Men's hockey's Parsons returns to the ice, boosts ECAC record

Senior forward Brad Parsons is glad to be back on the ice.

Parsons, who strained his knee in the first game of the men's hockey team's season against Niagra, made his return to the team in early December. While his knee appeared to be getting better in the weeks following the injury, complications that almost led to surgery kept him out for a total of 10 games. He returned in Princeton's match-up with Union.

"The hardest thing for me to do was to watch the team play," he said. "I love watching the team play, but I wanted to be out there."

Like many of his teammates, Parsons has been skating nearly his entire life. He himself has been on the ice since he was three years old. He recalls how his parents used to put him out on the ice, and he would skate around pushing a chair in order to keep his balance.

Surprisingly, though, he did not immediately enjoy skating.

"My parents used to have to give me random trophies to stay out on the ice," he said. "I hated it — my feet were freezing, and my toes were cold — so they would take a random trophy and give it to me. That's the only way I would stay out on the ice."

Needless to say, it worked well. Parsons developed his skills on the ice while growing up in Boston, Ma. in a family of hockey players, with both his brother and sister playing before him.

Although he graces the forward line now, Parsons actually started off as the only totally defensive player on the ice.

"I started out as a goalie for my first two years," he said. "Then I went to forward — I just liked scoring goals."

As time went on, Parsons' love for the sport of hockey grew to the point that the Boston public school system just simply did not have the talent to challenge the young player.

"I went to public high school for a year," he said. "Hockey in a public high school back home is not very good, so I went there for a year planning on going to a private school right after."

The only logical choice left for him was to pursue a school where high schoolers were expected to be hockey players. He turned to the Thayer Academy, which carries much prestige in the hockey world.

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In Eastern College Athletic Conference hockey, Parsons competes against many of his teammates from Thayer.

"I went to Thayer Academy, which is a private school in Boston," he said. "It's a hockey factory — they've always been amazing at hockey. My year we had six seniors that went on to play Division I hockey."

At Thayer, Parsons repeated his freshman year, as many hockey players do, and was able to play for four years there. When he was looking at colleges, he narrowed it down to Princeton and Harvard, but decided to play for the Tigers because he simply liked the campus better.

The adjustment from high school hockey to college is always a difficult thing for a hockey player, but Parsons took to learning the Princeton system well. In his freshman year, he played in 19 of 29 games during the season. With that experience, he became a reliable player on the ice, earning a spot as a starter.

"In college you play more of a disciplined system where you concentrate on systems [of play] more," he said. "In high school, there's a lot of running around. When you get to college, you have to stay in your position."

Since Parsons returned to the regular rotation for Princeton, the Tigers have gone 4-6, improving their overall record to 7-14. Without Parsons, Princeton was 3-5 in conference play. With Parsons, however, the team has gone 3-3 in conference, improving their ECAC record to 6-8 — good enough for a seventh place tie with Yale and St. Lawrence.

Parsons is yet another experienced player returning to the team, and it is that experience that the team needs most. Having not been able to sweep an entire weekend all season, the team looks to its seniors to lead them to success.

"Now that we're all healthy, the team is starting to play really well together, so I think it's going to be good down the stretch, the next eight games," Parsons said.

From a little boy who hated the ice, Parsons has done a total 180, evolving into a college senior who the Tigers hope can lead them to playoff success.