This article is featured in the 2026 Winter Carnival Issue.
When Michaela Hesová ’28 takes the ice at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena on Feb. 5 at the 2026 Winter Olympics, she’ll be doing more than representing the Czech Republic in its Olympic opener against the United States. She’ll be restoring a tradition that defined Dartmouth women’s hockey for nearly two decades.
“We haven’t had an Olympian from our women’s hockey team since 2016 or so,” Hesová said. “So I’m just excited to get that trend going and get Dartmouth on the map as well.”
The goaltender learned she made the Czech Republic’s Olympic roster in early January after a grueling selection process that began in July 2024. The Czech team held tryout camps in August, November and December 2025 before finalizing the roster — a months-long evaluation that Hesová balanced alongside her sophomore year at Dartmouth.
“I think that obviously, as a student athlete, it’s pretty taxing and challenging,” Hesová said. “Being a student here at the demanding school while also playing a sport here while also representing your own country. But I’ve been lucky enough to have professors who have been very supportive and accommodating.”
Head coach Maura Crowell, now in her second season at Dartmouth after previously coaching at the University of Minnesota Duluth, has coached multiple Olympians throughout her career and said she immediately recognized Hesová’s talent.
“Right when she got here, she’s just a professional in her approach to the game,” Crowell said. “The way she prepares for practice, it’s different from a lot of people. What she does at practice, her compete level and her battle, her battle mentality, not giving up on pucks, always trying to get better, making her teammates better by being so competitive.”
Hesová left for Milan on Jan. 25, missing most of winter term but remaining enrolled in all her classes. She’ll attend some via Zoom, others through recorded lectures. Projects will accumulate during her time away, a workload she considers worthwhile to take what she called “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“I’m not trying to fail this semester, so, you know, gotta do some balancing,” Hesová said. “But luckily, I have a friend or a teammate or someone that I know in every one of my classes that have all said that they’ll be more than happy to explain things to me or send me notes.”
Her teammates have rallied around her selection in ways both visible and personal. At her final game before departure, the entire team wore shirts bearing her face and the Olympic rings.
“We’re so proud of and excited for Michaela,” said defenseman Maura Fiorenza ’26, who has played alongside Hesová since the goaltender’s freshman year. “Of course, we’re gonna miss her very much while she’s gone, but we still have two great other goaltenders on our team, so we have full trust in them.”
Fiorenza praised Hesová’s “work ethic,” adding that she is “always putting everything she has into getting better and improving.”
“It truly gives us so much confidence when we’re playing, knowing that she’s on the ice with us, because she’s just so reliable and there’s never a doubt that she’s not giving 100% of her effort at any time,” Fiorenza said.
Crowell pointed to specific habits that elevated Hesová’s game to Olympic level. Beyond standard practice, Crowell said Hesová spends additional time working with a neurotracker and participating in specialized visual training exercises.
“I think what it takes to be at that level is doing more than what is asked and having a passion and a real focus on what she’s doing," Crowell said. “Her commitment level is through the roof, and I think she sets the standard for our program and where we want everybody to get to.”
That commitment was tested throughout the 2024-25 season as Hesová played under the scrutiny of Czech national team coaches evaluating her Olympic worthiness. The pressure mounted through the fall, with her roster spot uncertain until January.
“I think the score was the Czechs lost 6-0, and it was in large part because of Michaela’s performance,” Crowell said, referencing Hesová’s standout game against the United States at the 2024 Women’s World Championship. “People all around the world started reaching out to us like, ‘Oh wow, this goalie plays for you at Dartmouth. Wow, she’s amazing.’ So that I think was a big step for her.”
The Czech Republic enters the Olympics in Group A alongside the United States, Canada, Finland and Switzerland, a brutal draw featuring the sport’s traditional powerhouse countries. Team USA enters as the top seed, coming off a silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The tournament began Thursday with the final medal games scheduled for Feb. 19.
Hesová’s first test came immediately: the Czech Republic faced the United States in the tournament opener on Thursday, which the U.S. won 5-1. The Czechs will face Switzerland on Feb. 6, Finland on Feb. 8 and Canada on Feb. 9 to complete preliminary round play.
