The
Hart Trophy winner’s younger sister, Taylor Crosby, will be pursuing crease
time for the Hub’s other Division I dog pack at Northeastern University this
autumn. If she has her way, she will join the program’s pantheon of celestial
stoppers and set herself apart among Canada’s next wave of netminders.
While
an absence of bloodline references remains remiss, the younger Crosby is shaping
impressively separate scrolls. Enrolling at NU is the next hallmark on that
front, although she is the first to pause on predictions beyond that.
“I
never know if these will be the last four years that I play,” she told Along
the Boards this week.
Unmistakably
unassuming, Crosby enters the NCAA and Hockey East landscape at a time that
allows her to hit the ice sprinting against top-shelf competition. It starts in
September, when she faces biscuits from U.S. Olympian Kendall Coyne in practice
and works with incumbent senior stopper Chloe Desjardins.
For
the record, since spending 2011-12 as Swiss phenom Florence Schelling’s
understudy, Desjardins has seen action in 67 of NU’s last 71 games.
If
Crosby earns extramural engagement without delay, she could confront the
Poulin-led Terrier strike force. There is also the potential to confront a
Boston College squad, complete with returning centerpiece and Sochi veteran
Alex Carpenter.
Outside
of Hockey East, there may be a second-round Beanpot bout with Harvard,
featuring U.S. Olympians Lyndsey Fry and Michelle Picard.
“I
think that’s the most exciting part,” said Crosby, who to date has only tested
herself against established world-class competition in informal settings.
“I’m
just out to improve,” she added, “and hopefully take advantage of being on a
team with Kendall.”
That
and return a favor to an institution that wooed her with its historic grounds
and a program that strengthened its magnetic pull with its celestial
goaltending graduates. In this century alone, the centenarian Matthews Arena
has let the likes of Chanda Gunn and Schelling scrape its blue paint.
Gunn,
a 2004 graduate, was a three-time nominee for the Patty Kazmaier Award and
later donned the Star-Spangled Sweater in Torino. Those 2006 Olympic Games
marked the first of three tournaments for Schelling, who in between bolstered
the start of current NU head coach Dave Flint’s tenure.
Crosby
confessed that those predecessors drizzled another layer of appeal when the
Huskies recruited her. But that aspect was an empty-net conversion after the
campus’ amiable atmosphere won her over.
“I
was all over the map,” she said of her college search. “I was just looking for
a place that felt like home. No other school gave me that feeling. There was no
other school that had the same effect on me.
“Not
only the school, it’s a great school, the coaching staff is awesome. When you
walk into a rink and can picture yourself playing there — you have to be in
that position. It’s indescribable.”
Conversely,
her appetite for fulfillment speaks for itself and carries over from her travel
career. She joined 14 of her peers at last summer’s Hockey Canada goaltending
camp and college will be key to breaking the surface of her country’s
uber-quantitative, uber-qualitative pool.
With
her skill set and background, Crosby could pen a Schelling 2.0 log as an NU
freshman. Schelling arrived in 2008 and prompted a near 50-50 split of the
crease time with reigning team MVP Leah Sulyma.
If
Crosby matches that first impression, she will owe it to her nothing-to-lose
mentality on the coming campaign, after Desjardins graduates and after she
graduates. That mentality emboldens her compatibility with a program still
searching for modern glory.
Since
Flint and Schelling’s second season in 2009-10, the Huskies have been a
perennial threat for the Hockey East pennant and NCAA tournament qualification.
But they have variously fallen ice chips shy of an at-large national bid and
lost the conference championship game in 2011 and 2013.
Crosby
can relate. She spent the last four seasons at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School,
winners of five 19-and-under and three 16-and-under national championships in
the last decade. Yet through two years apiece at each level, she missed out on
a ring.
“I’m
still trying to develop myself and achieve new things,” she said. “At Shattuck,
I never was fortunate enough to win a national championship. I came close. So I
know that coming to an organization that’s doing the same thing makes me more
motivated to play a part.”
This article
originally appeared on Along the Boards
