Midway through the first period of Wisconsin’s game Saturday, senior Meghan Hunter took the puck up ice and beat the St. Cloud State goaltender to give the Badgers a 1-0 lead.
There was no excessive celebration or break in the action despite the fact that Hunter had just tied UW’s all-time point record with her 159th point. The lack of fanfare seemed appropriate for Hunter, who is a quiet leader and leads by example through hard work and great skill.
“[Hunter] would be the first one to tell you not to get wrapped up in the moment right now,” head coach Mark Johnson said. “This spring and summer, when she looks back on what she has accomplished here, she can be very proud.”
Hunter may not get wrapped up in the personal achievements, but her abilities on the ice have certainly done a lot of talking for her, and led to a lot of the team’s success over the past three seasons.
“[The points record] means a lot to me, but looking at what we’ve done over the past three years as a team, that is more important,” she said.
Coming into a fledgling league of the WCHA, Hunter’s talent and hard work paid immediate dividends as she hit the ground running, setting the school’s single season marks in both points (78) and goals (42) while leading the nation in scoring. With numbers like that, it was only a matter of time before Hunter would find herself in the record books. She ended last season as the all-time goals leader, and she will soon be the leader in both assists and points.
Hunter’s freshman season was the best of her career, since each passing season the WCHA improved from top to bottom so everyone’s statistics have suffered, including Hunter’s. While she scored just 26 points a season ago, Hunter was still one of the top offensive threats in the league.
“We only started the league five years ago and everyone was just starting out, whereas now teams have developed for a couple years and it’s very difficult even for the very best players to score,” assistant coach Tracy Cornell said. Cornell, who has been with the program since its inception five years ago, has had the chance to see the game change.
Hunter’s teammate Carla MacLeod also has seen the changes in the game and how they have affected Hunter’s numbers.
“The defense and the goaltending in the league have really improved even since last season,” MacLeod said. “It has really clamped down on the scoring.”
With the change in the game, Cornell believes Hunter’s records will stand the test of time. “[They] will stand for a while,” he said. “It’s going to take a very talented player to come in and break those records.”
It’s no surprise that Hunter has found the kind of success that she has at Wisconsin. Growing up in Oil Springs, Ontario, hockey has just been a way of life for her. The Hunter family is very much involved with the game of hockey; just ask her three uncles, who played in the NHL. Like the “coach’s kid,” Hunter has been immersed in hockey from a young age. It appears as though a life of hockey talk may have turned a good player with great skills into an outstanding player.
“All the talk around Christmas time is about hockey,” Hunter said of her family’s obsession with the sport. “My uncles, my dad, they really support me and always are giving me ideas to try and help me get better.”
“[Hunter] comes from a hockey family with a great tradition. Her uncle Dale played in the NHL for many years, so she understands the game,” Johnson said. “She wants to be as good as she can be, and she’ll work as hard as she has to. From a coaching standpoint, you can’t ask for more than that.”
As Hunter stares down the final stretch of her brilliant career, there is an aura surrounding her that makes you think she would give all the records back for the chance to lead the Badgers to the Frozen Four, the one prize she has yet to capture.
