This article is featured in the 2025 Winter Carnival Special Issue.
As winter temperatures in Hanover continue to drop, the Dartmouth women’s ice hockey team is heating up. The squad has picked up its first wins of the season since returning to the ice on Jan. 3, with four wins, three losses and two ties — with the Big Green picking up the extra point in both shoot-outs.
To the untrained eye, this recent shift might appear sudden. The team, after all, had been winless before winter break. To hear the team tell it, their reversal of fortune feels more like an inevitable culmination, built on consistency and a relatively new coaching staff.
“Even in the first part of the season, when the results weren’t coming, the effort, the energy, the execution and practice was growing and building,” assistant coach Tara Connolly said.
Connolly, who came to her current role last July, added that the team was not deterred by its early season results. Instead, the players “understood it was part of something bigger than just right now,” she explained. Sure enough, the team was slowly finding its footing. First-year head coach Maura Crowell, who was appointed to the position last May, said the coaching staff has witnessed the team’s growth each day.
“We’re watching the baby steps every day, and we see the progress, the attitude and the commitment level from the young women,” Crowell said. “It’s inspiring, and I think we knew that it would turn, and we’d find some luck somewhere along the way.”
The coaching staff — almost entirely made up of newcomers — is spearheading the change. Connolly was previously an assistant coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for seven years, and Crowell served as the head coach for the University of Minnesota, Duluth for the past nine seasons.
During Crowell’s time coaching the Bulldogs, she lifted the program into national prominence — the team enjoyed four consecutive NCAA tournament berths from 2021 to 2024 and a 6-5 overall NCAA tournament record. Crowell said she intends to lead the Big Green to a similar transformation through a “rebuild” that is already taking root.
“I’m not afraid of a rebuild,” she said. “I’ve done that a few times, and it’s a grind, but it’s super rewarding, and the passion for success and rebirth of this [Dartmouth] program from the top down was really inspiring.”
Renaissance may be a better word for the transformation Crowell seeks. There was a time, not too long ago, when Dartmouth women’s ice hockey held national prominence. Between 2000 and 2011, the Big Green won four Eastern College Athletic Conference championships and clinched eight NCAA tournament berths.
Much has changed since those glory days. The team has not won an ECAC playoff game or reached the NCAA tournament since then, nor boasted a winning record since the 2012 season, according to ECAC hockey records.
Returning the team to its stature is one of the reasons Crowell came to Hanover, she said. In fact, she experienced the Big Green’s juggernaut 2000s group first-hand when she played for Colgate University from 1998 to 2002 — especially in her last collegiate game, a 6-0 loss to Dartmouth in the 2002 ECAC quarterfinal.
“I ended my career here, right on this ice [in Thompson Arena], losing to Dartmouth,” she said.
Connolly added that she finds value in the team’s history, as it offers a “blueprint for success.”
“I think Dartmouth is a place that really wants to win,” Connolly said. “You want a school that’s really excited and invested and helps you continue to build facilities and stay competitive at a national level, and we’re doing that here.”
The new coaching staff’s dedication to revitalizing the program has been evident to players, especially through the energy Crowell brings to the team.
Sophomore forward Sydney Vandenberg ’27 said Crowell comes in with “something different” every day.
“She keeps us fresh and brings in her knowledge every game, along with a good motivational speech that helps us through every game,” she said.
Connolly also highlighted the power of Crowell’s signature locker room speeches.
“It’s easy to want to run through a wall for Coach Crowell when you hear one of her speeches before practice, after practice or before games,” she said.
Connolly attributed that mentality to the “genuine bond here, from top to bottom,” which she said takes a lot of “intentional time and effort” to build.
Vandenburg added that the bond between players and coaching staff goes beyond the ice, extending into the classroom and coaching lounge.
“We go through the highs and lows together,” Vandenburg said. “We help people when they’re down and try to pick them up. They’re my best friends, my family.”
Like all families, there is respectful disagreement — which Crowell said is invaluable to the team’s growth process.
“I don’t want everybody to say, ‘Yes, Coach. Great idea,’” she said. “We want to talk and see all angles of decisions that we make … and it makes for a really fun, growing mindset that we have.”
Crowell’s approach tends to emphasize accountability and the readiness to step up — which freshman goalie Michaela Hesova ’28 said she has tried to emulate.
Hesova and the Big Green defense recently earned their first shutout of the season in a 0-0 tie against RPI, Connolly’s old stomping grounds, on Jan. 18.
“[Hesova] played the lion’s share of the minutes and really stepped into that job well,” Connolly said. “You can see the growth in her game and her comfort level growing in different situations, like on penalty kills and five-on-six. She’s been great back there.”
Vandenberg echoed Connolly, lauding the first-year as a “brick wall behind us.”
“She’s clutched up in key opportunities and been crucial for us,” Vandenberg said.
Vandenberg added that the team is not shaken by challenges.
“The goal is keeping it [morale] up and sticking to the little things,” she said. “Knowing our team identity and how that’s been successful, we just need to continue doing what we’re doing.”
Beyond the letter on the team’s wins-losses column, Crowell is leading the team with a focus on putting up a good fight.
“Our one goal for this season was to be the hardest team to play against,” she said. “We’ll get some wins with that, and we’ll get some losses with that, but as long as we give our opponents one hell of a hockey game, we’ll be happy as coaches.”
