University of Massachusetts Boston Women’s Hockey Goalie Coach Molly Schaus recently represented the United States at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Schaus and the rest of the Americans brought home the Silver Medal in what turned out to be a hotly-contested tournament. Despite primarily playing the back-up role, the Natick native and Boston College product had an Olympic experience that she won’t soon forget. Schaus chatted with the Mass Media about her time at the Sochi games.
“Anytime you get to put on [the U.S. jersey], it’s such an honor. When you look at it hanging in your stall and it says USA on it… it’s an amazing feeling,” Schaus said.
In her lone appearance of the tournament back on Feb. 10, Schaus only needed to make 10 saves in team USA’s 9–0 win over Switzerland, the eventual Bronze Medal winners, in the team’s second game of the tournament.
Throughout the tournament, Schaus received an unprecedented amount of support from her friends, family, and of course, her team.
“Coming back to the U.S. and turning the phone back on and checking Facebook and email, you kind of start to see the bigger picture,” Schaus said, “I wish I was able to get down to campus more, but traveling was so tough. [The Beacons] are just awesome and [Coaches] Colleen Harris and Lindsay Berman are both really close friends of mine, and I respect them both as coaches. I was able to make it down in January and see them all and watched them play. I was able to do a little send off with the team and play some ping pong and just hang out. They’re a great group.”
However, Schaus and her teammates on the National Team knew that they needed to focus on what was most important, trying to win a Gold Medal.
“The team had a lot of conversations amongst ourselves about keeping the main thing the main thing and I think being in Russia, being so far away, really helped a bit.” Despite being on the big stage yet again — this being her second time at the Olympics, having represented the U.S. at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver — Schaus, as well as her teammates, did not get ahead of themselves.
“I think we did a good job of treating it like any other hockey tournament, approaching each game like every other team we played this season.”
Unfortunately for Schaus and her team, USA came up just short against Canada in the Gold Medal match. “It’s a little bit of disbelief. You see the puck going down there and you’re hoping and hoping,” Schaus said of the potential (empty net) insurance goal that hit the post, and the eventual loss: “if it’s one inch to the right, it’s a 3-1 game and you don’t know what happens…but it’s just one play in a game. It’s still a bit of disbelief.”
However, Schaus would not let one bad loss ruin her Olympic experience. “We did a couple days in Sochi towards the end, and then we flew home. It was definitely a different feeling than we had hoped for, but we try to balance that out with the big picture and the honor [of playing for the U.S.] that we had and will continue to have.”
In the end, Schaus knows that being on a big stage can be stressful, but she has her team with her to help deal with it all. “To win as a team and we lose as a team is a bit stressful, but I do think it’s a bit easier to have a team by you side every step of the way.”