This is what it was like to be sophomore Josie Chapman and play goalie for the Colby women's ice hockey team this season. On January 16 the White Mules trailed Dartmouth 2-0 when a Dartmouth penalty gave Colby a power play. The Mules lost the puck and Dartmouth got a two-on-nothing break. Chapman had no chance. Colby fell into a 3-0 hole on its way to a 7-0 loss.
This season Chapman had too many difficult moments like that. Women's ice hockey finished its season (0-26), leaving some less-than-flattering numbers next to Chapman's name. She faced more than 1,400 shots--nearly 70 per game. She was scored on 198 times. She even suffered a concussion.
But a better measure of Chapman's performance is her saves percentage, which steadily improved to a respectable .879. "I think about the games a lot and run things through my mind," Chapman said. "The numbers haunt me."
Chapman said the last part with a laugh. But she lost sleep after the January 10 game against visiting Cornell, when she set the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) record with 83 saves as Colby was outshot, 94-6.
"It was hard," Chapman said. "We were losing to Cornell, 8-1, with a few
minutes left in the game. Eight to one is not that bad. It ended up 11-1. We
kind of fell apart. The numbers seem so high. It's hard to get those numbers
out of your mind."To be fair, there are numerous reasons for the winless record and lopsided scores. Since Colby was a pioneer in women's ice hockey, with a varsity program that dates to 1975, it got in with the big schools (Brown, Harvard, Cornell etc.) early, before there were divisions to group teams by school size or skill level. Competition was always keen, and it escalated as women's hockey became more popular. Almost all Colby teams play in Division III, but even though different divisions were created for women's ice hockey Colby remained in Division I playing national powerhouses.
When the school announced last year that women's ice hockey would move to Division III beginning in 1999-2000, the final season in Division I already was locked in. But three of the Mules' top players transferred--two to the University of Minnesota and one to Boston College. Colby also lost two players to illness before its first game, and the school's all-time leading scorer, forward Meaghan Sittler, had graduated.
With so many departures the Colby players and coaches knew they would struggle this season. Accordingly, they did an admirable job of staying loose and upbeat through a difficult year.
"I think the key was the mental preparation before the season," Colby captain Juliana Bontecou '99 said. "This year is sort of a tough-to-keep-your-heads-up year. The team's done a great job of that."
The Mules tried to set smaller goals throughout the season, like improving their play from period to period. Despite injuries that left them with only 14 players in some contests, despite playing in front of fewer than 100 fans in an average home game, their effort never wavered. Colby was shut out in 13 consecutive games late in the season. The 14th game was their closest of the year, a competitive 4-1 loss to Yale.
As for Chapman, she relished the opportunity to face so many shots. "It's hard losing," she said at mid-season. "But at the same time, I think we're all having a good time out there, so it takes away from the fact that we're losing 13-0. I've certainly realized that you don't have to win to have fun. I'm having a blast. That's a goalie's dream, to face ninety-four shots in a game."
One game still stands out for Chapman. Just 12 days after setting the ECAC mark for saves in a game against Cornell she broke her own record with 95 saves against Brown. "That was an awesome game," she said. "I was just definitely on. It was very exciting and I was having a lot of fun."
Chapman has been playing organized hockey since age 4. At Moses Brown School in Rhode Island she played goalie for a boys' team. She has worked hard to improve her game, and her teammates appreciate her steadying influence.
"Goalie is obviously a very mental position," Bontecou said. "It's tough to see a score like 15-0, 16-1 and see that the goalie played a good game. But the team sees it more than the public because they don't always look at the shots."
Next season in Division III Colby will be more competitive, and the players have talked about what it will be like to win again. For Chapman there will be fewer excuses if she gives up a lot of goals in a game.
She can hardly wait. "I'm going to miss having all the action ," she said. "But at the same time, I'm really looking forward to the intensity of a 2-1 game."
Matt DiFilippo writes for Blethen Maine Newspapers. An earlier version of this story appeared in the Central Maine Newspapers.
