HOCKEY ALMOST DIDN’T HAPPEN for Maeve Carey. George, her father, had coached her older brother Georgie in the sport for more than a decade. He knew the “business” of the sport and didn’t want his youngest child in it. Plus, Carey was thriving playing basketball and soccer.
So she had to force her father’s hand.
“She said, ‘If you don’t give me a chance to try hockey, I’m going to quit my other sports,’” George said. “I was like, ‘There’s a nine-year-old girl challenging me.’”
Reluctantly, he signed Carey up for Learn to Skate. When she started, she was the worst skater on the ice, according to George. But, months later, when the class concluded, Carey was the best.
“I had never felt this way for another sport,” Carey said. “I had never felt the way I felt when I got on the ice.”
That’s who Carey is. She’s fierce, she’s determined, and she’s not afraid to voice an opinion. Her head coach at Boston University, Tara Watchorn, remembers being “deathly afraid” of her during the recruiting process when Watchorn was at Stonehill. BU senior defender Maeve Kelly notes she has an “intimidating presence about her.” That’s what’s fueled her to where she is today.
After playing her first two collegiate seasons with the Skyhawks, Carey entered the transfer portal with one place in mind — BU. Having grown up in Gloucester, Mass., BU had been a dream school for her. Playing in the Beanpot and in Hockey East were always goals.
“When that opportunity was available to me, I knew for everything I had to take it. I couldn’t even second guess about it,” she said.
It didn’t take long for Carey to feel at home at BU, given her familiarity with Watchorn and assistant coach Megan Myers from the trio’s time at Stonehill, but still, there were nerves. She felt like a freshman all over again. She came in, put her head down, and got to work. That didn’t go unnoticed.
“She was open to anything and everything, she was just so mature, and the way she went about everything, she carried herself immensely well,” Kelly said. “That is such a nerve-wracking thing, coming into a completely new environment.”
Her presence from the get-go at BU wasn’t surprising to Watchorn and Myers. Carey is a person and a player who’s respected by her teammates. She came into last season and “ran with the team culture,” Myers said. Carey will have fun with the team, but when push comes to shove, she’ll get down to it.
“You should see her in the gym,” Myers added. “She’s an animal. Off the ice, she pushes everyone to be better.”
Flash forward 13 years, and Carey’s ultimatum to her father has proved worth it. Now she’s the captain of the Boston University women’s hockey team.
THE WAY CAREY IS off the ice is exactly the way she is on it. In fact, she had to tone her aggressiveness down when she arrived at BU.
In her last season as a Skyhawk, Carey totaled 71 penalty minutes, good for the second-highest mark in the country. Myers went as far as to say that she was “kind of a hothead.”
Carey was honest with herself that as a younger player, she was the type to “get angry with my own play and then take that out on others.” She took time to reflect inward and to work on herself.
“That would lead to my penalties at Stonehill, but here at BU, the first time I got a penalty, I was so anxious in the box, like I felt so bad for my teammates,” she said.
Carey knew she had to find a balance between staying aggressive and physical and staying out of the penalty box. It wasn’t easy, but she found that balance. She recorded only 14 penalty minutes in 32 games last season.
She tallied only six points in her first year as a Terrier, but she became more confident in her play as the season progressed. Her breakout game came against Providence on Feb. 8, when she scored her first goal at BU and recorded an assist. She was gaining confidence game after game, and the results were a reflection of that confidence.
“She was just learning to trust herself and to trust her game,” former assistant coach Reagan Rust said.
Two games later, against New Hampshire on Feb. 15 — in the heat of the race for the Hockey East regular season title and BU’s best season in a decade — Carey tore her MCL and PCL, ending her season.
It was the first major injury of her athletic career. Carey coined it as “one of the hardest things I have dealt with as an athlete.”
“She’s a kid that just does not cry. When you’re hurt in hockey, you get up, and she wasn’t,” George said. “I think she was more scared than hurt, to be quite honest with you.”
Carey credits her coaches and teammates for being there for her during the rehabilitation process. Even though she physically couldn’t be with the team on the ice, she was still present every day. She mentioned that watching BU win the Hockey East championship against Northeastern was “just as sweet, whether you’re on or off the ice.”
But don’t let her fool you; she wanted to be out on the ice battling with her teammates “very badly.”
As of September, Carey is back on the ice, “fully 100 percent.” She isn’t conscious of the injury, and she’s itching to play.
ON JULY 7, BU announced that Carey would captain the Terriers for the 2025-26 season. She’s the first transfer to be named captain since Rust in 2018-19 and the fifth in program history.
“It’s just such a huge honor, especially following in the footsteps of so many great leaders here at BU,” she said. “I don’t even know how to put it into words.”
Carey says she’s a “do as I do, not as I say” type of leader. She enjoys grinding “in the trenches” with her teammates and has a team-first mindset. Kelly says that Carey is someone you want to talk to because she has a “warm, welcoming presence” about her.
“The way she carries herself off the ice, in the gym, and on the ice is just like, you want to be like her,” Kelly said. “She’s so intense, she works so hard. She’s someone that the team can look up to.”
Kelly adds that Carey is super honest, but in a way that doesn’t hurt her teammates’ feelings. She connects with them on a personal level. “She’s a great listener, and she really tries to get to know people for who they are as a person.”
This iteration of the BU women’s hockey team is much different from the last. The Terriers lost 10 seniors and graduate students and added 10 freshmen and transfers, but Carey has the group “dialed in” and ready to roll.
It’s been a whirlwind hockey journey for Carey. She didn’t even start skating until age nine. She lost the MIAA Division 1 state championship as a freshman at Austin Prep, then won it as a senior after a year at Cushing Academy in between. From there, she spent two seasons at Stonehill before transferring to her dream school, where she helped capture BU’s first league title in a decade — all while rehabbing from her first major injury. Now in her final year in college, she’ll captain the Terriers as they look to repeat as Hockey East champions.
George describes his daughter’s journey up to be named captain as a “fairyland story.”
“She’s going to be the captain of the BU women’s hockey team. It doesn’t get it any better than that. It’s very, very special. I’m very proud of her. A lot of responsibility comes with that, and she’s aware of it, and she’s ready to take it on,” George said.
Editor’s note: This story is part of the Daily Free Press’ annual Hockey Issue. Physical copies are available around campus starting Friday, October 3rd and will be handed out at both the men’s and women’s home openers.
