She’s always been first. First to the rink. First out on the ice. First to offer encouragement to her teammates. First to celebrate her teams’ goals. Whether encouraging her teammates or providing instruction and direction on the ice, Olivia Robbins is no ordinary student athlete. She is in constant motion on and off the ice.
It has been that way since Olivia was six years old and was introduced to ice hockey when the family lived in Seattle, Washington. For the past decade, the Robbins family has been immersed in the sport of hockey. With all three of their children playing on different travel hockey teams, Emily and Scott Robbins are constantly on the go. Although neither Scott nor Emily played hockey competitively, they are mainstays at their children’s games cheering and offering encouragement.
Olivia is the oldest sibling. Her brother Owen is two years younger, and her sister Lillian is four years younger. All three will play with their individual travel hockey teams once again in the fall of 2022. Olivia and Owen will also play together for the first time in years with the Upper Montgomery Lightning high school varsity hockey team. For Emily and Scott, the new season will bring renewed travel across the United States and into Canada depending upon where Olivia’s 19U Washington Pride AAA travel team is scheduled to play. The Washington Pride is the pre-eminent women’s college prep ice-hockey program in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The Pride plays in the Junior Women’s Hockey League as well as participating in multiple invitational tournaments across North America.
Olivia immediately took to hockey. She found the games exciting and liked the physical aspect of the sport. As she began advancing through the younger age groups it was easy to see her enthusiasm for the game and that she didn’t have a problem competing against the boys she was playing with and against. When initially eligible, she tried out for the Washington Pride women’s hockey program and was invited to join the elite hockey club to play on their 14U Major team. Mainly playing left wing for the Pride, she logs heavy minutes and is a mainstay on the Pride’s powerplay and penalty killing units. According to her coaches, Olivia’s style is hard-nosed and relentless on the puck. She excels at retrieving pucks in the corners and turning those winning puck battles into high quality scoring chances for her teammates. Olivia describes her role with the Pride as the playmaker on her line. She is good with puck possession, zone entry, and excellent at puck retrievals, battling down low, and in the corners. She is always looking to establish offensive zone possession for her line and to distribute the puck to her teammates.
A typical hockey week during the school year is three practices a week with the Washington Pride, one hour on the ice and one hour of dryland workouts, either conditioning or in the gym. Olivia also does additional one-on-one skills development sessions with the local coaches either before practice or on an off day. These individual sessions include film review of the past weekend’s games and skill development. Then, Monday evening there is a separate practice with the Lightning. The Pride’s practices consist of individual skill work, full-ice flow drills, working on situational play, and various small area games. During weeks where the Pride are out of town for league play or at a tournament, the team practices Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then travels to the location of the weekend games Thursday evening. Pride league and tournament games are played Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during the day, with return travel back to the Washington, DC area on Sunday evening. During out-of-town travel the Pride has scheduled mandatory study halls that enable the girls to keep up with their school work.
On weeks where the Pride have home games or travel closer to the Washington, DC area, games are usually just on Saturday and Sunday. Those weeks, on Friday night Olivia is dressed in her green, gold, and white number 25 Upper Montgomery jersey with the Poolesville letter P patch on her left shoulder. She is seen streaking around the ice playing on one of the top two forward lines for the Lightning against other high school teams in the Montgomery Hockey Conference, often battling toe to toe with older and more physically mature opponents. In her ninth grade season with the Upper Montgomery Lightning, Olivia led the varsity team in assists with seven in twelve games, including a four assist game versus Blair. In addition, Olivia chipped in and scored three goals.
Olivia’s exploits on the ice are well known within the hockey community and to her family and close friends. However, many of her fellow students at Poolesville High School are unaware of her hockey accomplishments. At the age of 12, Olivia first participated in a USA Hockey development camp. As part of the Southeast District, she participated in a week-long multi-district camp held at Kent State University in Ohio run by USA hockey and college hockey head coaches. The ladies selected for the camp were separated into four teams and lived together in dorm rooms, spending all on-ice and off-ice hockey related activities with their teammates. Progressing through her age 12, 13, and 14 seasons, Olivia’s skill and talents were being noticed. In her age 15 season, after a weekend tryout camp in Nashville, Tennessee, Olivia was one of a limited few young ladies selected to participate in the USA Hockey Girls 15s National Development Camp held in St. Cloud, Minnesota. A huge accomplishment for Olivia as she takes steps forward in progressing up through the women’s hockey national system in the United States.
As Olivia remembers the camp, the USA Hockey Girls 15s National Development Camp was like the other regional camps she had previously participated in, but more comprehensive. In addition to the on-ice and off-ice training, there were lectures on nutrition, mental health and well-being, the college recruiting process, and what it takes to be a successful student athlete with the time commitment both academics and hockey require. It was understandable that being invited to the camp for the first time was a little overwhelming. Olivia admitted to being nervous at the beginning of the camp, with all the USA Hockey personnel present and with over ninety percent of the Division 1 and Division 3 college coaches in attendance scouting and analyzing the play of each camp participant.
