'This has been our life.' How five graduate seniors helped transform Ohio State women's hockey

Sophie Jaques knew exactly what was coming.

The stage was set for the Ohio State women’s hockey graduate senior defenseman, watching teammate Emma Maltais skate up for a faceoff with less than a minute left in overtime against Wisconsin. Jaques knew Maltais would win the faceoff, quickly getting the puck with Paetyn Levis on the outside, boxing out Badger defenders.

With a combined 16 years of collegiate experience on the ice, Ohio State needed a moment, a tone-setter in the team’s first game of 2023 to begin a final stretch in the Buckeyes’ attempt to repeat as national champions.

Maltais, Levis and Jaques knew the pressure. They knew the stakes. They had been there before.

Nothing needed to be said. They knew what it took to win in those final 36 seconds.

After Maltais won the faceoff and a lane was cleared by Levis, Jaques fired the puck past the Wisconsin keeper, igniting pandemonium, reminding the Badgers and everyone else at the rink who the No. 1 team in the country was.

To coach Nadine Muzerall, this is what separates Ohio State. It’s why the Buckeyes go into each game with a chip on their shoulder to live up to the expectation a No. 1 ranking holds, but with a swagger that there’s no other team worthy of that ranking. She has a roster of players with championship experience.

“At the end of the day, man for man, roster for roster, what’s going to separate is going to be the leadership and how healthy our culture is and how we truly are a unified front,” Muzerall said.

Ohio State’s culture has been in a building process over the past seven years, reaching the mountaintop with a 2022 national championship led by a team filled with seniors.

In 2023, five players — Jaques, Maltais, Levis, Gabby Rosenthal and Madison Bizal — are aiming for a return to that peak one last time as “super seniors" not only for themselves, but to lay the foundation for success to continue after their time with the program is complete.

Ohio State grows into national women’s hockey powerhouse

A national championship was never really a part of Ohio State’s recruiting pitch.

Rosenthal remembers a Buckeye coaching staff surrounding its message around the size and scope of the athletic department and school, using it to create a vision of what could be for a team that consistently finished around .500 and in the middle of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association without any experience in the NCAA Tournament.

But Rosenthal had a feeling about Ohio State, seeing a roster filled with players that looked and played like she did. To her, they were building blocks she felt she could be a part of.

“The type of players they had were really hard workers, really gritty players, and that was more what I was like,” Rosenthal said. “I wasn’t so talent-based. I really liked that aspect of just working hard and really trying to improve yourself every day.”

Progress was made before Rosenthal, Levis, Jaques and Bizal stepped onto campus, watching as their future team reached 24 wins in its second season under Muzerall with Maltais, a star freshman forward.

Jaques bought into the development process, finding an example to follow from the moment she arrived on campus in defenseman Jincy Dunne, an All-American who blossomed across five seasons into a team captain and two-time WCHA Defensive Player of the Year.

“Just dedication and hard work every day,” Jaques said on what she learned from Dunne. “Just making sure you’re giving it your best effort … and caring just as much about your teammates as yourself, and wanting everybody to do the best they can and contribute to this team.”

Dunne’s impact on the 2018 class proved to be a starting point for Ohio State, one that ignited an upward trajectory that started with missing the NCAA Tournament in 2019 and most recently ended with the program's first national championship and 89 wins across four seasons.

In 2021-22, Ohio State recorded its first 30-win season in school history, outscoring opponents 23-9 in the postseason and ending with a 3-2 national championship win against Minnesota Duluth.

This national championship was not why Rosenthal chose Ohio State in the first place. But after winning one, Rosenthal said the title is proof that what the Buckeyes did over the course of her five years works.

“I think it just shows us what we can do and what we’re capable of more than anything,” Rosenthal said. “I don’t think it really changes our foundation or anything of that hard-working mentality. It’s great and what you strive for. It’s not like a one-and-done thing really either. That’s what our goal is every single year. I’m just carrying that forward.”

‘I want to be on the team for it’

Maltais watched Ohio State’s first national championship run from afar.

She proved to be a key part in the Buckeyes’ rise to prominence from the moment she joined the team in 2017, helping lead Ohio State to its first Frozen Four run as a freshman before blossoming into a consistent All-WCHA player with two-straight seasons as a Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award top-10 finalist.

But heading into her fifth and final season, which culminated into a championship run, Maltais faced an opportunity she could not pass up.

She joined the Canadian Women’s National team for the 2021-22 season, where she won Olympic gold and an IIHF world championship.

Throughout her season away, Maltais continued to feel the love from her Ohio State teammates, remembering the entire team bussing to Pittsburgh to watch her first game with the national team, one she did not get much playing time in.

