Beaudry First Practice
Junior defenseman Gabrielle Beaudry
On being on the inaugural team:
It’s really exciting, beyond words. When they put the sign up the other day, we were calling each other, telling each other to go check out the rink. The little things you took for granted at your last school are really exciting here. All the excitement from each and every one of us is special.
On what made her come to Syracuse:
Being from the Syracuse area and giving something new to the community and developing something were huge for me. There’s so much excitement around the city for this. No one really cares about women’s sports in other places. You hear about the basketball team and the soccer team all the time around Syracuse. It’s important to me that the community is excited for women’s sports around here.
On expectations for the season:
I think they are higher than people expect. We don’t just want to compete, we want to win. We also want to be respected. We want to be a respectful team to our opponents, do the right thing on the ice. We don’t expect to go out and win every game. But we expect to be good people on and off the ice.
On her transition from another school:
Sometimes it difficult. My friends call me and I miss them. But I love it here. I came here over the summer, got a couple of classes under my belt. People are treating me like a freshman when I walk around. I have to remind people that I know what it is like to be in college.
On Lucy Schoedel:
I played with Lucy growing up. We’ve gone through so much together. It’s so awesome to be together again and learn from each other and to be upperclassmen. We talked about playing together jokingly at first. When we had bad days, we’d tell each other we could go play at Syracuse. When one person did it, we decided we should. She brings intensity and heart. She can talk to anybody about anything. She’s the most intense person on and off the ice. She’s really easy going and great to be around.
On playing for Coach Flanagan:
It was a little scary at first to be honest. You want him to respect you and prove to him you deserve to be here. You want to give back to him what he gave to you in letting us come to Syracuse. We want to give him more wins as well.
On the process of coming to Syracuse:
I heard Coach Flanagan was going to be the coach and I already knew Syracuse, so I knew it couldn’t get better than that. It was the best of all options. Good coach, good school, good community, it was the right place to be.
On what fans can expect from the team:
We have great chemistry, great chemistry. We are going to be excited. We are not going to take any game for granted. Every game is going to be great to watch. We are going to be working hard every game. So they’ll have fun being a part of supporting us.
On how the team will adjust to Syracuse during the season:
It’s going to be hard for everyone to make the transition, transfers and freshmen, during the course of a season. We don’t have anyone who has played together for a long time as a unit. So we’ll develop that. We’ll be fine. We have plenty of hard workers on the team.
