pair of goals and five assists. Taylor Morash (16) got her prep school hockey career off to a fast start by netting five goals and one helper to ring up six points.

Joining Iodice along the blue line this season were Kylie Davis (14), as well as Ryan Logie (13), Elana Van Arnam (13) and Kelsey Gallagher (13).

In goal, Triganne was blessed with both experience and youth as Hannah Insuik (13) and Emily Yue (16) shared the goaltending chores. The duo combined for a 2.79 goals against average and four shutouts. Insuik finished her career with a 2.61 goals against average and a .903 save percentage, while Yue maintained a 3.0 goals against average and an .865 save percentage.   

It’s highly doubtful anyone would be surprised to know that following its most recent census, the People’s Republic of China continues to be the most populous country in the world with a head count of 1.3 billion people.

It may raise a few eyebrows, however, to know that despite its multitude of citizenry, China has but a mere 184 registered skaters filling the various age groups of its Women’s National Hockey Program. That fact came to light following the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, when one of the two veteran goaltenders on its Olympic team announced her retirement.

Fortunately for the Chinese Ice Hockey Association, which controls the women’s program, finding a qualified candidate didn’t necessitate taking out a “Help Wanted” ad in every newspaper from Beijing to Hong Kong. It had a much more productive alternative. According to the International Olympic Committee, it can be petitioned by any member team  “if there is a legitimate need” to fill a roster slot with a non-resident player.

With the program staring at the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are scheduled to begin less than one year from now in Sochi, Russia, and needing to qualify for them beforehand following a seventh-place finish in Vancouver, the Chinese certainly earned themselves an automatic berth in the “legitimate need” category.

Although the rules allow a team to recruit a non-resident player, the nationality of that non-resident player, in this case, had to be of Chinese heritage. This reality version of “Where’s Waldo?” could have proved a daunting task, but it wasn’t. The Chinese Ice Hockey Association may have trouble recruiting from within, but it does do its homework on what’s available on the other side of the Great Wall and knew exactly where to find that missing piece of the puzzle – half a world away, in Guilford, Conn.

Two years prior, just before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, an 11-year-old goaltender, who could barely peek over the crossbar of the goal she was guarding, journeyed to that city with a team of fellow New Englanders to participate in the Welcoming Friendship Hockey Tournament.  And although she was the smallest player on the ice, she didn’t play that way and from that tournament on, Emily Yue has been a fixture on Chinese radar.

“My father (Jim Yue) coached a number of my teams as I was growing up and he organized both the team and the trip to China, explained Yue, a freshman at Deerfield Academy who is spending the winter keeping pucks out of the Big Green’s net. She is splitting games in goal this season with Hannah Insuik (13), and has been showing Big Green fans the same traits that the Chinese fell in love with. Through 10 games this season, she has been averaging a little better than nine saves on every 10 shots she has faced and owns a 2.4 goals against average.

“We went over there with an all-girls team … with the exception of two boys on our roster,” said Yue, “but that turned out to be no big deal because we ended up playing against all-boys teams … in all three games. They were generally older than we were, too, so it proved to be a great experience for all of us.”

Kicking some bigger boys’ butts, wasn’t the only aspect of Yue’s game that caught the attention of the Chinese, however. Her age – or lack of it – proved advantageous as well. This was a tournament in which players under the age of 14 were eligible to participate and Yue, who was 11 at that time, was one of the youngest players in the entire tournament.

Yue, who has played on numerous New England all-star teams through the years along side her sister, Lauren, who is a senior at Loomis Chaffee, has been right at home playing with and against older players, the only difference here being that the games took place on an international setting. 

“It’s been exciting,” said Yue of what has turned into her very own “Miracle on Ice.” “To have a chance to compete in the Olympics is something every athlete dreams about,” and at the age of 15, that dream should have some longevity to it.

With the exception of having played one half of all three games in China and that the team finished with a 2-1 record, Yue couldn’t recall many personal statistics, due mainly to the fact that “it’s been quite a while since we went over there.” 

Somebody remembered what she did, though, and during the summer of 2011, Yue received a formal invitation from the Chinese Ice Hockey Association to attend its Olympic team tryouts that would be held in Toronto in September of that year.

Why Toronto? Well, a lack of players isn’t the only area that Chinese hockey needs a boost. It needs more — and better — indoor skating facilities as well. They have just 46 indoor rinks throughout the country, a number that could be easily surpassed in Massachusetts alone.

So, come September, Yue, who was the only skater of Chinese heritage from North America to earn an invite, made her way to Toronto to spend three days practicing and training with China’s other Olympic hopefuls. The good news was that this time, she was playing with and against nothing but girls. The bad news was that most of her teammates would be considered women. Yue, who by now was 13, was facing shots off the sticks of teammates who were as old as 28 to 32 years of age.

