Governor's Teams
Athletics at The Governor’s Academy is about outstanding performance- as our championship titles, college NCAA scholarship players, and world competitors will attest- but it is also about character.
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Team Profile
Hockey - Girls Varsity
New England Tournament Championships (Division II):
2022 Semifinalists
2014 Quarterfinalists
2013 Semifinalists
2011 Champions
2010 Champions
2009 Champions
2008 Champions
2005 Semifinalists
2004 Quarterfinalists
The Girls’ Varsity Ice Hockey program seeks to cultivate a high level of play, a strong team culture of cohesion and compassion, and personalized skill development to complement each player’s aspirations. With a combined sixty-eight years of hockey coaching, Coach Barcomb and Coach Ceglarski emphasize a philosophy of playing with equal parts discipline and desire, heart and hustle.
The team practices and competes on campus in the Whiston•Bragdon Arena, a state-of-the-art rink featuring NHL-sized ice, five spacious locker rooms, a classroom for film breakdown, an athletic training center, skate-sharpening technology, and a warming space for fans. With a common goal of learning from mistakes to improve from every skate, team practices are fast-paced and finish with small-sided games that ignite a competitive edge in all players. Throughout the season, captains organize school-wide themes for each home game including Pajama Night and Jersey Night to amplify the student cheering section on winter weekends. The team also organizes an annual “Pink at the Rink” community service event in collaboration with Boys Varsity Hockey, and during the 2022-2023 event, they raised over $6,000 for the Jimmy Fund.
Competing in the highly-regarded ISL, the team’s schedule contains twenty-five to thirty games across New England. During their annual Holiday Tournament, Govs hosts top programs from Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine to provide players with college coach exposure and preparation for league play. Govs compete against Middlesex for the Lynda Fitzgerald/Patty Kasmaier Cup to recognize the groundwork they laid for female athletic and academic success in the NEPSAC. In 2023, Govs hockey played at Frozen Fenway in downtown Boston, providing players and fans with an experience of a lifetime inside historic Fenway Park.
Several Govs players have continued their hockey career at the collegiate level; programs include Boston College, Brown, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Dartmouth, Hobart William Smith, Holy Cross, Northeastern, Plymouth State, Rensselaer, Sacred Heart, St. Anselm's, St. Lawrence, Trinity, UMass Boston, Union, University of New Hampshire, and the University of Southern Maine.
For more information, please reach out to Head Coach Claudia Asano Barcomb.
Alums in Action:
Maura Fiorenza ’22 - Dartmouth College
Kelly Harty ’22 - University of New Hampshire
Lily Shannon ’22 - Northeastern University
Devon Galizio ’22 - Connecticut College
Averill McCorkle ’21 - Colgate University
Lauren Fraser ’21 - Colgate University
Alex Carpenter ’11 - USA National Team
Kate Leary ’11 - Assistant Women’s Ice Hockey Coach Merrimack College
Coaches
Coach Profiles
Head Coach: Claudia Asano Barcomb
Drawn to the Academy’s close-knit, family feel and strong hockey history, Claudia Asano Barcomb arrived at Governor’s in 2017 eager to contribute to the competitive athletic culture of the ISL. A varsity field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse contributor at Groton, Barcomb is an advocate for multi-sport athletes and student leadership development. She continued her career at Harvard, winning a national championship in ice hockey and captaining both the women’s ice hockey and lacrosse teams. After graduating from college, Barcomb returned to the ISL as assistant athletic director, history teacher, and field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse coach at Middlesex for three years. From there, she transitioned to college hockey as an assistant coach at Harvard for five years and head coach at Union College for nine years. Barcomb became associate director of athletics, history teacher, and ice hockey and lacrosse coach at Kimball Union Academy for a year before assuming her current role Director of Afternoon Program and Athletics at Governor’s. Living by the phrase, “Own It,” Barcomb believes in the importance of learning from mistakes and failing forward. She values the variety of students that come to Govs and the myriad of opportunities that await them here, on the ice and beyond. She is an advocate for equity for all genders in athletics.
Assistant Coach: Babe Ceglarski
Entering his twenty-fifth season as the Governor’s Girls Varsity Hockey coach, Babe Ceglarski has been a stronghold of the program’s success. After playing at Middlebury College, he began his forty-four-year career in education at the Fay School as an athletic director, math teacher, and versatile, four-sport coach. Since 1990, Ceglarski has been teaching history, serving as a dorm parent, and coaching at the Academy. An avid Boston sports fan, Ceglarski enjoys spending time outside and has raised three sons and five labradors with his wife while living on campus.
Goalie Coach: Joe Bertagna
With coaching experience in the NHL and the Olympics, Joe Bertagna has spent a half-century as a player, coach, administrator, and journalist in the sport of ice hockey. He started in goal at Harvard before founding the women’s hockey program in 1977 as their inaugural coach. Bertagna has coached for the Boston Bruins and the US Olympic Team and is a member of the Massachusetts Hockey Hall of Fame and Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Hall of Fame. He believes in emphasizing the mental aspects of goaltending while also enhancing goalie technique, positioning, and rebound control.