Courtney Kennedy, along with her older sister Shannon, skated for the first University of Minnesota women’s hockey team to capture a national championship, during the 2000 season.
The Golden Gophers now own an NCAA-record seven titles, the latest a 3-1 victory over Boston College last Sunday afternoon in Durham, N.H., that denied BC a perfect 41-0 finish.
Kennedy was behind the Boston College bench, coaching against her alma mater, as a nine-year assistant to Katie Crowley at BC.
“It was a great ice hockey game,’’ said Kennedy, a Woburn native who learned the game in the town’s youth hockey association.
“Fast pace and exciting. I was blown away by the support from so many BC student-athletes and BC hockey alumni, everyone coming together to support us in our quest for a national championship. It’s a tough outcome to swallow, but that’s how this game works. I thought we had plenty of chances to win that game. And we fell short.’’
It was another notable season for Kennedy in an athletic career that has been very rewarding, as both a player and a coach. One that started with Woburn Youth Hockey.
Kennedy wanted to play hockey at Woburn High, but the school did not field a girls’ team, “and the boys’ team was loaded and very good,’’ she said.
“I didn’t have my size yet. I think they would have let me try out, but I didn’t venture it. That’s when I transitioned over and played for the Chelmsford Lions, an all-girls program. I did play field hockey, basketball, and softball at Woburn with some great childhood friends.’’
But she yearned to play high school hockey.
So she followed her sister, older by a grade, to Buckingham, Browne & Nichols in Cambridge. Courtney, a defenseman, followed Shannon, a forward, to Colby College. But when Colby announced it was dropping down to Division 3 from D1, the two moved on to the University of Minnesota.
In Minneapolis, they played for Laura Halldorson, their coach at Colby who was hired at Minnesota to start a new program. In the 2000 championship game of the American Women’s College Hockey Alliance, Courtney, then a junior defenseman, scored Minnesota’s first goal. Shannon, a senior, had the assist in a 4-2 Golden Gopher victory over Brown.
A two-time All-American, Courtney still ranks fifth on the program’s scoring list for defensemen (35 goals, 77 assists in 106 career games). Kennedy won an Olympic silver medal with the United States in 2002 and a bronze in 2006.
She returned to BB&N to coach field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse for three years before fielding an offer from Crowley at BC.
Kennedy, who turns 37 on Tuesday, has spent the last nine years as associate head coach helping her former Olympic teammate turn the Eagles into one of the country’s best teams.
“I think athletics is probably the most powerful thing a person can go through and here’s why,’’ said Kennedy.
“It’s the only way you can go through a bunch of different emotions, a bunch of different experiences and almost like try it out and figure out answers, because it’s real life.
“Our kids in the locker room are going to learn a lot of different lessons through their four years. Then they’re going to go out in the real world and what happens in the real world they already went through because you go through so much adversity. You’re in a locker room with 23 other people. Different things are going to happen in your four years. So you learn a lot. But the most important thing I think is you learn how to get along with people and respect people even if you don’t always agree. It’s not about agreeing. It’s learning about how to respect everybody. That’s why I love athletics.’’
Allen Lessels can be reached at lessfam321@gmail.com.