Maltais supported the Buckeyes too, watching them hoist their national championship trophy in University Park, Pennsylvania, while already knowing it was a “no-brainer” that she would return in 2022-23 to use her final season of eligibility.

But a return to Ohio State proved to be difficult for Maltais, who had to find her voice as a captain and a leader for a team that was returning two 50-point performers in Levis and Jaques.

“Coming back here and taking on that leadership role — my role on the national team vs. here — are a complete 360,” Maltais said. “Just adjusting to that role and really having to do so fairly quickly … having to be a captain, learning, again, what it’s like to be a captain but with all this prior experience being away from a team that had just won, finding where I stand in that and just listening more.

“Obviously they did something extremely right last year. Balancing not wanting to take away from that, but also wanting to be a part of it as well.”

It was a transition Maltais said Muzerall played a massive role in, reminding the sixth-year senior of the “greatness” of her choice to return to Ohio State as an Olympian and preaching how much of an impact she could make on those younger players in her final season in Columbus.

“When I was going through a bit of a rougher time in the beginning adjusting… that was the biggest thing she reminded me of like, ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ ” Maltais said. “‘And how do you want to remember Ohio State?’ ”

But as much as she enjoyed watching Ohio State’s run for a national title, it is something she wants to experience herself.

“I want to do it,” Maltais said. “I want to be on the team for it.”

Upperclassmen set tone for Ohio State women’s hockey future

Coming into the 2022 season with 18 upperclassmen and seven freshmen, the atmosphere on Ohio State's roster is not a traditional one. But it's a group of players, Rosenthal said, that has turned into one big family.

To her, it comes from the hard moments like the conditioning after a two-hour on-ice practice.

“It’s more just ‘OK, you’re not going to complain, you’re not going to talk about it,’ ” Rosenthal said. “‘You’re going to do the work and we’re all doing it together.’

“You look to your left, look to your right, everyone’s doing it at the same time.”

Maltais, a self-described extrovert, tried to set the tone, getting to know the freshmen on the team early. But it didn't take long before they bought into the same expectation that the older players had of Maltais when she was a first-year player.

“That is where our culture stems from: our expectations of one another, how we all always have each other’s backs,” Maltais said. “But also Muzzy demands excellence and we demand excellence of each other.”

Ohio State will try to continue that excellence as it tries to hit stride with five weekends left in the regular season, starting with a home sweep against Wisconsin: earning the one-goal overtime win against the Badgers before a 5-0 drubbing, including a three-goal performance by Levis.

“Everyone has their own role on the team,” Bizal said. “But we’re all striving to be the best we can be. I think everyone has that mindset of ‘We want to be the best,’ and we’re working for that.”

To the upperclassmen, the freshmen are no longer freshmen, but experienced players who have significant roles to play.

And Levis makes that message clear to the younger class every chance she has.

“We always tell them, ‘You’re here for a reason,’ ” Levis said. “ ‘Trust yourself. Bet on yourself and everyone behind you has your back.’ ”

Ohio State ‘super seniors’ plant legacy

Ohio State’s five graduate seniors are confident that their legacy will be upheld when their college careers are complete. But that’s not something they are ready to face.

Levis, Bizal, Rosenthal and Jaques started their freshman seasons together and have been rooming together since they arrived.

What’s next is something Levis can’t talk about without getting emotional.

The four roommates, along with Maltais, who has always considered herself a part of their class, are best friends. They are all so different, but get along so well. They are happy for one another’s successes and able to push one another to be better.

What Levis is slowly realizing is that the phrase, “It goes by so fast,” is now her reality.

“We were just talking about it in our apartment the other night,” Levis said. “We’re like, ‘What are we going to do next?’ Sophie’s like, ‘Should I be looking for jobs? What do I need to do?’ It was just so sad.

“This has been our life.”

Each player continued to navigate what that legacy will look like.

To Maltais, her hockey legacy speaks for itself, and instead focuses on how she will be remembered as a person.

To Rosenthal, legacy was something she considered from the moment she arrived on campus with the goal of wanting to leave the program better than it was.

To Jaques, it never mattered if she was on the scoring end of a game-winning goal against Wisconsin.

All Jaques wants to do is what she has tried to be over the course of her five years: a good hockey player and a great teammate.

“Just trying to make the best of it, obviously doing the best I can,” Jaques said. “But if things aren’t going my way, (I’m) not going to let that hinder my experience here and enjoy the rest of my time.”

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State women's hockey graduate seniors help lay team foundation