WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Kylie Young hasn’t forgotten the final game of her career as a defenseman on the Hartford High girls hockey team, even if it was nearly 20 years ago.

The 2002 Hartford grad laughed Tuesday when asked about the state championship she never won with the Hurricanes. She guided them to the VPA Division I finals in each of her four years, the last an overtime loss to BFA-St. Albans.

The intensity and drive to win that made her Hartford’s all-time leading scorer — a title she still holds — will be the foundation of Young’s approach to her new role as the fourth coach in the program’s history.

“We never won one,” she said with a sigh over the phone. “It was either U-32 or BFA-St. Albans all four years of my life.”

After nearly winning a state title in 2002, she played three years of D-I college hockey at Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University before transferring to Castleton University for her senior year, where she graduated in 2006.

Young, whose maiden name is Ammel, is a third-generation Hurricane, and those roots brought her back to the Upper Valley after college.

Her brother, Dan, is a Hartford grad and a longtime assistant for the Canes football team. Her father, Bob Ammel Jr., was a member of the Hartford class of 1973, winning a state football title and skating for the hockey team, which used to play on flooded tennis courts. And Young’s grandfather, Dan Ammel Sr., tended the scoreboard at Hurricane football games for almost 50 years.

The ties to Hartford make the girls hockey gig a dream job of sorts for her, Young said. She takes over for Bill Goldsworthy, who was 4-56-3 in three seasons with the Canes.

“She is the right person for the job right now,” said Hartford athletic director Jeff Moreno, who hired Young this summer. “She was special (when she played); she still is. Kylie was a very accomplished player, a no-nonsense approach, which makes her a real commodity for any team she played on.”

Young has continued to stay involved with hockey, putting in nine years on the Upper Valley Hockey Association’s board and also working as a youth coach and referee. As the operations manager at Be-Fit Physical Therapy in White River Junction, she’s kept track of the Hartford girls hockey program from afar.

Current Vermont regulations have put an indefinite pause on all recreation and high school sports, so Young hasn’t been able to begin practice. A few Zoom calls and socially distanced workouts have allowed for her to meet members of the team, but she admitted she’s mixed up some names.

Moreno said a schedule is in the works and will be announced any day.

Hartford has relied on the VPA’s member-to-member program to field a full team for years. This season will be no different, as the Canes are pulling players from Thetford Academy and Bellows Falls. Young’s also recruited some middle schoolers to play, hoping to build depth for the years ahead.

“Kylie participated and played in the program when we were regularly competing and playing for Division I state championships. We were playing phenomenal hockey,” said Nelson Fogg, Hartford’s principal and the first girls hockey coach in program history. “I think her ability to bring that history and tradition, to be able to speak in the first person about what that felt like and what the expectation was for her and her teammates, is really vital. It’s hard to know where you’re going if the person leading you hasn’t been there, and she has been.”

Young remembers when Vermont elevated girls hockey to a varsity sport in 1999 and how her teammates bought into the expectations Fogg set. Those expectations will be the same she uses to run her club.

Erin Stevens, who is the goalie coach for the Hartford boys hockey team, will serve as Young’s assistant coach. Stevens played college hockey at St. Michael’s.

Besides winning games and growing the program, Young would like to see more girls stay local and play for Hartford. Lately, players have opted to spend the winter with travel hockey teams as opposed to wearing the red, white and blue.

If she can do that, she believes it will get the Canes back to their winning ways.

“Even someone such as myself as an alumnus, it was easy to walk in the rink a few years ago and almost feel a sense of disappointment,” Young said. “It shouldn’t feel that way, and I want people to be more respectful of our program. And it shouldn’t be something experienced girls are running from. If you’re trying to play for any team other than your high school team because you don’t think they’re good enough for you, then there is a problem at the lower levels.”

Pete Nakos can be reached at pnakos@vnews.com.

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