BC's Carlson rewarded for service, heart
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- They haven't been official losses on the Boston College women's hockey team's record the last two seasons. But both times these particular opponents beat the Eagles, they acted as if they had won championships.
The games were organized by senior Sarah Carlson, who was given the Hockey Humanitarian Award yesterday as college hockey's finest citizen. Though she bears the brunt of the losses, they are ones she can handle better than losses to BC's traditional rivals. They are sled hockey fund-raising games played the last two springs at Conte Forum against handicapped children from the Massachusetts Hospital School in Canton, and each time, the Eagles have lost badly.
"It's incredible," Carlson said of the children, who play with stick blades in both hands and often stickhandle the puck underneath their sleds. "They have such speed and incredible skill."
Carlson and her teammates take ribbing from not only their opponents but also from the men's team, which handles the in-game commentary. But the teasing comes with a plus -- $2,000 raised for the Massachusetts Hospital School's sled hockey program the first year, and $4,000 last month. The fund-raising event is only one of a number of service events that Carlson, a nursing major from Kenny Lake, Alaska (pop. 400), has participated in during her four-year BC career.
"She's set an example for every student at Boston College, not just student-athletes," said Judy Shindul-Rothschild, associate professor at BC's Connell School of Nursing.
Carlson started the event last year after she met Ian, a 9-year-old patient at the hospital who trash-talked his way into convincing Carlson to round up her teammates for a sled hockey game against him and his friends. Olympians such as Tara Mounsey and Katie King, a current BC assistant, attended the first fund-raiser in which the children schooled the collegians, who were busy crashing their sleds into the boards and laughing too much to care about their misguided scoring attempts.
The 5-foot-9-inch Carlson, who always wanted to play Division 1 hockey, caught BC's attention after she participated in an Olympic development camp at Lake Placid, N.Y., and in a Hockey Night in Boston showcase. Once she stepped into Conte Forum, she immediately knew she wanted to play at BC.
Conte Forum, after all, is a long way from the outdoor rink she used to skate on back home. With temperatures hitting 30 degrees below zero, Carlson and her teammates would resurface the rink with a contraption that resembled a garden hose attached to a mop. Kenny Lake, which is approximately six hours from Anchorage, is nothing like Chestnut Hill; Carlson, the oldest of seven children, grew up in a home with no running water. She shot her first moose when she was 13. The young Carlson also caught a 55-pound king salmon.
Yet her wish to experience a new urban lifestyle, along with her desire to play college hockey, convinced Carlson to move across the country to Boston. Upon her arrival, she not only became a leader on the team but a dean's list student and a service-oriented citizen who has volunteered for seemingly every cause imaginable: leading Bible studies, participating in after-school programs in Boston, organizing food and clothing drives, and working at a Christian hockey camp in Gloucester through Hockey Ministries International.
Through it all, she compiled 23 points during her four seasons while remaining on the dean's list every year. Nursing majors, according to Shindul-Rothschild, are required to work 18 hours per week in local hospitals from sophomore through senior year. Carlson has worked a nine-hour shift on Tuesdays at Children's Hospital and a nine-hour rotation at Belmont's McLean Hospital on Thursdays.
"On Monday morning for a three-hour lecture, she's the first one in and in the first row at 9 a.m.," said Shindul-Rothschild. "She's never missed a beat."
The 21-year-old, who has applied to BC's graduate program in the Connell School of Nursing in hopes of obtaining her nurse practitioner's license, plans to go home for a visit before returning this summer to work at the Gloucester hockey camp. Yesterday at Nationwide Arena, where the trophy was presented along with the Hobey Baker Award, Carlson shook scores of hands and posed for dozens of pictures with fans and players.
The father of a Colorado College player joked that he'd like his son to marry her. Carlson, who said her love for God inspires her to share that love with others, laughed and gave him a smile instead. Giving has always been part of her nature. 