The road to an NCAA National Championship is long and gruelling for athletes, and Canadian-born hockey players tend to stick closer to home rather than making the jump to the American collegiate hockey circuit.
But for Robyn Foley, who hails from the Goulds and has ties with the Northern Peninsula, the risk was worth the reward.
Foley put together a more than impressive year with the Norwich Cadets based out of Northfield, Vermont. The junior blueliner boasted a plus-51 rating in the plus minus category through 29 regular season games, and put up 23 points to her credit.
But it didn’t end there for Foley.
The Division 3 Cadets took on Elmira College and downed the Soaring Eagles 2-1 in front of a packed home crowd to win the NCAA National Championship.
“It’s unbelievable,” Foley said from the Norwich campus where she is currently studying health sciences. “For someone to play NCAA hockey, that’s every girl’s dream to win a National Championship. We had almost 3000 fans and it was crazy to win it at home.”
To add to her already successful year Foley was also selected as a second-team All-American, the only Canadian to make the cut out of the 24 skaters selected, the rest of which are native to the United States.
While Foley has only one year left at Norwich, she’s already eyeing a future in hockey while also continuing her career path in the health sciences.
“As of now I’m probably going to take a year off from school after I graduate next year to get some clinical hours and stuff, because I’m thinking about going to physical therapy for grad school,” Foley said. “There’s a professional league in Boston area called the CWHL, so if I can get some clinical hours around there or something I’d like to stay around this area.”
The Canadian Women’s Hockey League currently has seven hockey clubs throughout Canada and the United States, with one of those teams calling Boston home.
Foley says it has taken a lot of hard work to get to where she is today, after getting her start in hockey and the young age of 6-years-old.
“The offseason is the most important thing,” she said. “We did it. It took a lot of hard work.”
