Sky’s limit for NU’s Fontaine
Speedy blue-liner leads Huskies into battle
Skylar Fontaine remembers the day all too well last March.
Her Northeastern Huskies hockey team had earned a spot in the NCAA tournament. They finished at 24-3 and, with Princeton awaiting them in the quarterfinals, the Huskies had every right to believe they had as good a chance as anyone to win the program’s first national title.
But COVID-19 pandemic hit in a hurry. Cancellations were happening. The players were getting all sorts of conflicting information until finally, just prior to a scheduled mid-week practice, they got a text saying that the coaching staff was coming into the locker room shortly.
Then they got the news. Season over.
“It was hard on everyone, but it was especially hard on the seniors and my heart goes out to them,” said Fontaine, the Huskies’ standout defenseman, now a senior herself. “Everyone had each others’ backs in the locker room that day and I’ll probably never forget how that day transpired.”
And it is with that disheartening memory that Fontaine and her fellow Huskies begin their quest to finish what they started last year. The No. 2-ranked Huskies, after having their initial season-opening weekend postponed, are scheduled to play their first game in nine months when they take on 10th-ranked Boston College on Friday at Kelley Rink (2 p.m.). With Fontaine anchoring the blue line, senior goalie Aerin Frankel between the pipes and junior forward Alina Mueller leading the attack, NU is the topranked team in Hockey East.
Now they get the chance to show just how good they are, something that were denied last March.
“It was definitely heartbreaking, especially for our three seniors last year. It definitely is a driving factor for our team this year,” said Fontaine. “We definitely want to play well and hopefully get to that same position and prove ourselves because we never even got a chance to play. I think that’s one of our goals. We don’t really know how things are going to work out, so right now we’re just focusing on the here and now. And if we get there, we get there, but it is a very big driving factor for our team this year.”
The East Greenwich, R.I., native is looking to cap off what has already been a terrific collegiate career. She has been a Hockey East first team All-Star for two years and was voted Hockey East’s best defenseman last year, when she had the second most points by a defenseman in the NCAA (17-25-42) and was tied for the best plus/minus (plus-49).
While coach Dave Flint said Fontaine has made great strides in the defensive side of the game, it is her speed and ability to create offense that sets her apart. She can lead an attack and then be the first player back on defense.
“The thing with her speed is that it’s deceptive. It doesn’t look like she’s flying and then the next thing, she’s by you. It’s like she’s shot out of a cannon,” said Flint. “She creates so many opportunities through the course of a game. She just blows by defensemen on the outside. It’s like have a fourth forward.”
Athletics are in Fontaine’s blood. Her grandfather Norman Tancrell played baseball at Providence College and her mother, Deborah Tancrell, played softball at Slippery Rock while her father, John Fontaine, played soccer. Her older sister Alex played hockey at Union College. And now it’s a family affair at NU, with her young brother, Gunnar — a seventh round pick of Nashville Predators in October — now a freshman on the NU men’s team.
“It’s cool to be able to go into the rink and see him every day when we’re in passing,” said Fontaine of her younger brother. “I don’t get to spend much time with him because of the COVID protocols, but whenever I get to see him it’s really cool. We have mutual friends and I’m excited to see him play.”
She grew up playing with and against boys, playing her freshman and sophomore years on the boys team at East Greenwich High before moving on to play for the Belle Tire girls team in Michigan. At 5-foot-4, playing against the boys was getting a bit dangerous, she said, and, besides, her collegiate future was in women’s hockey, not men’s. But she took plenty of value from the experience.
“I absolutely loved it. I think it made me the person and player I am today,” she said. “I think my speed and the way I see the ice comes from my time playing with the boys, because they were very fast and very quick when we were younger. It was great to see that when I played in the league that there were some other girls and were just as good and kept up. It was just a very different experience and I think that experience makes up part of the player I am today.”
She also picked up a thick skin during that time.
“Playing against the boys, they’d kind of chirp me and come after me, so I think my mental toughness definitely comes from playing with the boys team,” said Fontaine. “And I think my speed came from playing in the men’s league and transferring over into the women’s league that were also equally as fast.”
A criminal justice major, Fontaine aspires to be a lawyer someday. At the top of her goals, the target she’s been aiming for since she was a kid has been the 2022 Olympics. She played for Team USA in the U-22 tournament in August and has attended other national team camps.
But if the pandemic has taught her anything, it is to focus on the here and now. And on Friday she and her fellow Huskies get to re-start the mission that was sidetracked last March.
“I definitely feel we have a strong group again this year,” said Fontaine. I’m confident in the way we’ve been playing. I’m excited to see what we’ve been working on in practice transfer into a game. Hopefully we continue our successes from last year and make some new ones and continue to grow as a program.”