Ottawa's Brooke Mulvihill is headed to St. Lawrence University in the NCAA next season. She reflects on how she got to this point.
Ottawa's Brooke Mulvihill is headed to St. Lawrence University in the NCAA next season. She reflects on how she got to this point.
For many athletes, their origin story begins with seeing how fast paced the sport is, how much fun it appears to be, or that they wanted to be like their older siblings. For Ottawa, Ontario native Brooke Mulvihill, hockey wasn’t something that she was particularly drawn to at first, despite the sport running in the family.
“Yeah. For me, I kind of started playing hockey because all my friends were playing hockey,” she said. “I honestly, when I started, I didn't want to start, but then my friends were all going on and I was like, ‘I can't miss out on this!’ Then I kind of just went on the ice and it was really, really fun.”
That connection between hockey, family and her friendships helped to kickstart a career which has lead to the opportunity to play in front of family and friends with the Ottawa Lady Senators.
“It's been great. I know lots of girls have to move around to play at the level they want to play at,” said Mulvihill. “Just getting to live at home and be with my family still, while playing pretty good level hockey, it's just been really great for me.”
Mulvihill is entering her final season with the aforementioned Ottawa Lady Senators and has enjoyed an incredible junior career. This season alone she has 24 points in 22 games, a 1.09 PPG average, good for 12th in the entire OWHL. She’s a dynamic skater, with deceptive speed and an electric wrist shot and is a threat on every shift. One aspect of her game in particular that makes her so amazing to watch is that she can score in all situations. Powerplay? Yeah, she already has 3 goals there. Short handed? 2 goals in that department. What about game winning goals? Yup, 5 game winning goals on the season.
As Mulvihill prepares to head off to St. Lawrence University, the importance of maintaining those connections with family continues to drive her. Throughout her career, she’s had the opportunity to play alongside her sister Jordan, as well as being coached by her father, Clarkson University grad and ECHL centre Dana Mulvihill.
“So my dad has coached me since I was younger,” she recalled. “He has so much knowledge when it comes to hockey. So it's really good to learn from him. And obviously, family is really important to me.”
Having the opportunity to continue her career and still be close to friends and family was an important factor in her decision to attend St. Lawrence. “Playing close to home for college was also really important to me,” she said. “And SLU is like only about like an hour away from Ottawa, which was like kind of a plus when I decided to go there for school.”
Though hockey wasn’t necessarily the trajectory Brooke Mulvihill saw herself taking when she was younger, the knowledge instilled by her father, the excitement of playing alongside her sister, combined with the desire to be around her friends, created a passion for hockey which will take her from Ottawa, Ontario to New York and beyond.