Heather Gold

As a kid, one of my biggest dreams was to play in the Olympics.

My sport became an Olympic one a little bit late for me and my college program was weak enough that I was in no shape to even think about making the first Canadian team which happened a little after my graduation.  Besides this circumstance, I probably didn’t have the talent to make it, or the focus. I did a lot of things in those days and to play at that level you have to pretty much do nothing else. One of my teammates, Maria Dennis was the last one cut  for the first US Women’s team. Maria was and is an amazing amazing hockey player and I was really happy to see her acknowledged as such at a recent rededication of the rink I played in at Yale.

I did play against some people who did play in the Olympics.  The photo above is a college game in which I’m getting around Sandra Whyte who played on the US Gold Medal Olympic team in 1988.

To say my hockey team was not treated well in college would be an understatement. We had to threaten a title IX suit the year after a graduated to make sure the program stayed. The coach of the men’s team at the time, Tim Taylor once said “no daughter of mine’s going to play ice hockey.”

Well many many things have changed. And it was a true thrill for me to see Hayley Wickenheiser chosen to read the athlete’s oath at Vancouver Games. She is recognized in Canada for the brilliant athlete she is (I did once get to play roller hockey against her. On the ice I’m not sure I’d be able to have kept up at all).
 

And now I see people tweeting about women’s hockey just like it’s a regular sport along with the rest of them. Nothing is more exciting that looking at the Olympics website and seeing the phrase Men’s Hockey. 

Someday I hope I’ll get to see the Gold Medal game in person.