Samantha Hare '18 Recruiting Profile

I started off as a figure skater at seven years of age. The reason I got on ice was because I wanted to wear pink sequined dresses and tights. This was short-lived; before long a hockey coach saw me skating and approached me. He knew that I wasn’t a figure skater from the way I raced around the rink, bumping into my friends and tripping on my toepick. When I moved over to sweaty gear and bruises, I somehow felt more comfortable. I was playing a sport that I really loved, not for its appearance but for how I felt when I played.

The following year I started playing on Coney Island Stars, a boys’ travel hockey team in Brooklyn, NY. I so vividly remember my first game; I was terrified to get on the ice as I barely knew the team, but I knew that I didn’t want to let them down. But the boys embraced me as an equal teammate and they let me know quickly that they would support me no matter how badly I played that game or whether I had a ponytail. The team captain, Romeo, remains a friend to this day.

During the 2010 Winter Olympics, I watched the women’s ice hockey final game, skipping school as a rare occasion to hopefully celebrate the US team victory with my hockey friends. After seeing them play, I started wanting to play on a girls’ team. As there are no opportunities for high-level girls’ hockey locally in New York City, my parents drove me to a tryout in Morristown, NJ. This is where I started my path on the New Jersey Colonials, seven years through the tunnel after school, doing my homework on Interstate 78, more than an hour each way on a good day and enjoying every minute.

Despite our disparate backgrounds on both of these teams, bridging the gap to play as a singular team has provided me with a chance to appreciate all of our differences. Whether we are girls or boys, come from urban or suburban backgrounds, purple hair or natural, Asian or Russian immigrant, in that locker room we are strategizing or celebrating together, and on ice we play to win together.

For two years now I have been volunteering as an assistant coach at Ice Hockey in Harlem, an organization that provides underserved inner-city kids the chance to play ice hockey. The reason I was drawn to this organization is because it gives young girls the opportunity that I have been so fortunate to have: not only the chance to play hockey but to discover the joy of experiencing such a great team sport. As much as I have tried to mentor these young girls, what I have learned through them has been even more motivating and rewarding: it has given me a true perspective in appreciation.

Hockey has given me a home away from home, a family outside of school, and I am excited to have a chance to continue that in college.