The U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team had a 5-0 win over Canada this week, and for a group of teenage girls watching from a high school in Rochester, New York, the win was extra special.
Bishop Kearney is a small Catholic School, not exactly the kind of place you’d expect to be incubating Olympians. But eight former alums are playing Olympic hockey this year, including five out of 23 players for Team USA.
On Tuesday afternoon, the third-floor community room was filled with red, white and blue balloons, noisemakers and a large frosted cake that read “GO TEAM USA,” as members of the girls hockey program — called BK Selects — were let out of class early to watch the game.
Each time the United States scored, the room erupted.
“Our dreams of being in the Olympics is really not that far off from these girls,” said Addison Tremel, a senior forward from Seattle. “They paved the way for us, so now we get to watch them taking off and succeeding.”
Back in 2016, as other parochial schools were struggling with enrollment and facing closures, Bishop Kearney went all in on girls hockey. They launched BK Selects, built dorms and recruited players across the country, a bet that seems to have paid off.
Of the five goals scored against Canada Tuesday, three of them came from Bishop Kearney alums – Caroline “KK” Harvey, Kirsten Simms and Laila Edwards.
Team USA is currently undefeated, and for Bishop Kearney coaches, watching their former players succeed on the world’s biggest stage has been surreal.
“They’ve certainly got patterns of their play and kind of their signature moves,” said Chelsea Walkland, head coach of the under-19 team. “It’s just got our athletes chomping at the bit and excited to see where they can take their own journeys.”
Harvey scored the opening goal for the US. Simms scored during a power play in the second period. Edwards added the final goal of the game.
Edwards is also making history this year as the first Black woman to play for the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team, and the first to score a goal.
For Chloe Brinson, a senior forward from Larchmont, New York, Edwards has been a role model on and off the ice.
“She just doesn’t stop going,” Brinson said. “She’s always breaking records and trying out new things, and just adjusting super well to anything that might set her back.”
Brinson said Edwards played a key role in her decision to attend Bishop Kearney. Before transferring, she was playing boys hockey in Larchmont, a predominantly white suburb outside New York City.
“I was the only girl on my boys team until I came here,” she said. “This is the first time I really played girls hockey.”
Brinson said Edwards helped reassure her that Bishop Kearney would be a safe and welcoming place for her as a woman of color.
“Her experience and how she navigated that part and just having her as someone to look up to is really good,” Brinson said.
Girls hockey, coaches say, is now experiencing rapid growth nationwide. Youth programs are expanding, and the creation of the Professional Women’s Hockey League has introduced a new long-term pathway that did not exist for previous generations.
Jake Anderson, head coach of Bishop Kearney's under-16 team, said he first realized the shift two years ago, when a student told him she aspired to play professionally.
“It was the first time I had ever heard that,” Anderson said. “Her response was, ‘I want to play in the PWHL.’ Now there's a chance to potentially make a living after hockey. The dreams are bigger, the goals are bigger.”
For Tremel, who is committed to Colgate University, and Brinson, who is headed to Princeton, that future feels tangible.
“When we were younger, we always wanted to be in the NHL,” Tremel said. “Now for all the younger girls coming up there’s the PWHL.
“There’s a destination for us and that’s so special."
The US-Canada game was preliminary, but still history-making. A 5-0 shutout.
It also put Team USA in prime position for a gold medal run. The Americans, now 4-0, will face Italy in the quarterfinals Friday.
