Female Career Achievement Award: Jillian Dempsey

To succeed in the Harvard women’s ice hockey locker room, one must be willing to put the team in front of all else. “Team First,” we call it. Understanding the immense commitment we make to the University, as well as the other players and coaches, is what allows us to come together as a team year after year. My friend and teammate Jillian Dempsey epitomized what it meant to play for the “H” on the front of our jerseys over the last four years.

A truly special hockey player, “Demps,” as she’s commonly known, made it look easy to go the extra mile every single day. A small percentage of players possess her combination of speed and skill, but even fewer can say they are as passionate about the game as Jillian Dempsey.

Her love of hockey produced a child-like joy on the ice, and its effect on the team proved to be invaluable this winter. Without her hard work and dedication setting an example, we may not have earned a berth in the NCAA tournament.

Without knowing it, Jillian summarized her illustrious career via Twitter (@JilliantDempsey) just hours before the last game of our college careers together. Referring to our NCAA quarterfinal matchup against a favored Boston College squad, Demps tweeted, “But what the odds don’t know is this isn’t a math test. This is a completely different kind of test.” As the famous phrase goes on to say, but for which Twitter’s 140 characters did not allow her to add, this is a test “where passion has a funny way of trumping logic.”

To me and the rest of her teammates, that last stanza defined our number 14 for the past four seasons. Passion does have a funny way of trumping logic. We all witnessed passion running circles (and stadiums) around logic on a daily basis.

Logically speaking, the slender kid from Winthrop, Mass., shouldn’t have been able to put up 148 points (76 goals, 72 assists) in 129 career outings. If hockey was about logic, she shouldn’t have been a point-per-game player for the latter half of her career. It’s not logical that she finished among the top ten all-time scorers at Harvard—a group filled with several program legends and past Olympians.

What exactly is so illogical about Dempsey’s career numbers? At 5’4”, she constantly found herself battling against bigger individuals. Common sense says someone with her frame would constantly be dogged by questions about physical strength.

Dempsey emphatically answered any of those questions by showing up night-in and night-out and producing as one of the most effective all-around forwards in the country. That consistency and drive all stems from her passion for the game and for Harvard Hockey. She’s the only person shooting pucks at Bright Hockey Center on the morning of Christmas Eve.

She’s passionate about hard work and pushing her physical limits in the weight room and on the ice. And that is why, as teammates who have had the privilege to see her sheer determination to prove logic wrong on a daily basis, none of us were surprised to see her garner All-ECAC and All-Ivy recognitions for four straight years, earn back-to-back nods as a finalist for ECAC Player of the Year, and be recognized her senior year as one of 10 finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Award given annually to the top player in Division I women’s ice hockey. None of us were surprised, because we’ve seen firsthand how passion trumps logic.

The laundry list of accolades Jillian racked up at Harvard are well deserved. She defines consistency and was our “go-to” player in tight situations. She’s a huge reason the last four years have included a Beanpot championship, an Ivy League title and a pair of appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

While her stats are a big part of her legacy at Harvard, it’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as her long-term impact goes. That impact won’t come from gaudy point totals, but rather the example she set for nearly half a decade. Most star players avoid blocking shots, playing responsible defense, and hustling back to the bench between shifts.

Demps did all of that because she never lost sight of her commitment to Harvard University and to its hockey program. She had an insatiable appetite to perform better no matter how well she played, and, as her teammates, we couldn’t help but to be inspired and to follow her lead. I speak for all of us when I say it was an honor to be her teammate. Jillian Dempsey’s days in a Harvard sweater may be over, but her presence in the program will be felt for years to come.

Bellamy co-captained the team with Dempsey this season. As a senior goalkeeper, Bellamy was first in the nation in goals against average.