By January, she was skating again—ahead of her rehab schedule.
In the spring, she went to a tattoo parlor to immortalize the ordeal. Next to the scar on her heel, “Persevere” was etched alongside an arrow.
“An arrow can only be launched forward if it’s pulled backward,” Gedman explained. “It’s like a metaphor for turning a setback into a comeback.”
Without Gedman and Pucci, Harvard finished second in the ECAC Tournament and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. At the team’s end-of-year banquet, Gedman was named as one of three captains for 2013-2014.
Despite Gedman’s recovery efforts, she did not get an invite to the Olympic tryout. Instead, she returned to Harvard as its only remaining captain. Co-captain Josephine Pucci made the Olympic roster, along with senior Lyndsey Fry and junior Michelle Picard, while the other co-captain, Kalley Armstrong, will miss this season with an injury.
That leaves Gedman to lead a young team that includes just two seniors. Her blueline is even less experienced outside of preseason All-Ivy junior Sarah Edney. Thus far, Gedman has spent much of her time working with a freshman partner at the other defenseman position.
Though she is only a junior, the co-captain explained that the adversity she has faced over the last year has helped her grow more experienced.
“Perspective is expensive,” Gedman said. “Yeah, the year sucked, but being back here now I just see everything so differently…. It was a blessing in disguise.”
Interim coach Maura Crowell has seen a change in Gedman, as well.
“It stinks to go through it,” Crowell said. “But I think the things that she has learned and taken from it have been pretty powerful.”
On Friday, Gedman will return to the ice in a varsity game for the first time since the spring of 2012.
“I’ve been looking forward to this day for so long,” Gedman said.
She is excited to stand on the other side of the Plexiglas boards, looking up at her mom in the stands rather than her would-be teammates on the ice.
She’s ready to be a Harvard hockey player again.
—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com.