{"id":132222,"date":"2026-02-13T07:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/132222\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T07:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:12:20","slug":"one-rochester-high-school-went-all-in-on-girls-hockey-now-its-fueling-the-u-s-womens-olympic-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/132222\/","title":{"rendered":"One Rochester high school went all in on girls hockey. Now it\u2019s fueling the U.S. women\u2019s Olympic team"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. women\u2019s Olympic hockey team had a 5-0 win over Canada this week, and for a group of teenage girls watching from a high school in Rochester, New York, the win was extra special.<\/p>\n

Bishop Kearney is a small Catholic School, not exactly the kind of place you\u2019d expect to be incubating Olympians. But eight former alums are playing Olympic hockey this year, including five out of 23 players for Team USA.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Girls hockey players at Bishop Kearney were let out of class early on Tuesday to watch the US-Canada game from their community room, where they were met with decorations and snacks. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday afternoon, the third-floor community room was filled with red, white and blue balloons, noisemakers and a large frosted cake that read \u201cGO TEAM USA,\u201d as members of the girls hockey program \u2014 called BK Selects \u2014 were let out of class early to watch the game.<\/p>\n

Each time the United States scored, the room erupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur dreams of being in the Olympics is really not that far off from these girls,\u201d said Addison Tremel, a senior forward from Seattle. \u201cThey paved the way for us, so now we get to watch them taking off and succeeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in 2016, as other parochial schools were struggling with enrollment and facing closures, Bishop Kearney went all in on girls hockey. They launched BK Selects, built dorms and recruited players across the country, a bet that seems to have paid off.<\/p>\n

Of the five goals scored against Canada Tuesday, three of them came from Bishop Kearney alums \u2013 Caroline \u201cKK\u201d Harvey, Kirsten Simms and Laila Edwards.<\/p>\n

\"Addison<\/p>\n

Addison Tremel and Erin Healy watch the United States vs. Canada women\u2019s Olympic hockey match with their teammates on Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at Bishop Kearney High School in Irondequoit.<\/p>\n

Team USA is currently undefeated, and for Bishop Kearney coaches, watching their former players succeed on the world\u2019s biggest stage has been surreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve certainly got patterns of their play and kind of their signature moves,\u201d said Chelsea Walkland, head coach of the under-19 team. \u201cIt\u2019s just got our athletes chomping at the bit and excited to see where they can take their own journeys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvey scored the opening goal for the US. Simms scored during a power play in the second period. Edwards added the final goal of the game.<\/p>\n

Edwards is also making history this year as the first Black woman to play for the U.S. women\u2019s Olympic hockey team, and the first to score a goal.<\/p>\n

For Chloe Brinson, a senior forward from Larchmont, New York, Edwards has been a role model on and off the ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just doesn\u2019t stop going,\u201d Brinson said. \u201cShe\u2019s always breaking records and trying out new things, and just adjusting super well to anything that might set her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chloe<\/p>\n

Players Chloe Brinson and Micayla Hunt are both committed to Division One schools \u2014 Princeton and Providence.<\/p>\n

Brinson said Edwards played a key role in her decision to attend Bishop Kearney. Before transferring, she was playing boys hockey in Larchmont, a predominantly white suburb outside New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the only girl on my boys team until I came here,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the first time I really played girls hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brinson said Edwards helped reassure her that Bishop Kearney would be a safe and welcoming place for her as a woman of color.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer experience and how she navigated that part and just having her as someone to look up to is really good,\u201d Brinson said.<\/p>\n

Girls hockey, coaches say, is now experiencing rapid growth nationwide. Youth programs are expanding, and the creation of the Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League has introduced a new long-term pathway that did not exist for previous generations.<\/p>\n

Jake Anderson, head coach of Bishop Kearney’s under-16 team, said he first realized the shift two years ago, when a student told him she aspired to play professionally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time I had ever heard that,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cHer response was, \u2018I want to play in the PWHL.\u2019 Now there’s a chance to potentially make a living after hockey. The dreams are bigger, the goals are bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Tremel, who is committed to Colgate University, and Brinson, who is headed to Princeton, that future feels tangible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were younger, we always wanted to be in the NHL,\u201d Tremel said. \u201cNow for all the younger girls coming up there\u2019s the PWHL.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a destination for us and that\u2019s so special.”<\/p>\n

The US-Canada game was preliminary, but still history-making. A 5-0 shutout.<\/p>\n

It also put Team USA in prime position for a gold medal run. The Americans, now 4-0, will face Italy in the quarterfinals Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. women\u2019s Olympic hockey team had a 5-0 win over Canada this week, and for a group…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-132222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}