Thinking back on the National Camp, Olivia brought up “The speed, skill, compete level, and hockey IQ of all the girls were off the charts good. It was full speed and maximum effort the entire time. It was a great experience for me to know that I can compete at that level. At the same time, it helped me know that I need to work harder with the Pride to improve all areas of my game.”
At the end of April 2022, Olivia was in Florida trying out again for a spot in the USA Hockey National Camp for the upcoming summer. She is now in the 16-17 age group and the number of slots available to advance back to the National Camp are greatly reduced. In late June, Olivia will be notified of the results of her tryout. About that same time, colleges which have been scouting student athletes in Olivia’s age group at the various camps, showcases, and tournaments will begin making contact. NCAA rules governing recruiting for women’s ice hockey allow college coaches to begin contacting recruits after June 15th following a student athlete’s sophomore year in high school. It promises to be a very busy summer in the Robbins household.
The practices and the sport keep Olivia busy and help balance out her schoolwork, much of which is done while on long bus trips or in hotels far away from Poolesville High School. It is common for Olivia to use her phone to record video dictations for classes from the passenger seat of her parent’s car. While much time is spent at the rink honing her game, Olivia devotes even more time to her academic studies. This dedication has led to scholastic achievement in the classroom. Olivia has been recognized by the Maryland Student Hockey League for her outstanding academic performance in both of her high school seasons. She has earned straight As all throughout high school and carries a weighted grade point average well above the standard 4.0 associated with straight As. So, it was no surprise that she has received the Maryland Student Hockey League academic achievement award.
At the end of the 2021-2022 hockey season the Washington Pride were traveling to play in the Women’s Tier One 14U National Championship Tournament outside of Philadelphia. Olivia was remotely dialed in to her biology class while traveling to the tournament. Unexpectedly, the vehicle went through some patchy zones which caused the internet connection to fade in and out. Olivia messaged her teacher apologizing for the difficulties. The biology teacher direct messaged Olivia asking her where she was going. Upon learning of her destination, the teacher blurted out over the open mic “Wow, Olivia!!! Don’t worry about biology right now.” The entire class had just learned of Olivia’s hockey talents!
Once the Pride’s and the Lightning’s regular seasons conclude, hockey is not finished. Olivia plays in the spring for the 14/94s Elite 16U AAA team, which is a team made up of young women from around the DC Metro area and north into Philadelphia and New Jersey. There are two weekend training camps and then three tournaments planned, in Detroit, in Philadelphia, and in Chicago. And, while not out-of-town, there is the Upper Montgomery Lightning spring season where Olivia is a key contributor. She enjoys the spring teams because she can meet and play with different teammates and receives exposure to different coaches and styles of play.
Once school ends and the summer begins, there is no break from hockey. The Pride has two separate weeklong training camps, one at the beginning of the summer and the other at the end of the summer. To supplement this training, Olivia works out at First-Line Training Center in small group and individual one-on-one sessions to continuously work on her game. She is looking to improve the velocity on her shot, work on a quicker release, and enhance her evasiveness with the puck. This level of commitment is necessary as the number of young female hockey student athletes grows.
Olivia has noticed the increase in interest as popularity in the women’s game grows from just a few short years ago. “I think last year there were a record number of girls at tryouts for the Pride 14U team which means more girls must be playing. Locally, the Chesapeake Bay Hockey League (CBHL) has more and more clubs offering girls hockey teams every year. Some of the top girl’s teams in the CBHL have started to play in the very competitive Mid-Atlantic Women’s Hockey Association against teams from Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.”
In part, this competition motivates Olivia to continue to improve. She has her sights set on playing Division 1 college hockey, however, with her outstanding academic credentials, academically prestigious Division 3 programs will also be under consideration and would make an excellent college choice. With the professional women’s game growing and more teams being added each year, the post college opportunity to continue to play high level hockey is a possibility, one that Olivia would find “very, very cool”.
While women’s hockey is where Olivia’s future lies, she is extremely happy playing with “the boys” for Poolesville High School as part of the Upper Montgomery Lightning program. With the Pride there are multiple practices a week and in high school hockey there are only a few practices each month. The most noticeable difference to Olivia is that with high school hockey there is a four year age difference between some student athletes who are seniors and other student athletes who are just entering high school in 9th grade. With the Washington Pride travel program, the participants are all within one year in age, so everyone is more similarly developed. With the high-end travel programs, it is common for the participants to have been teammates for many years, playing the same system in 12U, 14U, 16U, etc. There is more compact play, more movement without the puck, one touch passing, and quick puck movement. While the high school games are more open with stretch passing through the neutral zone and the shots are harder.
When she finally leaves the rink and finishes training, Olivia can be found watching hockey on television. She watches as much hockey on television as she can. Olivia’s favorite teams are the US Women’s National team and, of course, the Washington Capitals. When finally pried away from hockey, her outside interests are being with her friends, being part of her local swim team in the summer, going to amusement parks and riding the roller coasters, and watching exciting movies.
For the Upper Montgomery faithful, the excitement will be in watching Olivia over the next two seasons as she endeavors to help the Lightning advance to the Maryland High School state playoffs for the first time in program history while simultaneously pursuing her dream of landing a coveted position with a college ice hockey program.
This article will be updated as details on Olivia’s collegiate hockey plans are revealed.