When the U.S. meets Canada in the women’s gold medal hockey game at the Olympics on Thursday, one staculty member will be watching the game closely: Jackie Young.
Young, Marlborough’s interim associate director of communications and testing coordinator, played hockey competitively for about 20 years and now plays recreationally. When Young was a youth player, she won six Youth National Championships for ice hockey. She also played D1 hockey during her time at Boston College and also played for Team USA on the Under-18 (U-18) National Team.
At Boston College, Young won a Beanpot Championship, a prestigious hockey tournament hosted in Boston featuring the four major D1 teams in the area: Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University and Northeastern University. Young also appeared in the NCAA Frozen Four Tournament twice and won gold with Team USA at the Under-18 IIHF World Championships.
Young discussed how hockey is an important part of her identity.
“It is part of the fabric of my family and my friends,” Young said. “I made incredible lifelong friends and memories through hockey, and I am the person I am today because of the lessons I learned about hard work, commitment and being a team player.”
When asked about this year’s Olympics, Young was optimistic about the U.S. women’s national hockey team. It’s a team that she knows well, especially since she played with some of the members on Team USA’s roster.
“I played with Alex Carpenter at Boston College and Kendall Coyne [Schofield] was my teammate on the U-18 team in 2009,” Young said.
Young described how the 2026 Winter Olympics will be the first since the founding of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and the role the league has played in helping women’s hockey garner the recognition it deserves.
She also spoke about the rivalry between the U.S. and Canada’s women’s teams and how the Olympics tend to end in a face off between the two. Young said that there have been seven Winter Olympics since women’s hockey was incorporated into the list of events hosted, and that six of those seven Olympic finals games before the 2026 Games have ended in a face off between Team USA and Team Canada.
She explained that in 2025, Team USA and Team Canada met in the rivalry series ahead of the Olympics, and Team USA won all five games in the series. Young hopes that these victories will translate into a gold medal win for Team USA.
“I definitely think the U.S. women’s hockey team has a chance of winning gold,” Young said. “They have a lot of depth and a lot of experienced players leading the team.”
