US field hockey is back at the Olympics, thanks to players like Duxbury's Ally Hammel

Hockey runs in the Hammel family. Her mother, Jennifer, the athletic director at West Bridgewater, played at UConn. Ally Hammel was a multi-sport athlete at Duxbury High, where she earned honors in field hockey and ice hockey before taking a post-graduate year at Loomis Chaffee.

She joined the BU field hockey team as a forward, scoring seven goals and an assist during her rookie year. After the season, coaches Sally Starr and Tracey Paul had an idea.

We really felt like she could be an excellent defender, Starr recalled. She was open to that conversation.

I used the analogy that in hockey she was more of a defensive player, a defender. The way she said, okay, if you think that's where I'll be the best for the team, then that's where I'll play, was memorable.

Starr said that in her 42 years as a college field hockey coach, it's extremely rare that she makes such a request of a player. But Hammel went along with it, and it changed her career.

She finished her college career as a two-time Patriot League Defender of the Year, the league Title Game MVP and a two-time NFHCA First Team All-American. The switch worked, and Hammel attributes her success on the U.S. team to her time at both positions.

It helped me develop different skills, Hammel said. I pushed myself to be a player who can come out of any situation.

The sport is popular in the US, including Massachusetts. Forty years ago, the US won its first and only Olympic medal in the sport: bronze, with players Beth Anders, Leslie Milne and Judy Strong from Massachusetts.

The Netherlands, Australia and Germany have had the most success at the Olympics, while the US still has that one medal from 1984. The Americans were at a low point in 2022.

There were a lot of changes in the program and we missed one Olympic cycle, said Starr, a former player and coach of the national team. We were kind of limping along until they hired Dave Passmore.

Passmore, a former coach of the Irish and British teams, was hired in October 2022, coming on board at the same time that the U.S. program was centralizing players in Charlotte, N.C. He found a national team where few players were dedicating themselves to the sport after college. He had to turn that around and make hockey as much of a full-time occupation as possible for the players, allowing them to train and play together often.

Over the past five years, the US has had a selection in the FIH Pro Leaguegiving players more opportunities to compete internationally than ever before.

We have so many skilled players, but we were and still are a young team in terms of international matches played, Hammel said. Playing in the FIH Pro League for the past five years has given us the opportunity to play against the best teams and players in the world. Every match we learn something new about ourselves and our team as a whole.

“Hiring Passmore has just been huge for our country,” Starr said. “Having a group of athletes who are willing to make the kind of commitment that Ally Hammel just made, living in Charlotte and training together. Their conditioning has improved, their culture has improved, their hockey has improved.

While the changes were clear, many still doubted the US's chances of qualifying for this year's Olympics.

According to Starr, the teams themselves were probably the only ones who really felt they had a chance to make it to the Olympic qualifying event.

The US's surprise run at FIH qualifying in India in January included victories over three higher-ranked teams, including a semi-final comeback against Japan that secured an Olympic berth. Hammel's eye-catching defence of a Japanese corner was one of the key plays of the match.

“We have been successful because of our game management,” Hammel said. “We were not perfect and sometimes did not play to our potential, but our preparation and how we played in key moments throughout the tournament allowed us to achieve our goal of qualifying.”

Two weeks ago, the official team was named; it was skewed toward older, with only four current college players. It has become clear that USA Field Hockey believes that older players, not current college players or coaches, are the ticket to putting the program back on the map. Preparations are well underway for the team’s July 27 opener against Argentina, the reigning Olympic silver medalist.

Hammel and her teammates, however, are not thinking about the struggles of the past years. Their sights are always on the next three seconds.

What happened in the past or what might happen in the future may be beyond our control, Hammel said. We can influence what might happen by staying in the present moment and focusing on what is immediately in front of us.

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Kat Cornetta can be reached at [email protected].