“Our main goal is to represent our country to the best of our abilities, and that will hopefully mean that we medal at the Olympics,” Hesová said. “Preferably, obviously, you always have to strive for the highest goal, so the gold medal would be pretty awesome. But I think that any medal you can get from the Olympics will be a fairly memorable one.”
Hesová joins Dartmouth’s rich Olympic hockey tradition. At least one Dartmouth player has competed in every Olympic women’s hockey final since the sport debuted at the Olympics in 1998, with Big Green women’s hockey athletes winning 10 of the 22 total Olympic gold medals ever won by Dartmouth alumni in all sports, winter and summer.
Laura Stacey ’16, who last represented Dartmouth women’s hockey at the Olympics, won silver with Canada in 2018 and gold in 2022. Before Stacey, Dartmouth women’s hockey produced a pipeline of Olympic talent through players like Cherie Piper ’06, Gillian Apps ’06 and Katie Weatherston ’06, who won gold medals with Team Canada.
For Crowell, who has navigated the Olympic selection pressure with multiple athletes, the moment Hesová received confirmation was particularly meaningful.
“Once she was named to that team, it was a huge weight lifted off of her,” Crowell said. “And you’ve seen a little bit of that weight come off for this second half and some of her performances, and she’s played unbelievably well for us.”
The advice Crowell gave Hesová echoes what she’s told every Olympic-bound athlete: focus on what you can control.
“Be where your feet are is one way of putting it, or bloom where you’re planted is another way,” Crowell said. “Be great at Dartmouth, be great in your daily work, and things will work out. And I think we’re seeing that now.”
Hesová’s Olympic journey carries deeper significance for a Czech Republic team that treats itself as family.
“The dynamics on the national team are probably the best I could ask for,” Hesová said. “It’s also pretty funny to be a student on that team because I get made fun of a lot, because a majority of the girls graduated college a few years back. So they like to pick on ‘the student’ because it’s funny that we still have to do school while we’re at these events.”
The duality of representing both Dartmouth and the Czech Republic isn’t lost on Hesová.
“I think it’s a little different because representing Czechia is basically representing 10 million or so people, and I’ve obviously grown up back home — I’ve been there a little longer than at Dartmouth,” she said. “But for me, it’s equally as exciting to be able to represent Dartmouth.”
Hesová’s excitement extends beyond hockey itself. Milan will host thousands of elite athletes across dozens of sports, creating opportunities Hesová never imagined.
“I think I’m excited to see all the other great athletes that are not hockey-related at all,” she said. “Like Mikaela Shiffrin, I’m really excited about that one. So I think it’s just the idea that I’ll be at the same place as all these people that I watch on the TV and I’m basically going to be there — not equal, but kind of on the same level, which I think is pretty insane.”
As Hesová prepares to depart, she emphasizes gratitude for the support system that made her Olympic dream possible.
“I want to thank both of my professors, Erin Collins and John Winter, who are supporting me through this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she said. “I obviously have to thank Dartmouth as a whole because without them I wouldn’t be at this point that I am today, which includes the professors, the faculty I see every day, my coaches, hockey, the entire hockey department and all of my teammates. Something people don’t realize is just how many people can go into one person’s success, and in this case it really did take a village, so I’m very grateful for that.”
For Fiorenza and her teammates, the coming weeks will involve balancing their own season — Dartmouth sits at 4-13-3 overall and 2-7-3 in conference play — with watching their teammate compete on hockey’s biggest stage.
“We’re so excited to see her succeed, and we know she’s gonna do great things,” Fiorenza said.
Crowell’s final message to Hesová combined competitive fire with perspective.
“She’s gonna enjoy the heck out of this whole experience and come back with hopefully a medal of some color,” Crowell said. “That’s the goal.”
For a program rebuilding its Olympic pipeline and a goaltender who spent 16 years dreaming of this moment, the journey to Milan represents both personal achievement and institutional legacy, proof that excellence cultivated in Hanover can still compete on the world stage.