Yue quickly discovered, however, that at this hockey summit, age wouldn’t be the only discrepancy she would be facing. At 5-2, she proved to be the smallest skater on the ice.

And her teammates picked up on the fact long before she even got to the ice. “I can still remember the first time I walked into the locker room,” said Yue. “They all started staring at me as though I was too small to play and shouldn’t even be there.

“Looking back though, I think it was a good thing,” added Yue.  “It just made me work harder … to show them they were wrong.” And by the time she was heading south of the border, she had proven her teammates — and her head coach — were dead wrong. She had shown them she belonged.

“I can remember the first day of practice,” said her father, Jim. “The coach, who happened to be a stern looking Russian, who hadn’t seen Emily skate before, greeted us at the door of the rink, glanced down at Emily and through an interpreter, said ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea if she went out on the ice.’ The interpreter, who was also a coach and who had seen Emily play in China, informed him that ‘he might be surprised.’ So, he granted Emily ‘one practice.’

“Well, she went out on the ice and did really well,” continued the proud pop. “Then later, at lunch, the coach and the interpreter walked over to our table, the stern Russian cracked a brief smile and the interpreter then informed us that Emily had earned ‘one more practice.’”

Yue would earn the right to participate in a third and final practice that weekend and was then invited to return to Toronto the following month to participate in three exhibition games.

“They won all three games, and Emily played every minute of all three games,” said her father. “Overall, she allowed just six goals and one of the wins was a 2-1 decision following a shootout over Team Ontario and after the final game, they offered her a roster spot on the team.”

 ”And since that time,” he continued, “Emily tries to spend as much time as possible working out with the team. Last March, during spring break, she spent nearly a month in China practicing with them. Then, this past summer we hosted the team in Connecticut, where it spent three weeks playing some of the premier women’s teams throughout New England.”

If the elder Yue appears passionate about the sport of hockey, that’s because he is. He, too, has grown up with the sport. He’s played it and played it well. And best of all, at least from his daughter’s standpoint, he happens to know a little something about stopping pucks, too. He played goalie at Hotchkiss before moving on to Harvard, where he played two years of varsity hockey and four years as a goalie on the lacrosse team before graduating in 1988.

“I got into pre-med after my sophomore year,” explained Yue, who now has a Dr. in front of his name and an MD after it, is an orthopedic surgeon at Yale-New Haven Hospital and co-director of the Yale Spine Center, “so something had to give on my schedule and it turned out to be hockey.”

Despite an early retirement from the sport Yue left his mark on the game. In fact, during the summers prior to his freshman and sophomore years at Harvard, he was invited to attend the U.S. Junior Olympic Training Camp in Colorado Springs, Colo. There, he would share ice time with other goaltenders such as Tom Bourassa, who would make the jump from Acton-Boxboro (Mass.) High School straight to the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, and Mike Richter, who played at the University of Wisconsin before moving on to a Hall of Fame career with the New York Rangers.

“We were probably just 17 or 18 at the time,” recalled Yue, “but after spending a couple of summers with those guys, I remember being old enough to see the handwriting on the wall.”

Now, it’s his daughter’s turn to see where that handwriting on the wall will take her.  Will it take her to Sochi in 2014? Will it take her to PyeongChang, South Korea in 2018?

Stay tuned.

Jamie Haddad has been playing hockey nearly her whole life. She learned to skate when she was 2 and played on her first team when she was 3. And she gives her older brother, Joe, a lot of the credit for her early introduction to the game.

“I always tagged along with him and his friends,” said Haddad, whose treks with big brother would often find her following in his footsteps – literally – through the snow banks that lay between their home in Wilbraham, Mass., and the nearest frozen pond. “I’m sure he hated me,” added Haddad, who admitted to doing her best to blend in. The key being: “When you’re a 3-year-old girl and you’re playing hockey with a bunch of 6-year-old boys, you play the way 6-year-old boys play.”

After all, the last thing Haddad wanted to hear from her brother or any of his buddies during those formative years was “you play like a girl!” So, that meant playing rough and tough and giving as good as you got. And if you didn’t, there was just one thing for a 3-year-old girl to remember: There’s no crying in hockey.

There are certain times, however, when it’s OK to shed a few tears of joy. And there may have been some streaming down Haddad’s face earlier this month when she and her Assabet Valley teammates captured the 19-and-under Tier 1 National Championship.

