Abbey Miller was one of the last players to walk out of the locker room following Syracuse’s 2-0 loss to Robert Morris in the College Hockey America title game on March 4 in Buffalo. She made her way through the group of families standing outside the HarborCenter locker rooms, locked eyes with her dad, Doug, and turned left to stand by some windows that overlooked the sidewalk.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered.

About 45 minutes earlier, she watched the Colonials celebrate their second conference title and the Orange lose its third straight. Miller had set the program and league record for shutouts (nine) and posted SU’s best single-season goals against average (1.58) in her first year as SU’s starter. But, Syracuse lost its sixth conference championship in eight years and Miller blamed herself.

She lived with the team’s seniors and felt that, as goalie, her play let them down. Doug, and her mom, Susie, followed Miller to the window and stared. After a minute, they gave their daughter a hug and Miller broke out in tears.

“I don’t know if we ever talked about it,” Susie said. “Sometimes she wants to get through it on her own.”

Nearly nine months after the loss, Miller stood inside Tennity Ice Pavilion and said she had moved on. When asked how, she said she focused on the 2017-18 season, which is potentially her last playing organized hockey. So far, Syracuse’s (5-9-2, 4-1-1 CHA) season hasn’t lived up to Miller’s expectations. Her career GAA has risen .30 points, her save percentage is the lowest it’s been in since her freshman year, and twice this season she has been benched in favor of sophomore Ady Cohen. After SU’s most recent loss on Dec. 5 to No. 3 Clarkson, head coach Paul Flanagan said Miller will need to forget the poor performances to keep her starting job.

Phil Bryant | Staff Photographer

Miller is used to dealing with pressure and often times puts it on herself. Throughout her career she’s cried after letting in goals, broken countless sticks and has been defined by her extreme competitiveness. Coaches have said her intensity made her the goalie that she is, yet at times, its overwhelmed her. It’s both held her back and propelled her to Syracuse, where she’s trying to guide SU to its first conference title and NCAA tournament berth in program history.

“Losing is not an option,” Miller said. “I’m going to do whatever I can.”

***

Miller spent seven years looking for a sport she liked. She started with baseball because Doug played. She danced because her babysitter did. She rode horses because her first-grade teacher loved horses. She attempted rollerblading, soccer, and football.

When she was five, she connected with gymnastics, then gave it up for hockey after her parents couldn’t afford equipment for both sports. Her cousins played hockey and Miller joined them in street games. In third grade, she joined a recreation league as a forward. A year later, her team needed a goalie, so Miller threw on the pads and was called “a natural” by coaches around the league. She originally hated the position, but stuck with it.

“Hockey is a lot faster than other sports,” Miller said. “My mind is bouncing all of the time and it was a sport that could keep up with how fast I was always moving.”

Once, her goalie glove, a size too big, fell off mid-play. It was a recreation league game with no real stakes, but she didn’t wait for the referee’s whistle. Instead, she stretched her hand into a thicket of blades and grabbed the puck, stopping the scoring threat. She was 9 years old.

From birth, her mom knew she would be different. Susie made sure that Miller’s first name was spelled with an ‘e’ just to stand out. Miller knew she was unlike normal kids for other reasons.

“There has to be something missing upstairs if you want to get hit by solid rubber discs,” Miller told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2013.

She was on a boys team at 9 years old that matched up against older squads and Miller faced 50 to 60 shots per game. As the goals piled up, Susie recalled her daughter crying on the ice. Those in the stands heard the little goalie wailing but not taking herself out of the game.

Susie had to bribe her daughter to hold back the tears. Miller received $5 if she didn’t cry until she got off the ice. Five more if she waited until she got in the locker-room. Five more if she held off until she got in the car. The tactic was used a few times and it stopped Miller from crying in most games.

A year later, she played in a 0-0 game and lost when the winner was decided on which team had the most shots on goal. Miller pitched a shutout and, again, blamed herself for the loss. Three years after that, before a tournament in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Miller took part in a 3-on-3 game. The contest was played on mini-rink and Susie estimated her daughter faced 100 shots. Around Miller’s 11th allowed goal, she slammed the heel of her stick on the ice and the wood splintered. Her parents asked if it had broken and she lied. The next day, sitting in the locker-room, she tried to tape her stick together when a coach asked if she brought a backup stick. That one was broken too.

“I broke a lot of sticks,” Miller said. “I don’t know where that comes from. It’s an outlet when I get frustrated. It’s something to release the anger a little bit. They break easily.”

***

Her intensity only grew while at Benilde-St. Margaret’s (Minnesota) High School. Dave Herbst, who himself won championships at Wisconsin as a player, coached the Red Knights.

