Mounsey 'put everything on the line' on way to U.S. Hall of Fame

The 2025 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame induction is Dec. 10. This year's class includes Joe Pavelski, Zach Parise, Scott Gomez, Tara Mounsey and Bruce Bennett. Here, NHL.com staff writer William Douglas profiles Mounsey.

Tara Mounsey still has the competitive fire, whether it’s racing her three kids to the car after a shopping stop or playing on Sundays in the South Shore Women’s Hockey League, which encompasses the Boston area and Rhode Island.

“I’m playing in the highest-level women’s league that you can play in in the state and I’m playing, like, college kids,” Mounsey said. “I’m in good shape, I like to play, and I can still outsmart youngsters.”

That competitive spirit is what drove the 47-year-old Concord, New Hampshire native to become one of the best defensemen in women’s college and international hockey and a key contributor on the United States national team that won the gold medal in women's ice hockey for the first time at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, earning her induction into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame on Dec. 10 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“She was the backbone of that team,” 1998 U.S. Women’s Olympic coach Ben Smith said. “She gave them what they needed in regard to, ‘OK, we’re all set here. Canada is going to come after us and they’re going to come strong. There are two teams, one medal, something’s got to give.’ They needed somebody that could push it to the limit, and her teammates knew that.”

The U.S. defeated Canada 3-1 in the gold medal game, went undefeated (6-0-0) in the tournament and outscored opponents 36-8. Mounsey had six points (two goals, four assists) in the six games at Nagano, with at least one point in five of them. She followed that up with a team-best seven assists in five games to help the U.S. earn the silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. She was also a member of U.S. teams that won silver medals at the 1997 and 1999 IIHF Women’s World Championships.

“She was a force, and she was a beast,” said A.J. Mleczko, an ESPN/ABC and New York Islanders analyst who played with Mounsey twice at the Olympics and against her as a forward with Harvard University. “She was so strong, an incredible shot, and she would compete. I mean, she was such a fierce competitor when she was out there playing with Team USA. And I played against her too, so I got a taste of it from the other side. She would put everything on the line for the team.”

Mounsey helped Brown University go 28-2-1 as a freshman in 1996-97 and was named Ivy League and Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Rookie of the Year. She was named one of 10 candidates in 1999 and one of four finalists in 2000 for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, presented annually to the top NCAA Division I women’s player. She finished her collegiate career with 118 points (48 goals, 70 assists) in 78 games.

She was inducted into the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011 as an ice hockey and field hockey star who helped Brown go 13-4 in 1999-2000 to share the Ivy League field hockey championship with Harvard. She won First Team All-Ivy and Regional All-American honors in field hockey and was a 1999-2000 Honda Sports Award finalist.

Yet for all the medals and the accolades, Mounsey said she was surprised by the call from the U.S. Hall; the honor has made her reflect on her accomplishments.

“My own son made me sit down and do it,” she said. “I laugh at this now -- I have three kids, and my two older boys are 13 and 14. I told the 13-year-old that I was being inducted and he was, like, ‘Mom, that's amazing, that's incredible.’ And then I told my 14-year-old who plays the sport, and he looked at me, he's like, ‘Why?’ My quick response, in my mind, I'm like, ‘He doesn't know how good I was.’ I've never really shared how good I was. So I looked at him, I was a little bit irritated, and I go, ‘Because I was that good.’”

Mounsey’s journey to the U.S. Hall began when she was about 4 years old on an outdoor rink built at a family friend’s house near Concord.

“They just flooded (the rink) and had this big New Year's Eve skating party every year, my parents got invited, and we went skating,” Mounsey said. “Their kids were already into the youth hockey program in New Hampshire and Concord, and they're like, ‘Hey, why don't you bring her, she can skate once you bring her down to learn to play hockey.’ And I don't think I've ever left the ice.”

Mounsey can’t recall exactly what was that attracted her to the sport then, but she knows what kept her in it: A competitive thirst inherited from her father, Mike, who was a high school baseball star, and her mother Susan, who was a serious snow and water skier.

“I just have this drive to compete,” she said. “I love sport. I love to compete. It doesn't matter what the sport is, if I can compete.”

Mounsey developed into a top player before the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association added girls’ ice hockey as a varsity sport in 1999-2000. She played on Concord High School’s boys’ team and thrived, being named the 1996 New Hampshire Class-L Player of the Year.

“There weren’t robust women’s, girls’ programs back then, no stronger players, we had no choice,” she said. “I was good enough that I played right on through high school. Boys get big and strong, but I was big and strong back then, much bigger than I am now, and I held my own.”

Mounsey said her teammates welcomed her and made her captain her senior year. There were incidents along the way, but very few, she said.

“One guy decided, I was playing over him, and in practice he decides, instead of passing the puck at an appropriate speed, he’s practically slap-shooting it at me,” she said. “I’m, like, ‘Well, I’ll just catch your pass, even though it’s a slap shot, you knucklehead.’ The coaching staff saw it, took care of it. “I'm thankful for the fact that the coaching staff believed in me, accepted me, and the players believed in me and accepted me.”

Mounsey figured college hockey was in her future based on her high school performance, but another goal emerged on July 21, 1992, when the International Olympic Committee announced women’s ice hockey would be added at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

“I had been a part of the (U.S.) national program and so once I started going in that route and getting invited to camps, I thought, ‘This is an achievable goal,’” said Mounsey, who was in eighth grade at the time. “'Yes, I'm on the younger side, but let's do this.’ Then I just set it as a goal and worked and worked and worked to achieve it.”

Mounsey took a break from college hockey in 1997-98 to concentrate on her Olympic dream. Smith, who left his coaching job at Northeastern University to coach the 1998 U.S. women’s team, had seen Mounsey play and heard of the legend of the high-scoring, hard-hitting New Hampshire girl who took no guff and gave no quarter on the ice.

He learned quickly that she came as advertised.

“I didn't realize she'd be as nasty as she was, that goes along with her competitiveness,” said Smith, who also coached at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Yale University, Boston University and Dartmouth College. “Her battle approach was as good as I’ve ever been around. I've coached male Olympians, male pros and male college All-Americans, but the way she would stick her nose in at end of a play, work along the wall, block a shot or protect a teammate, she was just different.”

Mounsey laughed when she was told about Smith’s comments.

“I was clean, but I didn’t put up with anything out there, I was a bit of an enforcer,” she said. “Yeah, I kind of took competitiveness to the next level. I didn’t want to lose, and I took care of the people around me. My job? I protect the goalies. You don’t go near the goalie.”

Mounsey retired as a player in 2002 to pursue a career in medicine and because there was no place for her to go in hockey.

“If there were a professional league that I could make a decent living, I probably would have played as long as possible,” she said.

She’s proud that the victory in Nagano helped trigger an explosion in girls’ and women’s hockey in the U.S., which contributed to more colleges and universities establishing women’s hockey programs and eventually led to the formation of salaried leagues like the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

“We were fortunate in the timing of including (women’s) ice hockey in the Olympics,” she said. “We really took advantage of putting ice hockey in the United States on the map globally. And the opportunity that these young athletes have now, I'm so happy for them.”

Mounsey, who earned a master’s degree in nursing from Boston College in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Brown in 2000, has been a nurse practitioner at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston for nearly 20 years.

She has a 2024 National Basketball Association championship ring to go with her Olympic and IIHF medals from her work as the hospital’s medical coordinator for the Boston Celtics.

“By way of my injuries as a player, I fell in love with orthopedics and wanted to do something in that field,” she said. “I’m tied into sport at an elite level, and I love it.”