All-academic Yale goalie Genny Ladiges.
Ladiges poses outside of her Almonte home, where she returns for summer break before heading to her senior year as the starting goalie for the Yale University women's hockey team.
Brier Dodge
“Every year it’s been like that,” she said. “Our coaches are pretty proud.”
The stereotypical division one college athlete studies “Rocks for Jocks” and other so-called bird courses. Not the women’s hockey team at Yale.
The team, for yet another year, has by far the most players named to the Eastern College Athletic Conference women’s hockey all-academic team.
One of these players is Genny Ladiges, who just finished her junior year.
The Almonte District High School graduate and goalie is now preparing to start her senior year and finish her Bachelor of Science, majoring in psychology.
It’s expected to be a big season for Ladiges, who will fill the starting goaltender spot in September, after the previous starting goalie, a team U.S.A. prospect, graduated.
Unlike many other division one teams, the Ivy league teams, such as Yale, have to follow a few strict guidelines. Playing for an Ivy means that Ladiges can’t space her four-year program out over five years, which many athletes at non-Ivy schools do.
Ivy league schools also aren’t allowed to give out athletic scholarships – though most division one athletes at other schools receive full rides.
Ladiges receives financial assistance given international students for a majority of her considerable educational costs. Including students housing and books, the figure over four years amounts to “enough to buy a house.”
The academic focus also means Yale has strict dates that the team can’t play between – athletics can’t fall too early, or too late into the academic year.
Ladiges had to get used to balancing the athletic and academic sides of life while in high school. She played on an Ottawa girls’ team in a provincial league – and with the team the only one east of Whitby, it meant a lot of time spent in the car.
“In university, you can’t take certain courses you want to take, it can restrict what you do academically,” she said. “A lot of people come in and freak out first year, but you have to take it all in stride.”
At Yale, playing with the Bulldogs commits Ladiges to four practices, two games and two gym workout sessions a week.
The educationally-focused team had 19 players named to the all-academic team – compared to Ivy league schools Harvard, with 13, and Brown with five.
“Every year it’s been like that,” she said. “Our coaches are pretty proud.”
To make the all-academic team, the players must have a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0.
Minus the standard every-other-game for her first year of minor hockey, Ladiges has always been a goalie. Playing with a team U.S.A. level goalie on her team has been good for her skills, but she has seen less playing time as a result.
This year, she will be facing a new level of pressure as the team’s starting goalie.
“I used to play 80 games in a season, now as an Ivy we play so many less, 29,” she said. Compared to non-Ivy schools, “each game means more, and we’re at a bit of a disadvantage.”
During the upcoming season she will add in one more thing to the mix – studying for her graduate school exams. She hopes to attend graduate school when she finishes at Yale, but she’s undecided where as of yet.
She has her books with her at home, as she mixes in a part-time summer job and five workouts a week into her summer break.
Despite playing in the United States, Ladiges is still a proud to come back home to Almonte. She is one of three Ottawa area girls on the team, with a teammate from Manotick, and another from Pembroke.
“Our team is 12 Canadians out of 23,” she said. And when they played against the Americans in a team scrimmage, “we definitely won.”