Caroline Harvey wanted to become one of the world's best hockey players

Years before Caroline KK Harvey became an Olympic hockey player at the age of 19 and became the world's best defender at the age of 20 -she regularly hit the speed bag and the heavy bag.

Harveys early boxing training for some time around the age of 10-13, her father said a stint in Ramalhos West End Gym in Lowell, Massachusetts.

The facility was a setting for The Fighter, a best photo-nominated film from 2010 based on the true story of professional boxer Micky Ward.

A young Harvey impressed Dicky Eklund, departments half -brother and trainer who won Christian Bale for an Oscar for portraits. Eklund described her as persistent.

It was about where (eklund) said: she hits like a truck. I want to place her in silver mittens (youth tournament) to box against women, and I think Shell is doing incredible, said Harve's father, David. That is when my wife intervened and said: Hey, I don't mind the training. I don't mind the training sessions. I just don't want her to be hit.

We decided at that time that she would not become a boxer, but she had boxing in her routine. It helped (for hockey) with her foot speed, helped with her hand speed, helped with her endurance.

About ten years later, Harvey is a force on the ice. In 2022 she was the youngest player in the American Olympic team. Since then she has made the All-Star team at the last three world championships (one of the two defenders selected per year), including the best defender in general in the worlds 2023.

Harvey leads our skaters in Ice Age through three victories at the 2025 world championship, which started last Wednesday and will continue a final next Sunday.

Those who are close to Harvey over the years about her work ethics: a youth routine of 100 push-ups before bedtime bring her own chin-up bar to the preparatory school (and add 25 pounds for sets) and do sprints in those school corridors when it was too cold to run outside.

I see her doing all the amazing things they do, I can look back and are like, yes, that's not lucky, said Minnesota-Duluth Vooruit Mary Kate Obrien, Harveys Youth Teammate in a Worcester Junior Sharks-schedule of all boys save two girls. Nights have been handed over to her. She deserves it.

Harveys parents took her to the ice rink as a toddler. They had put her in a courier and face the ice, while older brother Nolan learned to play hockey. Caroline was also learning.

Her eyes would go back and forth like a baby, and so she really got her first start, David said.

Caroline was the only girl who wore a hockey helmet for learning-to-figure-skate lessons in the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Her parents wanted her to be a sound box before she started hockey. The figure skaters had the best technology, they reasoned.

Once in pads, Harvey first wore Jersey no. 3, just like her brother. It is a special song for the family: Nolan was born premature on three pounds. Harvey is called kk by those who are close to her because her other brother or sister, Baby Sister Grace, could not pronounce Caroline when she started talking. Instead she said KK, and the nickname lingered.

Harvey left the house at the age of 13 to visit Bishop Kearney, a private Catholic school in Rochester, New York, who produced various players in the current American world championship team.

Harvey became a high scorer of the ice in power and conditioning tests: pull-ups, push-ups, bench press, deadlifts and 300-yard shuttle runs. Her sprint test numbers in her mid -teenagers competed with veteran national teamers, said Bishop Kearney Girls hockey director Cari Coen.

We had teachers who would show up early to work for school, and KK would let Sprints run or go down in the shooting room or do an extra training, Coen said. Those little things that would separate her from her age group, and then she continued to do that during her career as she got older.

Harvey is now wearing No. 4, the song that is most associated with Blueliners, given it was worn by Boston Bruins Legend Bobby Orr. Harvey, who comes from New Hampshire, went to Bruins games as a child and watched a video from ORR. But the number association is pure coincidence.

I tried every position, but the defense kept staying with me, she said. I have always wanted to see the whole ice and see the piece develop, and clearly break the opposition.

Harvey, then 15, remembers that he had watched the Olympic Gold-Medal Game 2018 on TV, which started at 11:10 pm in South Korea and was won in a shootout by the Americans about the Canadians.

Caroline Harvey (around the age of 17) with 2018 Olympic champion team Captain Meghan Duggan. (via David Harvey)

Few would have thought that Schuur made the next Olympic team. But Harvey actually predicted it around the age of 6 to Aunt Amy.

She was sitting there with her fingers that counting my sister for the years, and (amy) goes, what are you doing? David said. She said, I just count the number of years it will take, and I will be at the 22 Olympic Games.

Yet Harvey was shocked when it was confirmed in a Blaine, Minnesota, Lounge in mid -December 2021. USA Hockey Womens National Team Director Katie Million For the first time after the last cutbacks, a group of 23 players focused on the Olympic team.

It remains to me to this day, Harvey said. It is something that always reminds it for the rest of my life. Just shivers immediately, in that room with 22 other girls.

Harvey tried to be a sponge with the senior national team in that first year. I still try to learn something new every day, she said.

The youngest player in the Olympic team also played the least minutes (23 minutes, 10 seconds) of each American skater during the Beijing matches (Save the Bleessed Brianna Decker). She played 62 seconds in the loss of gold medal game for Canada.

I don't think anyone thought four years ago that a 14-year-old named Caroline Harvey would make that team, so this is just bonus, David said. But the competitor in her was that she had the feeling that she could help the team and that she could really make a difference.

In 2023, Caroline Harvey became the second defender who once led the US in points at an Olympic Games or Worlds, and the first skater that led the US in both points and ice age. (Getty Images)

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