Miller was one of six future-Division I players on her high school team. In practice, she faced college-level shooters including Kelly Pannek, who is now on the U.S. national team prepping for the 2018 Olympics.

“Some kids have that (competitiveness),” Herbst said. “When Abbey lost, she took it personally.”

The worst losses always came against Miller’s high school rivals: Minnetonka. For three-straight years, with Miller in net for the latter two, the Red Knights fell against the Skippers. In Miller’s junior season, the teams were locked in a scoreless, overtime game when a bouncing puck skirted past Miller. She collapsed on a patch of ice just outside the crease and sobbed.

Phil Bryant | Staff Photographer

That offseason, Herbst was approached by Hans Skulstad, a sports psychologist who wanted to work with the Red Knights on handling defeat, since Skulstad was already working with the school’s men’s team. Group sessions began in 2013 and Miller met with Skulstad once a week on her own. He emphasized playing with a calm mind and tried to teach Miller to forcefully let bad plays go. They developed tactics so Miller could move past goals in-game. Before, when Miller let in a weak goal she flung the puck away. After meeting with Skulstad, she wouldn’t touch the puck at all.

“He helped me a lot,” Miller said. “I was still being competitive but I was able to control it. I had a lot more composure.”

The meetings helped Miller eventually, but the intensity was still there. Miller broke Minnesota’s shutout record and beat Minnetonka en route to the state championship game her senior year. In the state title matchup, for the first time, she wasn’t wearing a leotard she usually wore under her pads, lost the game and later attributed the loss to her missing leotard.

***

When Miller arrived on campus her freshman year at Syracuse, she was confronted with a situation she had never experienced before: Not being the best goalie on the team. Jenn Gilligan, who previously played for New Hampshire, transferred to Syracuse as a junior and relegated Miller to the bench.

Miller played in three games her freshman year and allowed nine goals. Her sophomore year, she entered four more contests and gave up three goals. At the start of last season, Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan didn’t know if SU’s starter would be Miller or returning sophomore Maddi Welch.

“She never had to beat anybody out,” Doug said. “When she played association hockey, there were no other goalies. In high school, she set the bar.”

That summer, Miller skated for seven hours a day, four days a week. She woke up early in the morning and trained herself. She entered the fall with 7 percent less body fat than the prior season. After starting back-to-back games the weekend of Oct. 14, 2016, Miller felt like she had won the job.

With her increased role, Miller felt pressure and again her anger arose. After SU blew a two-goal lead against Rochester Institute of Technology, a then-three-win team, on Dec. 2, 2016, Flanagan called the draw “an awful hockey game.” Miller spent the night in her room and struggled with putting the game behind her.

She doesn’t know where the anger comes from, Miller said. Neither do her coaches nor her mom. However, her dad, Doug, thinks he’s the reason his daughter is so competitive.

In one game when Miller was 14, her team held a 3-0 lead in the third period. After three quick goals, the game was tied and Miller’s coach called a timeout. As she skated over to the bench Doug yelled down at her to focus. The team lost in overtime, and Doug said he’ll never forget the game he put his daughter in tears.

“I think she grew up watching me and got the competitiveness from me,” Doug said. “The good and bad of it…. I think she was trying to please me a lot.”

***

To get over the postseason loss her junior year of high school, Miller focused on her senior year. It worked and her team made it to the state championship. Now, she’s trying the same formula to make it back to Buffalo.

She’s matured because her situation has dictated she had to. She’s accustomed to defeat when before it defined her. Miller’s high school team played 112 games in four years. It lost 12. At SU, her lowest single-season loss total has been 13.

Phil Bryant | Staff Photographer

After being benched against Clarkson, Miller played the role of supporting teammate and cheered for each of Cohen’s 23 saves. She didn’t show her anger, but, she was the first one out of the locker room after the game.

“When I get angry,” Miller said, “I end up playing better. When I’m down, it’s a little bit different. It’s harder to bounce back.”

Now, she doesn’t blame herself as much, Miller said. She’s enrolled a meditation class and it’s helped prepare her for when a negative thought pops into her head. Whenever she is about to get upset, Miller said, she pictures a light switch, flicks it off and the thought disappears.

“I think that if she wasn’t that competitive,” Susie, her mom, said. “She wouldn’t be playing for Syracuse. That competitiveness is that separator…She has that extra edge of wanting more from life, not wanting to just accept things as is, always wanting to work harder for something else.”

Published on December 6, 2017 at 11:52 pm

Contact Nick: nialvare@syr.edu | @nick_a_alvarez