Olympians Tell Their Stories - Part 2 of 2

Team USA practicing at Belmont Hill School last week - Courtesy image — *Team USA practicing at Belmont Hill School last week – Courtesy image*

By Hannah Graney

At 10:30 AM on a very chilly January morning, the women’s US Olympic ice hockey team took the ice at Belmont Hill School. It was one of the off days when they were not practicing at The Edge in Bedford which, according to head coach Katey Stone, is their “home ice”. The Belmont Hill ice is Olympic-sized which means that it is slightly wider than the ice in Bedford.

Once practice finished, Stone and some of the players talked to the press in a room overlooking the ice. The press ranged from The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe to Fox News and CSN to a few local media outlets including Bedford TV and The Bedford Citizen. The girls talked about what practicing at The Edge was like and how Scott Fusco, a former ice hockey Olympian and now a practice player for the girls’ team, helped the team tremendously.

When asked about The Edge, the girls had only nice things to say. For some of them, this was not their first time skating there. Alex Carpenter, daughter of former NHL player Bobby Carpenter, is from Burlington. “It was unbelievable [to be able to practice at The Edge]. I grew up playing there – I played for the Wizards when I was younger at The Edge,” she said. All of the Wizard’s training definitely paid off because Alex is the youngest on the Olympic team at only 19 years old.

Another local is Meghan Duggan from Danvers is the captain of the Olympic team. She said that The Edge was an “unbelievable facility, [and] the people were great to us… It’s been an incredible community that we were lucky to be a part of.”

Head coach Katey Stone said something similar when she was talking about The Edge. “We’ve had great support from the community. Scotty Fusco, over at The Edge, has been nothing but generous to us… and then you couple that with how wonderful the community has been … [The host families] have created a lot of balance and that is what we wanted from the beginning.”

The Team USA locker room, built at The Edge by Bedfordite Peter Dion - Courtesy image — *The Team USA locker room, built at The Edge by Bedfordite Peter Dion – Courtesy image*

Julie Chu, who is the oldest on the team at 31 years old, noted how hard the staff worked to make the team feel at home. “The whole staff there has really done an amazing job to give us a national team, an Olympic environment to train in.” She is referring to the fact that The Edge hired a local contractor, Bedfordite Peter Dion, to renovate a workout room into an Olympic team locker room.

None of the hard work that went into having the girls train here in Bedford definitely was overlooked.

Editor’s Note: Hannah Graney has just completed a one-month internship shared between The Bedford Citizen and Bedford TV. Thank you for your good work, Hannah; you’ll be missed!