Rasmuson playing NCAA Division 1 hockey in US
October 30, 2023, 2:32 pm
Ashley Bochek
Alyssa Rasmuson grew up playing hockey in Moosomin, played AAA with the Notre Dame Hounds for the last three years, and now attends Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania and plays for the school’s women’s hockey team.
Rasmuson is on a hockey scholarship and plays at the highest level of college hockey in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)—Division One.
Alyssa attended Athol Murray College of Notre Dame for her high school years and was exposed to Division 1 schools playing her seasons as a Hound.
“I went to Notre Dame (Athol Murray College) in my Grade 10 year. June after Grade 10 is when the recruiting process starts for NCAA, and I talked to a couple of schools then,” says Alyssa.
“It wasn’t until the summer after Grade 11 when I started talking to Robert Morris and decided to pursue coming here.”
Rasmuson says it is a lot of fun playing with other high-level athletes who have the same mentality of continually improving their hockey skills. Rasmuson says the transition to Pennsylvania as a student-athlete was easier after attending Notre Dame.
“It is very competitive and busy. It is also a lot of fun to play with other high-level athletes and have that mentality of always wanting to get better and win, so that is a lot of fun.
“It is definitely a challenge, but being away at Notre Dame before coming here, it was a college-like experience in high school, so the transition definitely isn’t as hard for me as it has been for some other girls I know. It is still a little bit challenging, but I can get through it.”
Alyssa lives on campus in Moon Township and says she notices the difference of scenery of Pennsylvania as compared to Saskatchewan.
“It is different living down here. Especially, the weather is a lot different as well as the landscape. Pittsburgh has a lot more hills than Saskatchewan being so flat. It does rain quite often, but it is also quite a bit warmer here right now than at home. I live on campus and the school is in Moon Township which is about 30 minutes from Pittsburgh.”
Every day is busy for Rasmuson, balancing school and hockey, but some days are lighter than others giving her more time for homework.
“A typical Monday morning, I’ll have my first class at 7:45 which is my calculus class, and after I have an hour break where I do some homework. Then, at 10 o’clock I have chemistry and then an hour break where I will eat my lunch. At 12 pm I have biology and then straight from there, another teammate and I have class until 12:50, before practice at 1:30 so we go right from class to the rink which is a 10-minute drive from campus. About 15-30 minutes before practice is open ice where you can work on skills, then practice is from an hour to an hour and 15 minutes depending on what day it is. After practice we go straight to workout. My schedule is different every day. Thursdays, I don’t have any classes so after hockey is over I usually study. It just depends on the day.”
The Robert Morris Colonials have played out-of-conference teams for preseason, but starting this coming weekend they will play their first in-conference game.
“In my conference, we play Penn State, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), Lyndon Wood, Mercyhurst, and Syracuse, but we also play out-of-conference games,” she says. “We haven’t played an in-conference game yet, next weekend is our first weekend playing in-conference play. So far we have played Union, Princeton and Clarkson which are out-of-conference teams.”
Alyssa plans to attend Robert Morris University for four years as a student-athlete. She plans to become an agronomist in the future, but wants to play hockey for as long as she can.
“I will attend Robert Morris University for four years doing hockey and school. It is lots of fun and a great environment, a positive environment to be in, and I am meeting new people.
“My plan for my future, if I don’t decide to keep playing hockey, I want to become an agronomist and work with farmers. Obviously, right now I want to play hockey for as long as I can, so I will pursue it until I can’t.”
