My name is Kendall Coyne and I am very fortunate to be a Double Husky (B.A.’15 & M.S. ’17) and a member of Team USA! My journey on Huntington Avenue began back in 2011 and on October 25th, I’ll be returning to Boston to compete against Team Canada in the women’s ice hockey Olympic Tour.
As a student athlete, my first two years at Northeastern were mostly spent on the corner of St. Botolph and Gainsborough – i.e., Matthews Arena. In 2013, the summer after my sophomore year, I was invited to try out for Team USA. I made it! I ended up taking a gap year between my sophomore and junior years to train full-time and compete in my first Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. After a heartbreaking loss to Team Canada, we took home a silver medal.
After the Olympics, I returned home to Palos Heights, Illinois to complete my dream co-op with the Chicago Blackhawks media relations team. The most eye-opening part to the job was to see the other side of sports. It really made me appreciate playing the game that much more. After six months at home, I was so reinvigorated to get back to Huntington Avenue. My perspective on my Northeastern journey had changed. Returning for my junior year, I quickly realized in order to be the best version of myself, I needed to be able to do a lot more than put a hockey puck in the back of the net.
After graduating early in the winter of 2015, I began working on my master’s degree in corporate and organizational communication. Since I was still competing on the hockey team at Northeastern, I was able to take some graduate courses on campus. I didn’t think much of the transition from undergraduate to graduate courses since I only had a couple weeks off of school in between. Boy, was I in for a change!
One of the best parts about the master’s program at Northeastern was learning from the experiences of others. I was usually one of the students in class with the least workplace experience. However, I quickly realized how my team sports background aided my coursework in communications. My master’s courses taught me how important communication is in every aspect of an organization.
In today’s world, there are so many different ways to communicate: As trained communicators, our job is to craft compelling messages and deliver them through the most effective channels. For instance, in my final capstone project, I analyzed Nike’s website. Through my research, I realized that every single detail on the website helped the company reach its customers. Just for fun, check out your favorite website and see if you can find the communication strategies behind their design. It is fascinating. All in all, I finished my master’s program with the knowledge and experience to communicate more effectively on and off the ice.
After seven years of ‘bleeding red and black,’ my time as a Husky has officially closed. I walked across the stage this past May and received my master’s degree. It could not have been more fitting to walk across the stage at my favorite place on campus, Matthews Arena!
A lot has happened since graduation. This past September, my teammates and I moved to Wesley Chapel, Florida to train full-time for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. We are working hard to bring back home a gold medal. The United States has not won gold in women’s ice hockey since 1998.
I am so excited that our training will be bringing us to BOSTON! We are opening up our Olympic Tour in the United States in Boston against Team Canada on October 25th. While I am a little disappointed the game is at that other Boston school, (you know, the one down the street), you can get tickets here.
In closing, as a team we take pride by saying, “the Olympics are not every four years, they are everyday.” This is the commitment level that is required for all of us to be at our best when we compete for Team USA. However, the Olympic tour is only every four years. Don’t miss your opportunity to see the best women’s ice hockey players in the world, in our Northeastern backyard.
Thank you for the support! Go Huskies! Go Team USA!
Posted by Kendall Coyne, CPS’17