{"id":438587,"date":"2026-01-31T20:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/438587\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T20:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:53:14","slug":"this-ct-athlete-comes-from-an-ice-hockey-family-but-she-chose-to-play-on-turf-not-ice-in-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/438587\/","title":{"rendered":"This CT athlete comes from an ice hockey family but she chose to play on turf, not ice, in college"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deirdre McKiernan was two months old the first time she was wheeled by her mom into an ice hockey rink in a double stroller with her older sister Kate. Older brother Patrick and sister Mary both played hockey, following their father Brendan,<\/a> who played the sport at Assumption.<\/a><\/p>\n

Naturally, Deirdre began to play when she was 3. Youth hockey, club hockey, knee hockey in the McKiernans\u2019 basement with her brothers and sisters, H-O-R-S-E on the net in their driveway in Glastonbury.<\/p>\n

Patrick<\/a> played in high school and is now playing at Assumption. So did Mary,<\/a> who is a senior at Assumption. Kate played for the East Catholic co-operative team and now she is at Kent<\/a> and will play at Bowdoin next season.<\/p>\n

Deirdre, a senior captain from Glastonbury for the East Catholic co-op (11-3), has 10 assists and six goals for the Storm, which is comprised of players from East Catholic, Glastonbury, South Windsor and Tolland.<\/p>\n

\"DeirdreDeirdre McKiernan, a senior on the East Catholic co-op ice hockey team, comes from an ice hockey family but she will be playing field hockey in college next year. (Photo courtesy of Brendan McKiernan).<\/p>\n

But she is heading down a different hockey path than the rest of her family after high school, choosing turf over ice. She started to play field hockey for Glastonbury High as a freshman \u2013 and as an ice hockey player, didn\u2019t understand that you couldn\u2019t use both sides of the stick at the first tryout.<\/p>\n

But she adapted and learned and now she is the program\u2019s all-time leading scorer (78 goals) and will be playing field hockey at Salve Regina<\/a> in Newport, R.I., after she graduates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see her come into her own and do her own thing,\u201d said her mother, Liz McKiernan, the only non-hockey player in the family (she did go to Assumption, however, where she met Brendan). \u201cHer leadership has skyrocketed with her success.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer siblings are all proud of her, too. They\u2019re all such hockey people, if you go to a (hockey) game with them, they\u2019re all very critical of each other, but nobody knows field hockey so they\u2019re like, \u2018She looks great!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DeirdreDeirdre McKiernan (third from left) is the youngest of the McKiernan siblings to play ice hockey but she has broken from her family tradition and will be playing field hockey in college. From left to right, Patrick, Kate, Deirdre and Mary McKiernan. (Photo courtesy of Brendan McKiernan)<\/p>\n

Deirdre had never played before but there were a lot of similarities and she had heard good things about the Glastonbury field hockey program, which has been successful over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started, something just clicked,\u201d she said. \u201cI just played to try something new. I thought, \u2018I\u2019ll just do this for fun, why not?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cFreshman year was a good season and I decided I liked it. Sophomore year I started playing club in the spring, then I was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m ready to make the switch.\u2019 I was planning on playing (ice) hockey in college, that was my dream. But after that, I was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to play field hockey, this is what I like more.\u2019 It was new, different. All my siblings played hockey so I felt like I was following in their footsteps, and I wanted to do something else, branching off a little.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once she figured out the basics, the game came naturally.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer hand-eye (coordination) and her ability to do 3D skills \u2013 because in ice hockey you can lift the puck \u2013 those are things she can do that are more innate that may not be innate to someone who doesn\u2019t play ice hockey,\u201d Glastonbury field hockey coach Maureen Perkins said. \u201cIt\u2019s cool to see when something she did in ice hockey transfers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe can move the ball in really small spaces. In ice hockey, you sometimes have to do that. Her hand-eye is just incredible \u2013 something that one kid would take five seconds to do, she would take one or two. She knows when she needs to pass, when she can keep the ball. She knows when to use what skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nothing that I\u2019ve taught her. She just knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last two years, Deirdre scored 30-plus goals for Glastonbury field hockey, which won 65 games over her four seasons and advanced to the state semifinals both her freshman and sophomore years. Her first three years, she played with Addison Infante, who went on to play at UConn. She studied Infante and how she played.<\/p>\n

Her sister Mary said she recalled a conversation she had with their father about Deirdre when she was younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said when she was young, she was the most natural born goal scorer out of the four of us,\u201d Mary said. \u201cThat just developed in her as a field hockey player more so than it did in hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up, Deirdre played hockey with her brothers and sisters but her father said when she started playing field hockey, he noticed a difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as she liked hockey \u2013 she would go out and practice when her siblings were outside practicing \u2013 it was more of a chore,\u201d Brendan said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times I looked out the window and saw her with her field hockey stick, just dribbling the ball on her own with nobody encouraging her to do it. She just wanted to go do it. Or in the wintertime, in front of the fire, just stickhandling the field hockey ball while she\u2019s watching television. She just gravitated to the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

So this is her last season of ice hockey \u2013 unless she is able to play two sports at Salve Regina. She would like to but is not sure if she can and field hockey is obviously the top priority for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s an excellent leader, a high IQ hockey player,\u201d East Catholic ice hockey coach Frank Usseglio said. \u201cShe definitely could play in college.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deirdre McKiernan was two months old the first time she was wheeled by her mom into an ice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[30184,27099,53741,19438,41244,53742,27100,1245,5,6,997,1246],"class_list":["post-438587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-east-catholic-high-school","tag-field-hockey","tag-girls-ice-hockey","tag-glastonbury","tag-hartford-courant","tag-high-school-sports","tag-hockey","tag-ice-hockey","tag-local-news","tag-local-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115991701860278588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}