“It’s been a fantastic experience to play both with and against some of the best hockey players in your age bracket throughout the country,” said Haddad. And the Deerfield Academy senior has been putting that experience to good use for the Big Green, as she has led the team in scoring during each of the past four years. It should also afford her a head start on a collegiate career, as Haddad will be taking her uncanny ability to light the lamp to Yale University next year.

“Jamie’s one of the most talented hockey players I’ve ever been associated with,” exclaimed Big Green hockey coach Genevieve Triganne, “and playing at the elite level as she has for Assabet Valley for the past six years has definitely helped her become a very polished player.

“She can handle a puck like very few players are able to,” added Triganne. “Once she gets the puck on her stick, it’s like she glued it on there … she has total command of it until she decides to either shoot or pass. And when she shoots on goal, she’s able to put the puck in the upper corners of the goal with regularity and that’s difficult to do for many players. ”

The Deerfield mentor also praised Haddad for contributions to the team other than those that ended up on the stat sheets.

“In addition to her athleticism, Jamie has proven to be an outstanding leader in this program,” added Triganne. “She wasn’t the rah-rah type … she led by example, and that included an outstanding work ethic.

“During her four years here at Deerfield, she was playing for Assabet Valley as well. And what that meant was that she played two games and skated in four practices for us every week of the season … Monday through Saturday. Then, on Sunday, her one day off a week, her parents would pick her up and drive her to just about anywhere in New England for a practice at noon, then an early afternoon game with Assabet.”

 “And no matter where we’d end up, I’d always make it back here to Deerfield on Sunday evening in time for supper and study hall,” quipped Haddad.

“Just qualifying for the Nationals is a big deal,” explained Haddad, who finished her storied career at Deerfield at the 100-point plateau. After tallying a team-high 38 points in just 25 games this winter on 28 goals and 10 assists, she closed out her four-year score sheet right on the century mark thanks to 67 goals and 33 assists. “To make the Nationals, you not only have to be considered the best team in your age bracket, but the best team from your state or region as well.”

Going up against the best of the best “is something really special,” said Haddad. And as far as winning it all is concerned, “it’s just an awesome feeling … it’s something you and your teammates can really be proud of accomplishing.”

And Haddad knows of what she speaks. She has not only become a familiar face at these National showcases, with Assabet having qualified in her age bracket five times in the past six years, but she’s no stranger on the medals podium, either. During those five trips to the tourney, Assabet has never returned to it its home base in Concord, Mass., empty-handed. This marks Haddad’s third National championship, having also won in 2008 and 2009 in the 14-and-under age group. She also earned a silver medal in 2007 in the 12-and-under bracket, and a bronze in 2010 in 16-and-under competition.

This winter’s showcase, which was held in nearby Marlborough, Mass., “and allowed my brother Joe to watch me play in the Nationals for the first time,” according to Haddad, saw Assabet capture the gold medal following a perfect 6-0 tourney record. A three-game round robin affair opened the tourney, followed by the medals round, which Assabet capped off by defeating the Chicago Mission, 3-2, in the finals.

“Not to take anything away from our win in the finals, but our semifinal win in overtime over Shattuck-St. Mary’s meant an awful lot to us, too,” said Haddad of a 2-1 victory. “They were the defending National champions, plus the two hockey programs are huge rivals and whenever we meet, there’s always a lot at stake.”

Assabet bested Little Caesar’s in the quarterfinal round, while it defeated the Washington Pride, 5-2, the Connecticut Polar Bears, 3-0, and Honeybaked, 2-1, in round-robin action.

Although ice hockey is far-and-away Haddad’s first love, she will depart Deerfield later this spring having participated in five varsity sports. She played both ice hockey and field hockey for four years, while her springs were a bit more hit-or-miss, doing crew her freshman year, lacrosse as a sophomore and softball as a junior and senior.

And Haddad has become someone you might want to avoid if she happens to have either a stick or a bat in her hands. In addition to her exploits in ice hockey, she hasn’t been too shabby in field hockey or softball, either. She led Big Green field hockey in scoring last fall with 14 points on nine goals and five assists and finished her career with 64 points on 36 goals and 28 assists. In softball, she lugged a .295 batting average to the plate last spring.

The good news was plentiful: The Deerfield Academy girls hockey team won more games than it lost this season. It won more than twice the number (six) of games it won last season. It reached double figures in the win column for the first time in recent memory with 14.  The bad news: It ended up needing 15 to earn a spot in the tournament.

“We ended up just one win shy of qualifying for a tournament berth,” said coach Genevieve Triganne, whose club finished No.10 in the final Western Division standings of the New England Prep School Athletic Conference Girls Hockey League with a final showing of 14-9-2. Unfortunately, however, the tournament committee just takes the top eight teams.

