Dartblog

Pace John Keats, but one of Dartmouth’s many Olympians will be playing her last regular-season home game today at 4pm, and it is worth noting the unfailing intelligence of Sarah Parsons’ hockey.

Unlike football’s set-piece choreography or baseball’s individual ballet, hockey is a swirling series of instinctive, high-speed group improvisations. There are formal plays, but most of the game takes place on the fly, a multi-variable equation that will never be solved.

For the devoted fan, much of the pleasure lies in the anticipation; but a greater joy comes from surprise, and that is where Sarah Parsons stands alone on the women’s team. Nobody so consistently sees creative angles and unusual opportunities as she does; no one is so original.

I recall Sarah being half-way over the boards earlier in the season and a teammate passed her puck while she was still in the air. I shuddered, “What is she going to do?” But in one moment of penetrating insight, she sized up the on-ice situation, spotted another fast-moving teammate, landed on her skates, and made a one-touch pass that ended directly in a goal. Tension, execution, resolution. Beauty.

Not bad. Sarah could act faster than I could anticipate. Not bad at all.

Next year she will be playing for Morgan Stanley in New York. I’d buy stock now. She’ll improve that team a great deal, too.

Thanks, Sarah, for four years of really smart hockey.