FINISHING TOUCH: Princeton Day School girls’ hockey player Colby Triolo goes after the puck in a game earlier this season. Last Wednesday, senior forward Triolo enjoyed a big finale at McGraw Rink, tallying a goal and getting two assists to help PDS defeat Summit 9-1 on the program’s annual Senior Night. The Panthers went on to take fourth in ‘A’ bracket last weekend in the WIHLMA (Women’s Interscholastic Hockey League of the Mid-Atlantic) tournament at the Hill School (Pa.), ending the season at 11-8-1. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

For Colby Triolo, the idea of taking up ice hockey at Princeton Day School started as kind of an offhand quip.

“I was practicing my interview for coming to PDS and my father asked me what I am going to do to get involved in the community and I said well I am going to try out for ice hockey,” said Triolo.

“I was completely joking but I wanted to make the interview good. I thought about it and I was like I should try out for ice hockey and that it is how it started.”

Triolo acted on her thought and joined the PDS girls’ hockey team as a freshman in the winter of 2010-11. Hampered by injury that season, Triolo really got into the game as a sophomore.

While Triolo has developed a passion for hockey, she acknowledges that she isn’t the most skilled player on the ice.

“I love it,” said Triolo. “I am focusing on not falling because that blue line is really tricky sometimes. Whenever I focus on scoring, that doesn’t work.”

Last Wednesday, Triolo showed focus and some scoring prowess, tallying a goal and getting two assists to help PDS defeat Summit 9-1 on the program’s annual Senior Night.

Triolo and her classmates had a sense of urgency as they took the ice at McGraw Rink for the last time.

“Because none of us are going on to play hockey in college, this is the last time in front of our peers and our school playing a game here and it was give it all we have, because there is no going back,” said Triolo, whose fellow seniors include Mary Travers, Robin Linzmayer, Mimi Matthews, and Abby Sharer.

“In the locker room, we were dancing. Now we have this clapping thing and it gets us really excited. One of us starts a beat and it keeps going and going.”

The PDS seniors enjoyed an exciting night as they all ended up on the score sheet with Mathews notching three goals, Travers tallying two goals and an assist, Linzmayer chipping in a goal and an assist, and Sharer picking up an assist.

“It just shows the heart of our seniors, how much we care and how much we appreciate this team,” said Triolo, one of the squad’s assistant captains. “Our teammates were really working hard to get each of us a goal.”

The team’s chemistry shows through on and off the ice. “Personally I feel like our class has been so close all four years,” said Triolo of the PDS squad, which fell 1-0 to Portledge School (N.Y.) last Saturday in the semis of the WIHLMA (Women’s Interscholastic Hockey League of the Mid-Atlantic) tournament at the Hill School (Pa.) and ended up placing fourth in the tourney’s ‘A’ bracket. “Our team this year, I don’t know what it is, we are not a team, we are a family.”

This fall, Triolo will be joining a new family as she heads to Cornell University to study engineering.

“The first time I was there was for a hockey camp two years ago,” recalled Triolo.

“I just wanted to improve and come back and get ice time so I went to Cornell. I thought I kind of like this school. I went back last year on a tour and I was like I am in love with this school. It just feels like home.”

Over the course of her PDS career, Triolo certainly found a home with the hockey team. “It has made my PDS career like nothing else I could say,” asserted Triolo, who plans to play a club sport at Cornell.

“Every year everyone says ice hockey is the best season and it truly is, just knowing that you have the locker room to come to after school. I don’t know if it is because we are so separate or we are back here, but you just get so close to your teammates. Ice hockey is a really great sport.”