Go or stay?

The decision may have been one of the easiest she’s ever made, despite the fact that taking the job meant living even further from home, from her family and from her childhood friends.

As the summer of 2004 drew to a close, Lewiston native Katie Lachapelle saw an opening to be an assistant women’s hockey coach at Ohio State University, a six-year-old varsity program in the prestigious Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA).

“It wasn’t a hard decision at all,” said Lachapelle. “It is something that came up at the end of the summer. It’s always hard to leave where you are, but because the situation was right, it made it a lot easier.”

The situation was ideal for Lachapelle, who graduated from Lewiston High School in 1995, because her new boss, head coach Jackie Barto, was also her coach when she played for Providence College, graduating in 1999.

“We knew she was out there,” said Barto, “and we initiated contact late in the summer. I knew Katie was someone we could be interested in, and we were excited when she was also interested in coming here.”

For two seasons following her field hockey and ice hockey careers at Providence College (both of which Barto coached), Lachapelle was the assistant women’s coach at Union College, where she oversaw practices, helped out with recruiting and ran the defense.

For the past three years, Lachapelle has been an assistant at Niagara University, where she helped the Purple Eagles to an NCAA Frozen Four bid as the primary coach of the forwards, as well as assisting with recruiting and academic development.

“I can’t say anything bad about where I have been,” said Lachapelle. “I had a great experience at Niagara, but it was really easy to come here, with Jackie and Catherine both here already.”

Catherine is Catherine Hanson, a former teammate of Lachapelle’s at Providence, whom Lachapelle says is “like a big sister.”

Now, all three primary coaches at Ohio State are former players at Providence, and all three were talented in their own right.

Barto is still third all-time on the Friars’ scoring list, Hanson played for four years at Providence and went on to play for the U.S. National Program at the Three-Nations’ Cup, and Lachapelle was a four-year letter-winner, a co-captain and an ECAC all-star in 1997.

“It really was a no-brainer coming here, having as much respect as I do for the people already here,” said Lachapelle, who cites growing up with a supportive structure in Lewiston as the base for what she has been able to accomplish so far.

“Honestly, I think it was easier as a hockey player in Lewiston than it might have been somewhere else,” said Lachapelle, who played on the boys’ varsity team at Lewiston. “I am glad, looking back, that my parents were always there encouraging me and taking some of the heat away, because sometimes, and I don’t know that it was intentional, but things were said about a girl playing hockey. I was never given anything but encouragement, and that helped a lot growing up.”

And just because Lachapelle is in Ohio, now three schools into her coaching career and each one getting a bit more distant, doesn’t mean she doesn’t plan on coming back East in the future.

“I’d like to get back,” said Lachapelle. “I miss being back there. There is something about being from Lewiston or from Maine, that once you leave you want to go back. I don’t know if it is in the water or what.”

Still, maybe not just yet.

This summer, Lachapelle’s parents (her father a former vice principal at Lewiston High School and her mother the current principal at Lewiston Middle School) told her about a head coaching vacancy at the University of Maine.

“I knew about that,” said Lachapelle, a slight laugh escaping her lips. “My parents made sure to tell me about it. I just didn’t think the time was right for that move. I wanted a few more years of experience as an assistant first. When it’s time, I’ll know it. This time, this situation was the right one for me.”

So far this season, the Buckeyes are 6-5-1.

The closest OSU will come to Maine this season is her old school, Niagara, in Western New York, unless the team makes it to the Frozen Four, in which case she will travel to Durham, New Hampshire, where UNH will host this year’s event.

“That’s the goal,” said Lachapelle. “Hopefully we can get there, but either way, I am happy just to be here with Coach Barto and Catherine.”

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