Caroline Harvey wins Patty Kazmaier, top NCAA hockey player
The Wisconsin Badgers women's hockey captain added yet another award to a packed trophy case
University Park, PA — Wisconsin Badgers alternate captain Kelly Gorbatenko was not short on words when asked why Wisconsin women’s hockey captain Caroline Harvey is deserving of the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award.
“Well, how much time do I have?” Gorbatenko asked before providing a glowing response.
“Going against her every day in practice, from day one, I was like ‘this kid is something special,’” the junior remarked about the defender. “She shuts me down all the time.”
With team success, a plethora of individual accolades, and an Olympic Gold Medal already to her name, Harvey has already accomplished nearly everything a player could put on a list of feats they dream of achieving in college. Saturday afternoon, on an off day before seeking her third national title, the blue-liner crossed one more thing off that list.
A season ago, Harvey finished as a top-three finalist beside her UW teammates Laila Edwards and eventual winner Casey O’Brien for the award given annually to the top player in NCAA Division I women’s ice hockey. In her final year of collegiate eligibility, the senior became the seventh Badger to win the honor, breaking a tie with the Harvard Crimson for the most by a single program in the award’s history.
With a dominant two-way performance all season long for Wisconsin, Harvey joined with O’Brien as the first Badgers duo to go back-to-back since Meghan Duggan and Brianna Decker in 2011-2012.
Caroline Harvey honored for historic season
Harvey, already a two-time first-team All-American ahead of her final collegiate campaign, has enjoyed her greatest level of success yet this season, capturing her third-straight first-team All-America honors.
From the blue line, the New Hampshire native has tallied 63 points, the fourth-most in the country, despite missing the final month of the regular season to compete in the 2026 Olympic Games. Only five defenders in NCAA history have tallied 60 or more points in one year. Harvey, the WCHA Player of the Year, is the first to accomplish the feat twice after she also recorded 63 points as a junior.
“We all see how fast and deceptive and talented she is,” Gorbatenko said. “She’s just able to make plays out of nothing.”
When the three-time WCHA Defender of the Year reached 60 points a season ago, she became the first player in the country to do so since Monique Lamoureux’s 65-point campaign in 2012-13 at North Dakota.
When combining her collegiate success with her accomplishments with Team USA, Harvey’s season has not just been impressive; it is unprecedented. In the first year that USA Hockey and Hockey Canada chose not to centralize camps, leading to collegians participating both in the Olympics and the NCAA simultaneously, the 5-foot-8 righty set a high-water mark. The Olympic MVP led the Americans, including five other current and former Badgers, to gold, leading the tournament in scoring with nine points in seven games.
Wisconsin women’s hockey legend Caroline Harvey
With an assist on Kirsten Simms’ overtime game-winner in last night’s Frozen Four semifinal, Harvey became the first defender in UW’s program history to tally 200 career points. The Bishop Kearney and North American Hockey Academy product joined just nine UW forwards as the only Badgers—regardless of position—to accomplish the feat.
That was yet another feather in the cap for the UW standout. With her dynamic speed, Harvey impacts play at both ends of the ice, making her one of only four players in program history with a career plus-minus above +200.
Harvey’s 145 career assists trail only O’Brien’s 177 for the most-ever by a Badger. This season, she has racked up 45 helpers, the ninth-most in a single season at Wisconsin. With 18 goals in her senior campaign, Harvey currently sits in a three-way tie for the most in a season by a defender. That mark was first set by Michelle Sikich in the program’s first season and tied by Harvey a year ago.
Beyond her on-ice accomplishments, the two-time Wisconsin Badgers captain is renowned for her leadership.
“She’s our captain. She’s our leader,” Gorbatenko commented. “We all follow her, and she sets the bar. Just working every day at the rink, when no one’s looking, she’s out there getting better and just trying to help our team be the best we can.”
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