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hockey became a formal sport at the School. A search of School archives reveals in a Mischianza that the first mention of a hockey team was in 1901. That is interesting, because while hockey is supposed to have started in Montreal around 1875, the International Ice Hockey Federation was not founded until 1908. References to hockey are shown in the Misch through 1903, but nothing again about the sport until 1911; however, not in 1912. The following year, 1913, the Misch shows a team, with a list of scores for games against other schools. 1913 seems to be the year that a consistent program was launched. It was considered a minor sport until 1931 when it assumed the same status as football, baseball, and track. As a matter of interest, an 1899 Hotchkiss Record carries an article about Yale’s joining a newly-formed intercollegiate hockey league, no doubt influencing similar interest at Hotchkiss. In those days Hotchkiss was a preparatory school almost exclusively for Yale. Not immune to world affairs, the hockey team suspended interscholastic play in the early 1940s. A world war being fought on two fronts meant that gas for travel was scarce. With the exception of contests with Kent School, games were intramural, played between dormitories. Today Hotchkiss hockey players feed not just Yale’s teams, but many top college programs. A visit to the office of girls’ varsity hockey assistant (and former head) coach Robin Chandler ’87, daughter of former Headmaster (and former Hotchkiss goalkeeper) Rusty Chandler ’53, reveals a wall peppered with photos of alumnae who have thrived at the collegiate level. Chandler played for Dartmouth, part of a crop of particularly talented female varsity athletes who skated for Hotchkiss in the 1980s and went on to collegiate success. Still, she insists that the last decade or so of Hotchkiss girls’ hockey has produced the most all-around talent. When speaking of her favorite Hotchkiss hockey memo-
ry, she speaks not of her accomplishments, but of traveling to Torino in 2006 to see alumnae Kingsbury and Cahow win their respective gold and bronze medals. “In the last 12 years, the studentathletes who have played girls’ hockey have been incredible citizens of the School,” she said. “Many have been prizewinners, and a lot of them have gone on to have stellar college and post-college careers. The girls who play hockey are not only phenomenal hockey players, but are those elusive three-sport athletes who strengthen the teams outside the hockey team.” The boys’ teams have also fed players to many storied programs. But head coach Damon White battles the junior hockey developmental leagues to place talent at Division Ischools. He states, “Colleges are more willing to take the bigger, more mature 20-yearold who’s played in Junior leagues than the 18-year-old Hotchkiss graduate who is academically prepared and emotionally ready for these institutions and the challenges of Division I hockey. We have kids who go play in Division III because they aren’t willing to play juniors for a year.” As the Hotchkiss hockey program has developed, a constant has been the athletes’ commitment to academics. Says Jeff Kosak, head coach from 1984-1998, “In our time together, Blair [Torrey ’50], Damon, and I never promised a position to a potential student-athlete. A number of them decided to go elsewhere, where they were promised a slot on the varsity team should they be accepted and enroll. We wouldn’t do that, and in a strange way, it became one of the strengths of the program. “On one occasion, a young goaltender, highly thought of and justifiably so, came for a revisit after being accepted. The boy and his father were particularly interested in how Blair saw him fitting into the varsity program. Blair settled back in his chair, lowered his glasses, and responded, ‘Son, it’s very simple here. If you’re good enough to make the varsity, you
will. If you’re not, you won’t.’” The boy enrolled, had a great career at Hotchkiss, and then matriculated to a Division I program at a top college. During the 1980s and ’90s, the mighty triumvirate of Torrey, Kosak, and White led a program that achieved great success not because they recruited the strongest, most skilled players, but because they took on what Kosak called “meat and potato players” – boys who knew hockey, knew academics, and knew where they wanted to head after Hotchkiss. The coaches encouraged the players to round out their experience at the School with courses in theater, art, and music. The three coaches also used their scholarly wisdom with teams. During one practice, Torrey was working with a goaltender he felt had a poor attitude and work ethic. Frustrated, he skated across the ice to Kosak, who taught French, and said, “Kosak, how do you say sieve in French?” “Passoire,” replied Kosak. Torrey zipped back to scold his young player. “Son, you think you’re terrific, you think you don’t have to work. Do you know what you are so far? A passoire. That’s French for sieve!” Having been chastened in two languages did the trick. The young man had a successful career at Hotchkiss before playing Division I hockey. “We tried to emphasize excellence
On a frozen Lake Wononscopomuc, from left: Coach Jeff Kosak, JV Hockey Captain Chris Crane ’08, and Coach Chris Oostenink
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