Advertisement

Tyler Moy: An Artist on the Ice

{shortcode-99a7128ef325a770f3427fc436bb787db09b0bbf}

UPDATED: March 28, 2015, at 3:25 p.m.

SOUTH BEND, Ind.—There are plenty of reasons to fear the Harvard men’s ice hockey team if you’re another squad in the NCAA tournament’s Midwest regional this weekend.

Junior forward Jimmy Vesey leads the nation in goals. Goaltender Steve Michalek makes season-saving stops. And the basic rules of medicine do not seem to apply to fourth-year defenseman Patrick McNally.

In an interview before last weekend’s ECAC semifinals, however, the first Crimson player mentioned by Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold was not among these usual suspects. What’s one of the scariest things about Harvard, according to Pecknold?

Advertisement

“Tyler Moy is on their third line.”

When it comes to the Crimson’s scoring depth, the conversation has to start with Moy.

The sophomore forward enters the national tournament third on the team in goals (12) and fourth in points (27). He’s played everywhere for Harvard this season—first line, second line, third line, power play, penalty kill—producing eye-popping plays at each stop, including a top-shelf breakaway against Pecknold’s team last Friday.

“I definitely think that my confidence has been growing all year [after] coming to the realization that I can play with top players, against top players,” Moy said on Wednesday. “I think [my time on the first line] really helped me grow as a player and grow as a person as well. I really embraced that, I think, and it made me realize that I was able to produce up there.”

{shortcode-9cf5d1346afd9e516a8765f106c09de695f2d9e1}

There’s little conventional about Moy. His distinctiveness comes across in his interviews, which are unusually eloquent and reflective. After practices and games, he’s typically on one end or the other of jokes flying across the Crimson locker room.

“He’s definitely unique,” junior co-captain Kyle Criscuolo says. “He’s got some funny relationships with everybody. He likes to have some fun in the locker room, but when it comes to the rink, when he’s jumping on the ice, he’s pretty serious.”

At Harvard, Moy is his team’s only human evolutionary biology concentrator. In his spare time, he creates detailed graphite drawings, taking after his Swiss maternal grandmother—an accomplished painter.

“[Drawing] is something that I just picked up,” says Moy, who once spent an entire summer working on a detailed portrait of Johnny Depp. “It gives me an escape from everyday activities and stresses and things like that. It’s something that I enjoy doing and something that I can feel good about.”

On the ice, Moy plays with confidence—a concept that he likes to talk and think about. His Twitter bio includes a quote from New Zealand artist Peter McIntyre: “Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing to be wrong.”

Tags

Advertisement