Schwartz Continues to Influence
Jersey number 17 hangs in its own stall in the women’s hockey locker room and travels with the team to every away game. But there is no player 17 on the team’s current roster.
Mandi Schwartz ’11, who bore the number 17 during her nearly three-year career on the Yale women’s hockey team, passed away in April after a 27-month battle with acute myeloid leukemia. Today, Schwartz’s jersey number still appears in games as a sticker that every player wears on her helmet. Schwartz’s jersey is awarded each week to the team member who has best displayed her hard-working, selfless and passionate spirit in practices and in games. And the phrase “You will never walk alone” — a saying the team used when Schwartz first left campus in December 2008 to undergo cancer treatment in her home country of Canada — remains printed on the back of the locker room door.
“There’s always something, either visual or being said, to remind us of her,” team captain Aleca Hughes ’12 said.
Complete article can be accessed via the Daily News Web site by clicking here.
