“She was a rink rat. She loved to be at the rink, she loved to skate and it was hard to get her out of the rink. She just enjoyed being at the rink.” Rachel Ransey’s dad, Mike Ramsey, Gopher, Olympic and NHL hockey great. Minnesota Wild photo.

By Chris Chesky/Murphy News Service

Rachel Ramsey was 12 years old when she knew she wanted to play hockey for the University of Minnesota.

“I was sitting in the stands and my grandma kept reaching over and tapping my mouth shut because my jaw was literally on the floor,” Ramsey said. “I was just in awe of these girls. Not too long after, a few of the captains came and spoke to our youth program and they came into the locker room and I was like ‘look they’re normal people, normal college students, but they get to be Gophers. It was one of those things where at a young age you knew you wanted to emulate that one day.”

Ramsey just completed her senior season with the University of Minnesota women’s hockey team. The 6-foot defenseman from Minnetonka  scored nine goals and 24 assists to help lead the Gophers to their most recent NCAA championship win.

Ramsey’s blonde hair and glowing smile make it seem that she is just another college senior that is approaching her graduation date this spring, but it is the passion that lives in her heart that separates Ramsey from everyone else.

Finding her passion

Ramsey’s love for the game began when she first started playing hockey in Buffalo, New York, when she was five years old and her father, Mike Ramsey, was playing for the Buffalo Sabres. Mike Ramsey is a former Gopher and was the youngest member of the  “Miracle on Ice” team that upset the Soviet Union before going on to win the gold medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

“She was a rink rat,” Mike Ramsey, a Minneapolis native, said. “She loved to be at the rink, she loved to skate and it was hard to get her out of the rink. She just enjoyed being at the rink.”

Ramsey combined her passion and love for the game with her natural sense of leadership and became an essential piece of every team she has been on from her time at Minnetonka High School to her four-year career at the University of Minnesota.

“The most impressive part [about Ramsey] is her off-the-ice maturity and leadership ability considering that she’s so gifted and so talented as a player, but yet so humble and such a great teammate,” Eric Johnson, Ramsey’s coach at Minnetonka High School, said.

Ramsey is planning on a career in the media, perhaps as a radio personality. University of Minnesota photo.

Ramsey, besides developing as a leader on and off the ice, also became accustomed to success individually. Ramsey helped lead Minnetonka to a 23-1-1 record and a state championship during her senior season with the team.

“For any program, the first state championship is the toughest one to win,” Johnson said. “Rachel helped raise the bar and take our play as a team to that next level.

“She’s moved forward our play as an association and as a high school by what she has done on the ice and how hard she has worked and then how she carries herself off the ice. She’s really been a positive difference-maker in our program and she’s helped us become the program that we are,” Johnson said.

Becoming a leader

Ramsey’s collegiate career with the Gophers has been impressive. She has helped lead the team to three national championships in four years and became one of the best defensemen in women’s collegiate hockey along the way, as she was named the WCHA’s defensive player of the year following her junior and season campaigns.

What Ramsey has been best known for during her tenure as a Gopher, however, is her ability to lead the Gophers on and off the ice.

“She’s a very good leader,” Paige Haley, Ramsey’s roommate said. “She always aims to do the right thing. She’s good at being serious when we need to be serious and being fun when we need it.”

Ramsey’s role as one of the team’s main leaders wasn’t unnoticed by U head coach Brad Frost, as she was named as one of the team’s captains prior to her senior season with the team.

Personality off the ice

Ramsey, although a great leader, is not without her quirks off the ice.

“She has this weird pet peeve where she has decorative towels that you aren’t allowed to use,” Dani Cameranesi said. “You can go in there to wash your hands and she’ll yell at you to not use the brown ones and to use the white ones behind the door. She has some weird quirks like that.”

Ramsey, according to Haley and Cameranesi, is a proficient drawer and doodler, plays video games like “Grand Theft Auto” and “Call of Duty” like a “17-year-old boy” and also has preferences as to how clean her room has to be.

“She can be a neat freak, but her room can also be trashed at the same time,” Cameranesi said.

Ramsey, even with her quirks as a roommate, continues to display the leadership skills and personality traits that have helped carry her team’s success.

“She’s a great roommate,” Cameranesi said. “I’ve created a lot of good memories with her this year. If I’m ever having a bad day or in a bad situation, she’s always there to help me out and talk me through it. That’s more than I could ask out of a person.”

Moving on

Ramsey decided prior to the season that her senior year at the U would be her last year playing hockey in a competitive manner.

“I’m ready, once this year is done, to hopefully fall in love with a career path or something else as much as I have the sport of hockey for the past 15 years,” Ramsey told the Star Tribune.

Ramsey said she is unsure of what the future holds for her, but right now she is considering a career in broadcasting or advertising. Ramsey’s broadcasting experience includes stints at popular Minneapolis media outlets in Fox Sports North, KFAN and, most recently, the country music station k102 where she is a DJ during the weekends.

“Maybe I still haven’t wrapped my mind around the fact that my career is done, that that was my last competitive game,” Ramsey told the Pioneer Press. “And it really hasn’t sunk in what we’ve accomplished. Five, 10 years down the road, that’s when it will sink in how special this was.”

Reporter Chris Chesky is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.