Ryan Hitchcock with Yale University (photo courtesy of Yale University Athletic Department)
For the past four years, Ryan Hitchcock has spent much of his time at Yale University earning 63 career points with the school’s hockey program. Now a senior and captain for the Bulldogs, he’s nearing the end of a successful collegiate hockey career.
Even after 18 years of hockey, he still remembers how it all started.
“I remember skating when I was three with the cone and everything like that,” Hitchcock said. “I just fell in love with it because I remember I loved playing games in all the other sports I played, but I loved practicing hockey the most.”
Hitchcock grew up near Long Island, New York, attending Islanders games and occasionally making trips to Madison Square Garden to watch the Rangers. Though hockey wasn’t huge where he grew up — lacrosse was more popular in the area — that didn’t stop him from committing to it. The multi-sport athlete began narrowing down his time commitments until finally he was left with only hockey.
His junior year of high school, Hitchcock wound up in Ann Arbor in order to play for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program. While with the U17s in 2012-13, Hitchcock tallied 14 goals and 18 assists through 54 games for a 32-point season.
NTDP Career
- Years: 2012-14
- Games: 107
- Goals: 26
- Assists: 55
- Points: 81
- Notes: Member of the gold-winning U.S. Men’s National Under-18 Team at the 2014 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championships. Won bronze with the U.S. National Junior Team at the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championships in Finland.
In the break between his U17 season and beginning his final year with the NTDP, Hitchcock and the rest of the rest of his team had to go through more development-focused training, which still stands out to him.
“The spring training after the U17 year was probably the greatest two months of development I’ve ever had in my life,” Hitchcock said. “It’s no wonder why you come in the next year as U18s and have a lot of success. It was all development and it was all really fun too, which was important to me and everyone on the team. We’d scrimmage and just have fun with the guys and that was a great time getting to know them.”
During 2013-14 with the U18s, the forward played in 53 games with 12 goals and 37 assists for a 49-point season. He was a part of the gold-winning U.S. Men’s National Under-18 Team that represented the U.S. at the 2014 International Ice Hockey Federation Under-18 Men’s World Championships.
Outside of playing hockey in high school, Hitchcock found himself on the hunt for a school to attend after graduation. And while hockey was certainly strong criteria for him, going to a university with good academics meant just as much as playing hockey — a reason why he committed to Yale University.
“Academics were always a big part of my upbringing,” Hitchcock said. “My parents have always taught me that I’m going be done playing hockey one day and I realize now that there’s a life after hockey and you have to be prepared. So I’m really happy I made the decision to go to Yale, and there’s great coaches here and they’ve taught me so much about being a good person and even then again, outside of hockey, being a good man. I loved the history and the success the program had been having. It was just a great mix of academics and hockey that I didn’t have to compromise one or the other. It’s been better than I ever could have imagined.”
While at Yale, Hitchcock has played in 93 games for the Bulldogs, 33 of which included the entire schedule his freshman year. He tallied 15 points on the season, which landed him as the Martin Dwyer III Award as Yale’s rookie MVP and the Ivy League Rookie of the Year. He also earned bronze with the U.S. National Junior Team at the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championships in Finland.
Ryan Hitchcock with Team USA in 2013-14 (Photo by USA Hockey)
We have an amazing culture here. It’s been great every year — and I mean every year, I love this team so much and the guys on it.
His junior year, he finalized a second-place finish on the team in assists with 16 despite having missed the second half of the schedule due to injury. The captain now has 18 career goals along with 45 assists to show for his time at Yale.
To him, though, it’s a little less about personal achievements.
“We have an amazing culture here,” Hitchcock said. “It’s been great every year — and I mean every year, I love this team so much and the guys on it. It’s crazy, it's so crazy how fast the four years have gone. But I’ve learned a lot about myself and I’ve definitely grown as a person. It’s been an unbelievable four years and we hope to finish strong this year.”
Hitchcock and the rest of the Bulldogs will get a chance to do that as they enter the final stretch of the season. Yale will spend the next two weeks at home, with a weekend series against Arizona State this Friday and Saturday and conference matchups with Quinnipiac and Princeton next week.
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