A hockey life never truly ends
Olympian Brianne McLaughlin has taken off her pads, but now inspires dreams of others
Brianne McLaughlin continues her nearly lifelong love affair with hockey on the synthetic ice of her goalie coaching academy — a rectangular, chain-link cage on the second floor of the RMU Island Sports Center.
But now, for the first time since she was 5 years old, the former Robert Morris standout goalie no longer puts on the pads like she did en route to becoming the NCAA’s alltime career saves leader, a two-time Olympic silver medalist and the MVP of the National Women’s Hockey League’s (NWHL) 2017 playoffs.
Instead, McLaughlin has traded in her playing days for a coaching career, a decision she hopes will keep her close to the sport she loves for the foreseeable future.
“This is what I love to do. I love going to work every day,” said McLaughlin with a smile. “To completely eliminate hockey … I don’t think I could do that.”
To begin to understand McLaughlin’s longtime love of protecting the cage, it’s valuable to look back.
Back to when she – as a 4-year-old – persisted until she could play hockey with the boys after her mom, Susan McLaughlin, tried signing her up for ballet and figure skating instead.
Back to her middle and high school days, when McLaughlin willingly woke up at 5 a.m. for practice and sometimes even slept in her equipment.
Back to her college recruitment, when the chance to play for the expected-to-struggle, inaugural women’s hockey team at Robert Morris excited her because it meant ample chances in goal.
Susan described her daughter’s relationship to hockey simply: “It’s just her passion.”
Unsurprisingly, finally stepping away from that passion — a choice three years in the making — wasn’t an easy decision for McLaughlin. She planned to retire after the 2014 Olympics, before the U.S. women lost a gold-medal game heartbreaker against Canada.
“I just didn’t really want to take the gear off for the last time and be on the losing end,” McLaughlin said.
So McLaughlin planned to end her playing days a year later after, hopefully, a win-filled stint with the national team.
But after a year, she learned of an opportunity that was too good to pass up: a chance to play in the United States’ first professional women’s hockey league, something she and her teammates on the national team had wanted for a long time.
McLaughlin’s Buffalo Beauts lost to the heavily favored Boston Pride in the NWHL’s inaugural championship series and, just like after the Olympics in 2014, she decided she would play one more season to avoid having a career-ending bad taste in her mouth, before moving on to her full-time coaching gig.
Fast forward to this season’s NWHL championship game on March 19 and her third-seeded Beauts were matched up against the first-seeded Pride again. This time, McLaughlin didn’t just end her career on a high note — she finished with the self-proclaimed highlight of her career.
McLaughlin stopped 60 of the 62 shots the league’s best team sent her way, leading the Beauts to a 3-2 upset win and an Isobel Cup championship.
“It felt so good to leave with a smile on my face,” she said. “The last thing I wanted was to take off my equipment for the last time and be bummed. I didn’t even think about it being my last game. We were too busy celebrating. And the equipment came off and it was fine.”
For the last three weeks, the equipment has stayed off for McLaughlin, who joked that her husband, Logan Bittle, has stopped believing she’s going to retire.
But because his wife left the rink for the final time as a champion, Bittle now seems convinced.
“I can’t think of a better way to end a career than going out the way she went out,” the Robert Morris women’s hockey associate head coach said. “I think she’s finally done.”
With her playing days seemingly behind her, McLaughlin can now fully focus on a coaching career those who know her best believe will flourish.
The reasoning McLaughlin’s mom and husband, as well as her longtime trainer Jeremy Hoy, all cited? The same easy-going, yet highly driven personality that led to her success as a goalie.
“She’s very focused and willing to put in the necessary time and effort,” said Hoy, McLaughin’s trainer through her national team days. “But she also has this extremely loose side. It seemed like she’d just let things roll off her shoulders, which you have to be able to do as a goalie.”
Hoy believes that loose side, paired with the fact that McLaughlin was “one of the hardest workers I’ve had in 15 years of coaching” will enable her to “almost trick her kids into working hard.”
Aided by those qualities, McLaughlin’s fundamental desire to grow women’s hockey in the Pittsburgh area will make her a successful coach for a long time, Bittle said.
“She just loves the game,” he said. “That’s what made this such an easy transition, and that love is something she passes onto her kids.”
And now, in addition to her coaching career, McLaughlin can focus on life outside of hockey, having written a happy final chapter of her playing career.
“I want to do some things that I didn’t know I enjoyed … live a little bit,” said McLaughlin, adding she will probably start a family soon. “I don’t even know what it’s like to have a weekend because I haven’t had a free one since I was a kid. I’m excited to get caught up on being an adult.”
“It felt so good to leave with a smile on my face. The last thing I wanted was to take off my equipment for the last time and be bummed.” Brianne McLaughlin