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Hayley Moore is eighth on Brown's all-time scoring list. (David Silverman) |
Before she was anywhere close to being one of the top scorers in the history of women's hockey at Brown University, Hayley Moore was just a freshman, happy to be on the bench, let alone the team.
The Wakefield native was full of talent when the Bears recruited her out of Cushing Academy, but she was humble more than anything else. So when seniors talked about playing as hard as you can every game because you never know when it's going to end, she listened.
One of the players she looked up to most, Jessica Link, would always tell her, "Hold on to that freshman feeling, when everything's new and you're excited."
"Now being a senior," Moore said, "I really see from that perspective."
Moore recently joined Link as one of the program's top 10 scorers. She currently sits eighth on the all-time list with 130 points (68 goals, 62 assists). After just completing a New York road trip this past weekend, she'll play the final two games of her career at home this weekend in Providence, trying hard not to get lost in all the memories.
"Your perspective definitely changes over four years," said Moore, "but with four games left, I'm definitely trying to hold on and have as much fun as I can with my teammates right now."
Every conversation for the next week will carry that finality.
"We were talking about it today on the ice," said head coach Digit Murphy. "And I said, "Do you believe four years have gone by?' And she welled up a little bit. It is emotional."
It's been a blur even for Murphy, who recruited Moore out of Cushing four years ago, seeing her potential to be one of Brown's elite even then.
"How could you not," Murphy said of Moore, who was named Eastern Conference Athletic Conference Player of the Week on Monday after a five-point weekend against Quinnipiac and Princeton.
"She can just do incredible things with the puck. She's got really soft hands. She's got a really hard shot. You kind of look at her sometimes like 'Oh my God, that was a highlight reel move.' She's so crafty from the dots down with the puck. She's so much fun to watch."
The 5-foot-7 Moore entered the season with 105 points and currently leads the Bears in scoring with 25 points (12 goals, 13 assists), making a place for herself among the school's all-time leaders, including former Olympians like Becky Kellar, Kim Insalaco, Tara Mounsey, and Kathleen Kauth.
"She's joining an elite group of Brown women's hockey players that have really added a lot of credibility to our sport and to our team," Murphy said. "The kids that are in that top echelon are really the cornerstone of player that we've built our program around."
Murphy's more impressed because of the era Moore's playing in.
"In this day and age if you can be in our top 10 scoring, it's a pretty great thing because back in the day it was a much different game. You could get three or four goals a game. And now to see a kid in the 2000s getting that type of scoring production, you don't see that a lot."
Moore's most lasting memory is the Bears' run to the ECAC finals against Harvard her sophomore season. She scored two goals in a 4-3 loss to the Crimson.
"For a sophomore to lead the team in that kind of game, I think, was really one of her shining moments," Murphy said.
The past two seasons have been down years. The Bears were 4-17 at midweek and hadn't won since Jan. 18.
"We've had a young team and she's had to really lead a young squad and she's done an incredible job with that," Murphy said. "Right now she is everything from the key player on our power play to even one of our key penalty killers. What Hayley's had to do over the course of her four years is adjust her game to the needs of the team.
"As far as her impact on the program, it was that kind of give whatever it takes, but in a gracious and humble way."
There's a good chance Moore will play hockey after graduation, possibly in Canada, but right now she finds herself where she saw those seniors four years ago. And sooner or later, she'll be giving them the same speeches she heard.
"It's a run of emotions," Moore said. "I'm trying to hold onto everything."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
