Boston College in the 2014 Winter Olympics
By Joe Micik
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
In a matter of days, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will begin, and Boston College will have a handful of representatives taking part as they have in the past.
Not surprisingly, all of those taking part in the Olympiad are going to do so for the United States and in ice hockey. Boston College is a mass producer of talent in the latter, located in a city that could claim to be the unofficial capital of college hockey.
In total, four Boston college folks are going to Russia for the games.
Brooks Orpik (men’s ice hockey). Orpik spent three years playing for Jerry York on the Heights, and was part of the team that won the 2001 national championship. He has spent his entire 14-year professional hockey career within the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, where he is teammates with a number of recent former Eagles. Orpik won the silver at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Molly Schaus (women’s ice hockey). Schaus has extensive international playing experience, and this will be her second Olympiad. She was at Boston College from 2006 to 2011, missing a season towards the end to compete internationally. Schaus won the silver at Vancouver in 2010, but she has three world championships under her belt since 2008. She is considered by many to be one of the best women’s hockey players to ever come through the Eagles program. Currently, she is the goaltending coach at UMass-Boston.
Kelli Stack (women’s ice hockey). Stack and Schaus were together in Vancouver in 2010, winning the silver medal. They were also teammates at Boston College for several years, and like Schaus, Stack has three world championships to her credit. At present, she is on the roster for the Boston Blades, a women’s professional hockey team which has a number of former Boston College Eagles on it.
Alex Carpenter (women’s ice hockey). Carpenter is the only first-timer out of the Eagles’ four going to Sochi. She is a junior currently on the Boston College women’s hockey team, but like the other ladies on the list, she is no stranger to the international hockey circuit. Carpenter won gold in the 2011 Women’s World Juniors in Sweden, and was on the 2013 women’s world championship team in Canada. Her father is former Boston Bruin Bobby Carpenter.