Ben Smith, head coach of the first three U.S. Olympic Women’s Ice Hockey Teams, came up with a unique comparison for Tara Mounsey. He recalled a line about the fictional character Roy Hobbs in the movie “The Natural” when talking about Mounsey, who played defense on the first two teams.

“She can walk down the street, and people can say ‘This the best there ever was,’” Smith said. “And it was that competitiveness and that fierceness that gave the U.S. team the backbone to go against Canada.”

Her presence and her play are some of the reasons Mounsey is going into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame this year on Dec. 10 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Joining her in the Class of 2025 are photographer Bruce Bennett and players Scott Gomez, Zach Parise and Joe Pavelski. The late executive Ray Shero will also be honored as the Lester Patrick Trophy winner. 

In her two Olympic appearances, Mounsey recorded two goals and 11 assists, including both goals and four helpers in the 1998 Nagano Olympics, where women’s hockey debuted and the U.S. beat Canada 3-1 in the gold-medal game. 

Mounsey was the anchor of a defense that allowed a mere eight goals in six games in ‘98. At the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, the U.S. allowed just four goals in five games, earning a silver medal. Mounsey’s seven assists led the tournament that year. She also gained silver medals at the 1997 and 1999 IIHF Women’s World Championships.

Mounsey is the sixth member of the 1998 team to be individually elected to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. The entire 1998 team entered the Hall in 2009.

“I guess you have to say she’s the fiercest competitor that women’s hockey has had in the United States,” Smith said. “To me, that’s what separates her from everybody else. She’s better than anybody we’ve ever had.”

What made Mounsey an indispensable player was her athleticism and her intensity. Mounsey played on the Concord High School boys’ team in her hometown in New Hampshire and became the first female to be named the state’s Player of the Year in 1996 as she captained the team to the state championship. 

She then went to Brown, where she had a standout career that included being a finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as a senior. Mounsey also played field hockey her last two years at Brown and finished her career as the leader in points and goals in school history.

“If you look at that ‘98 team at some point in time, a majority of us, if not all of us, played with the boys,” said Karyn Bye, a 2014 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame inductee who was the alternate captain in 1998. “Once you do that, as a female playing with the boys, you have to have that extra grit, that extra determination, that extra drive to prove that you belong there. And Mounsey has that drive, no question about it. When she steps onto the ice, you don’t want to be in her way. She had one heck of a shot and, just as far as being able to stop anybody coming down on her one-on-one, she was pretty challenging to get around.”

Mounsey was more of a quiet leader on those Olympic teams, letting her performance speak. But she also was able to spot when players needed a little pick-me-up.

“If you scored a goal, she was one of the first ones to come and congratulate you,” Bye said. “If you were having a bad day, she’d give you a little stick tap and say, ‘Hey, let’s go.’ And that’s just the kind of player and person Mounsey is and will always be.”

Before the 1998 Olympics, the U.S. and Canada played 13 exhibitions against one another, with the Canadians having a 7-6 edge. In one game that helped the U.S. have the confidence needed for Nagano, Mounsey scored the overtime winner.

“Then we met them in the round robin and we beat them [7-4] and then we played them in the finals and beat them again, not only winning the gold medal, but to win the series 8-7, which I thought was really important,” Smith said. “A lot of that was on the intensity that she brought and the shoulders that she helped carry us on.”

Mounsey wasn’t all intensity. She would play practical jokes on her teammates. She could also take a joke. With the team in Lake Placid, New York, Mounsey was at a movie when Bye put a for sale sign on her car.

“She came out of the movie theater and laughed so hard,” Bye recalled.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

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