“We came a long way in just one year,” said Letourneau. “And although it was frustrating to come up a little short of making the tournament, I don’t think you’ll find anyone on this team who won’t admit that they’re both very happy with the way things went this season and very proud of the team’s accomplishments.”

The Big Green mentor also admitted that she wasn’t overly surprised in the resurgence this winter’s crew put into the program.

“We had a number of key people returning from last year’s team (6-10-2) and some talented new people coming aboard,” said Triganne, “so I felt if everyone worked hard and jelled together, we could do pretty well for ourselves.”

And the Big Green did do pretty well for itself — right from the outset. In fact, it enjoyed one of its best starts ever, as it opened with a 6-0-1 record to equal last winter’s win total by Dec. 16.

One big difference between this year’s team and last year’s was its scoring output, as this winter’s squad nearly doubled its goal total from a year ago, netting 60 compared to the 38 it tallied a year ago.

And as usual, Jamie Haddad (12) led the way in the scoring department as she has done during each of her four years at Deerfield. This season, Haddad, who was named the team’s Most Valuable Player and who will be playing her collegiate hockey a Yale, led the charge with 38 points on 28 goals and 10 assists.

Those hefty figures will go a long way in explaining the boost in the Big Green scoring output from a year ago, as Haddad more than doubled her output from last season when she topped the charts with 11 goals and six assists for 17 points.

“I changed my style of hockey this season,” explained Haddad. “I began focusing on shooting the puck a little more than I had in the past and it not only helped my game, but I think it got the whole team thinking about being more offensively minded.”

As it turned out, the Big Green ended up with three players surpassing last year’s high-water mark in scoring of 17 points. In addition to Haddad, Anna McDonough (12) finished with 22 points on eight goals and14 assists, while Kayla O’Connor (14), who finished tied with Haddad for the team point lead last year as a freshman (7-10—17), upped her count to 18 this winter, netting six goals and assisting on a dozen others.

Mettler Growney (13), who was voted captain of next year’s team while Hannah Insuik (13) and Elana Van Arnam (13) were elected assistant captains, posted eight points on four goals and four assists, while Katherine Jackson (15) collected three goals and six assists for nine points.

While Deerfield’s offensive production showed improvement this winter, it was the same old story for its defense: stingy. This proved to be another typical Big Green team when it came to giving up goals – it didn’t. It allowed an average of just 2.2 goals per game, as goaltending and a blue line crew made life tough for offensive-minded opponents.

That area of blue located in front of the Deerfield goal – known as the goal crease – has become hallowed ice for the Big Green. It has not only had some outstanding goaltenders protecting the pipes of late, it’s been blessed with some of the best talent in the country standing between them.

Molly Schaus, who went on the play at Boston College and earned a spot on the 2010 United States Olympic Hockey Team, began shrinking the Big Green goal when she came here in 2002. From there, Amanda Rothschild (07), who also went on to BC, took her turn in the Deerfield goal, then Kayla Lessard (09), who plays at Bowdoin, got her chance. Shenae Lundberg, (11) who just wrapped up her freshman season at Union College, was next as she spent her holiday break during her senior season at Deerfield helping the USA Under 18 Team win a gold medal at the World Games in Sweden.

Now, for a team that often suited up just one goalie for the simple fact that it had no backup, Deerfield is enjoying an embarrassment of riches. It’s not only has two goalies on the team – it has two outstanding goalies on the team. This dynamic duo consists of Hannah Insuik (13) and Sammy Hirshland (13). Insulik posted a 1.31 goals against average this winter, as well as a .929 save percentage and five shutouts. Hirshland, meanwhile, allowed 2.72 goals per game with a .901 save percentage and a pair of shutouts.

Julie Wardwell (12), who won the team’s Seventh Player Award, headed up a deep, but youthful defensive unit and still had time to crank up a little offense as she produced 11 points on two goals and nine assists. Joining her back on the blue line were Ryan Logie (13),  Elana Van Arnam (13), Kelsey Gallagher (13),  Kylie Davis (14), Maryanne Iodice (14) and Julia Hamilton (14).

“I’ve gotta say that girls hockey has made a huge improvement over the past year,” said Haddad, of a program that saw its JV team go 8-0-4 on the season,  “It’s something we had all hoped for, but didn’t expect.

“I think there were two keys to our success this season,” she added. “One was the team chemistry … everyone got along really well. The other was the great start we got off to. Everybody … the older players and the new ones … stepped up and played hard. We won our first six or seven games and that gave us a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.

“Another thing that helped us this season was that we very often scored the first goal of the game,” added Haddad.  “Last year, we didn’t and it seemed as though we were always fighting our way out of a hole to get back in the game … this year we didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing.”