A lot of growth and change happens to a college athlete over a four-year career. Add in a fifth season because that athlete is off competing in the Winter Olympics and that growth and change is overwhelming at times. Welcome to the life of senior forward Haley Irwin.
Irwin owns the distinction as the only Bulldog player that has ever won an Olympic gold medal currently enrolled and rostered at UMD. The Thunder Bay, Ontario native was a critical part of the gold medal 2010 Canadian women's hockey team, all the while redshirting her junior season of college. While five other UMD players were redshirted with their respected Olympic teams ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics, it was Irwin, playing for heavy gold medal favorite Canada who was was most closely watched when she returned to the Bulldog line-up in 2010-11.
“After taking a year off, it was a much harder adjustment then I expected,” recalls Irwin of last season. “No one prepares you for that, I knew it would be tough but I didn't realize how tough it would be. I didn't feel any expectations or pressure from anyone else, so I had to put a lot on myself especially after the year I had just come off of.”
The Bulldogs were the defending NCAA champions and Irwin was one of Canada's youngest stars having shone brightly in Vancouver with four goals and an assist in five Olympic skates. But Irwin's adjustment back into the college game was stunted with a concussion that forced her to miss eight games in the last month and a half of the season. Irwin was even sitting in the stands when UMD christened AMSOIL Arena on Jan. 21. A nod to what Irwin's season might have been came when she was named a Patty Kazmaier Award Top-Ten finalist but Irwin was unable to add any statistics to her ballot for the month before voting.
“Any type of injury is frustrating to go through but I think concussions are a very hard injury to come back from, because it affects everyone so differently,” said Irwin. “If I could go back I would have been out longer and not tried to come back as often as I did.”
So Irwin used the cruel education of last season to grow on and off the ice, something that the forward has been comfortable doing since she arrived on the UMD campus in the fall of 2007.
“Haley came to UMD as a smart player with raw talent and good size,” said head coach Shannon Miller. “What Haley needed her freshmen and sophmore year in order to help us win and to help her make the Olympic team was a strict conditioning program and strict coaching on the ice. By strict coaching I mean discipline with systems and habits because to become great you must be consistently good. In becoming consistently good you must have the work ethic on and off the ice as well as the discipline to develop good habits. I found Haley to be very open to coaching and with her talent and work ethic she was able to make everyone around her better.”
Irwin's rookie campaign produced the fourth most points by a first-year player in Bulldog history, a blistering 60 points on 23 goals and 37 assists in 37 games. It also ended with what most players would tip their hat to as the most memorable moment of their hockey careers -- an NCAA title won in the glowing presence of Duluth, Minn.
“My most memorable moment here at UMD so far was my freshman year,” said Irwin. “Not only winning that year but my teammates, the staff and the atmosphere we created is one that I will never forget.”
Irwin's sophomore and junior season's have been been a study in consistent play and making the players around her better. While Irwin's number dropped off during her sophomore season (if 22 goals and 22 assists is considered a drop off), she finished her incomplete 2010-11 run with 48 points on 18 goals and 30 assists.
Yet while her numbers at UMD have been staggering (she reached the 100-point club as a sophomore, one of the fastest compilations of points in Bulldog history) it was Irwin's growth off the ice that helped the senior earn the freshly sewn on “C” on her jersey.
“I don't really think my role has changed that much,” said Irwin. “I try to lead by example both on and off the ice, something I try to do whether I am wearing the letter or not. I haven't changed who I am as a person or a player but hopefully after three years I have matured in both aspects.”
“We are very proud of how much Haley developed in those two years and proud of her for making the Olympic team,” said Miller. “Now the end of the story must still be written. Haley's challenge is to bring what she learned from her Olympic year, the good and the bad and translate that into a positive leading and learning experience for her and her teammates. Haley is not only a key player for UMD, she is a key leader and as a senior in a year UMD is once again hosting the NCAA Frozen Four, I believe this will be Haley's biggest test yet.”
The challenge of her personal and playing evolution is what Irwin knows best, however, and the senior captain is aware that the 2011-12 season is her last crack to seal up her career the way she started it -- playing for an NCAA title in Duluth, Minn. Irwin is the only player remaining from the 2007-08 squad that hosted the trophy at The DECC.
“This is a great opportunity and it is positive attention,” said Irwin about AMSOIL hosting the 2012 Frozen Four. “The community is our support system, they are here for us, they are the ones who will be cheering for us and there is no better feeling that that. I think it is very important not think about the “pressure” and to just play a game that we fell in love with as little girls.”
Irwin knows there is a lot of hockey to be played between now and the middle of March and she started out of the gate on a eight-game scoring streak that dates back to Feb. 18 of last year. With six points (2-4=6) in four games, Irwin has already taken aim at the record books filled by players who have helped define UMD's success for over a decade. Irwin ranks the seventh-highest point getter in Bulldog history with 158 points (65-93=158) in only 104 skates, No. 9 in goals and No. 6 in career assists and she is one of only eight players ever to have scored more than 150 points over a career -- a career that still has yet to be entirely written.
“I want Bulldog fans to remember me as the player who went out and gave everything I had every shift and ever game,” said Irwin. “I want them to remember me as a player who had so much passion for the game of hockey and someone who loved playing it.”
No question Irwin has already left a mighty footprint on the hearts of UMD fans but the legend of Haley Irwin still has a few chapters left to be created before it becomes a part of program history. Chapters Irwin will be passionately writing over the course of the next few months.
