When the National Hockey League announced it wasn’t sending any athletes to the Olympics this year, Sean Farrell ’24 and Nick Abruzzese ’23 of the Harvard men’s ice hockey team stepped up to the plate. Their student-filled team finished as the top seed from the qualifying round, although they eventually lost to Slovakia in a shootout in the quarterfinals. Farrell and Abruzzese were two of the four current Harvard students and two alumni who competed at the Beijing Games. Keely Moy ’22 competed for the Swiss women’s hockey team, which ultimately finished fourth. The Canadian women’s hockey team, including Emerance Maschmeyer ’16, won gold.
Harvard Winter Olympians are nothing new. Throughout the history of the Winter Olympics, 56 Harvard students and alumni have competed in 23 games, winning a total of 17 gold medals and 18 silver medals. Harvard athletes have competed in a variety of Winter Olympic sports, including figure skating, bobsled, Nordic skiing.
The first Winter Olympic games, held in Chamonix, France in 1924, included two Harvard athletes. Nathaniel W. Niles ’1909, a figure skater, and Willard W. Rice ’1922, an ice hockey player, the latter of which won a silver medal and thus kickstarted a long history of Harvard Olympic medalists. Over the next 100 years, Harvard participated in every Olympics except for 1980, where the only Harvard affiliates were a coach and a cross country alternate. In 1992, Paul Wylie ’91 broke the Harvard Olympic drought and won the silver medal in the men’s figure skating singles event.
Although Harvard athletes have competed in many Olympic sports, no sport has seen as much Harvard representation as ice hockey. Thirty-eight Harvard affiliated hockey players have won 35 of Harvard’s 43 Winter Olympic medals, with most of those coming in the past two decades. Since the introduction of women’s ice hockey at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, female Harvard hockey players have won 9 gold medals, 12 silver medals, and 4 bronze medals.
The ice hockey legacy is especially meaningful to Moy. “I’m in awe of all the people that came before me,” says Moy. “Regardless of if they’re an Olympian, they’re incredible hockey players and they’re even better people. I’m pretty thankful to even be held in that regard.”
Hockey has always been a part of Moy’s life. Introduced to the sport by her father, Moy recalls private lessons and family practices filling up any free time she had. When the pandemic hit, Moy found herself without a hockey season or team. Consequently, she decided to play for the Women’s League in Switzerland, her mother’s home country.
Two months ago, after the unexpected loss of her father in 2020, she found out she made the Swiss team. This news significantly impacted her relation to the sport. “[My dad] didn’t know I was gonna go make this team,” she said. “I think it was always his dream for me to play at the highest level and work as hard as I possibly can to reach my goals. So, it was really cool to think that my dad has some pull upstairs for this opportunity to fall into my lap.”
For Moy, the most memorable moment was stepping onto Olympic ice for the first time. She said, “I’m on the ice looking up in the stands and seeing this big banner of the Olympic rings, and you’re like wow this isn’t a dream anymore…this is my reality. In warm up, looking across the ice and seeking the best players in the world, and in playing against Canada… and being like no, you can’t take this away from me. This is such an incredible moment and feeling.”
Although Covid-19 created controversy surrounding the Winter Olympics, Moy and other athletes welcomed the competition with excitement. Rémi Drolet ’24 spoke to me the day before his final event at the Beijing Games, the men’s Nordic skiing 50KM Mass Start.
Drolet spoke about the volunteers rather than his upcoming race. He said, “[the volunteers] have been really great and always smiling behind their masks. They’re just really bubbly all the time and super happy to see you. What I’ve kind of realized is that when you go to the Olympics, everyone’s fighting for good results. But there’s only a select few athletes that actually get to have medals. When you come back home after your race, sometimes it can feel a little disappointing when you don’t perform as well as you wanted to. Then having those volunteers there bringing in all the positive energy really makes it a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable.”
As for coming back to school as newly crowned Olympians? Drolet and Moy are excited. Moy is in the middle of her senior season and is looking forward to coming back to the “most elite college students and minds in the world” after spending two weeks among the most elite athletes in the world.
Drolet said, “I’m excited to get back in the fall. It feels good to be showing that it can be done … high level sport with a high level education. Hopefully I can encourage more skiers to come to Harvard and go to college in general.”
Kate DeGroote ’24 (katedegroote@college.harvard.edu) loves watching the Olympics and imagining she is as good at skiing as the Olympic athletes.