For the first time since 1993, the Crimson will have a new skipper. Maura Crowell will bring 10 years of coaching experience to the table for Harvard as Katey Stone coaches Team USA.

For most teams, the coach is a rock, supporting it in wins or losses and teaching it how to succeed.

And for the past 19 seasons of Harvard women’s ice hockey it has been not a rock, but a stone, that has led it to success—head coach Katey Stone.

But for the first time since the 1993-94 season, the Crimson will have a new leader. As Stone leads the women of Team USA to the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, this February, assistant Maura Crowell has stepped in as interim head coach for the 2013-2014 season.

Crowell will have big shoes to fill, as Stone is the winningest coach in the history of Division I women’s hockey, spending her entire collegiate coaching career thus far with the Crimson.

Harvard is in good hands, though, as Crowell brings over ten years of coaching success to the job.

Since joining the Crimson three seasons ago, Crowell has helped lead the team to an Ivy League title in 2012-2013, two trips to the ECAC tournament semifinals, and a top-10 national ranking.

Although she may not have the experience of Stone, Crowell is certainly no newcomer to college hockey. Prior to coaching at Harvard, she was the head coach of the UMass-Boston women’s hockey team, becoming the winningest coach in the school’s history.

Crowell has also been an assistant coach at Connecticut College and St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Mass.

Aside from coaching at the collegiate level, she has also been involved in Massachusetts Hockey, the Texas Amateur Hockey Association, USA Hockey’s Rocky Mountain and New England Districts, and National Development Camps as a player evaluator.

As a player herself, Crowell played for Colgate University as a forward, helping the team to three straight ECAC playoff appearances and a championship berth.

Despite the change in staffing, the Crimson has much of the same look and feel of past teams. When asked how the two coaches differed, junior co-captain Marissa Gedman struggled to find a drastic change.

“I can’t pinpoint a difference,” Gedman said. “The practices feel the same…. It has been seamless.”

Stone has noted the similarities as well, which has made her much more comfortable with leaving the team in Crowell’s hands this year.

“Maura’s attention to detail and hard-nosed approach to a game are similar; it’s one of the reasons I think we get along so well,” Stone said. “She believes in the details of the game and that the little things matter.”

Crowell has learned a lot from Stone as the two have shared the bench for the past three years, and she plans on using what she has learned to further Harvard’s hockey success.