Guest TigerBlog - Goodbye Kristy

The opening face-off of the women's hockey season is tomorrow night at Hobey Baker Rink.

The Tigers play two games this weekend against Syracuse, with face-off tomorrow at 6 and Saturday at noon, followed by another home game Tuesday against Quinnipiac in the ECAC opener. Princeton, who reached the NCAA tournament a year ago, begins the season as the sixth-ranked team in the country.

The men's hockey season begins in another week, with two games at St. Cloud State. The home opener for the men's team is Nov. 15/16 against RPI and Union, after the ECAC-opening road trip to Harvard and Dartmouth.

One staple of Princeton hockey will be missing as the 2019-20 season begins, though. Kristy McNeil, who has been the Office of Athletic Communications contact for both teams for the last nine years, not to mention all of the other teams she's worked with in her 11 years here, has left to take a job at the University of Michigan.

Actually, let's mention them: men's soccer, men's and women's track and field and cross country and women's lacrosse. When you add all that together, she worked with thousands of Princeton student athletes. 

And now she's off to the Big Ten, where she will begin her new role as the men's hockey and men's tennis contact for the Wolverines. 

As she leaves, TigerBlog turned to another former colleague, Craig Sachson, to write a few words about the woman who has been so much a part of the fabric of the Office of Athletic Communications and the Department of Athletics for so long and who has done so much to keep the OAC current and vibrant, not to mention fun. 

When my daughter was born in the summer of 2008, Princeton hired a woman from Colgate to fill an opening in the Office of Athletic Communications. She was experienced and smart, but her ability to produce high-quality media guides set her ahead of the field.

When my daughter turned two, media guides were a thing of the past at Princeton.

And Kristy McNeil was about to lead us into the future.

Kristy ended an 11-year run at Princeton recently to accept a new challenge at the University of Michigan, but her impact on this athletic department will be felt for many years to come. She led us to a stronger presence in social media, graphics, and just about anything else that matters in this new era of digital communications.

She was a passionate advocate for the teams she worked with, often going far beyond what was expected from a standard sport contact. Most women’s lacrosse SIDs have a basic understanding of the statistical rulebook; Kristy helped write it (that’s not hyperbole — I listened to enough rulebook conference calls to know she ACTUALLY helped write it). She live-tweeted championship track meets the way others would the Super Bowl. She traveled internationally with the men’s soccer team, and she helped create a fresh new look inside her beloved Baker Rink, home of the Princeton ice hockey teams.

That all matters. 

If you care about Princeton — and if you’re reading this, I’ll assume you do — then you’ve undoubtedly seen something that Kristy either created or collaborated on. She understood the big picture, which isn’t always easy when you manage as many as 7-8 sports at a time (and double-digits over the span of a year).

But for everybody who interacted with her — staff, coaches or players — those tangibles are secondary to what was truly special about Kristy, and what Princeton will miss most. She has a spirit that energizes any room, a fierce loyalty that engenders absolute trust, and a sense of humor that could lighten the toughest of days.

I spent at least seven or eight years working within 20 feet of Kristy, either sharing an office or working in an adjacent one. I saw how hard she worked for her teams, how much energy and passion she put into telling the story of a track athlete one day, a hockey player the next. I admired that, but I enjoyed the fun moments in between even more. 

We played puzzle games online, analyzed episodes of Survivor, laughed together on the good days and vented to each other on the tough ones.

The Princeton athletic department has been the best in the Ivy League for decades (assuming you use metrics like wins or titles), and championship coaches always talk about staff and culture. Our office may not have had competitions on a schedule, but we were a team, and we were competitive. Being the best department in the league mattered to us.

Having a teammate like Kristy made it possible — made it likely — to be successful. 

Like the winged helmet, she’ll have a great second run at Michigan. She’ll do innovative things with their hockey team, which hopefully helps her reach her dream of a career in the NHL, and she’ll bring both progressive thought and a positive energy to their department.

But it will be hard to match these last 11 years, when she positively impacted the collegiate experience of thousands of Princetonians, and she made lasting relationships with coaches and staff that we all know will last far beyond her days on E Level of Jadwin.

Thanks for everything Kristy. Go kill it at Michigan.