SPORTS

S

asha Hartje didn’t want her long, suc-
cessful competitive athletic career to 
end with her on the sidelines with a 
broken leg.
It won’t.
The Long Island University women’s hockey 
player and former Emory University women’s 
tennis player from Bloomfield 
Hills will compete for the U.S. 
women’s hockey team this month 
at the World University Games in 
Lake Placid, New York.
This is Hartje’s second hockey 
season at Long Island, a private 
school in Brooklyn.
The 5-foot-8 graduate student’s 
first season at Long Island came to a sudden 
and painful halt Nov. 23, 2021, when she broke 
her leg in a game against Yale.
The timing of her injury couldn’t have been 
worse. Her family was in the stands at Long 
Island. Her sister Elle Hartje was playing for 
Yale in the first time the sisters competed 
against each other.
“I got knocked down, spun in a circle on my 
knees, and my leg hit the boards. I fell perfectly 
wrong” is how Sasha described her injury.
A “huge rod and eight or nine screws” were 
inserted in her leg during surgery, Sasha said, 
to repair the damage.
Physical and mental rehabilitation followed. 
Sasha soldiered through her recovery.
“I’ve been known as an athlete all my life,
” 
she said. “I knew this hockey season (2022-23) 
was going to be my last season as a competitive 
athlete, and I wasn’t going to let my career end 
with a broken leg.
“Once I started skating again, I knew that 
nothing I would do would make my leg worse. 
But mentally, there was the worry about what 
would happen the first time I fell into the 
boards.
”
Sasha is back on defense for Long Island this 
season and playing well.
Knowing that, she contacted Team USA 

women’s hockey coach Brandon 
Knight in early December after 
learning from her sister Elle that 
one of Elle’s former Yale women’s 
hockey teammates was going 
to play for Knight at the World 
University Games, a competition 
held every two years.
“I wondered if this was 
something I could do, so I 
called Coach Knight to find 
out what was the deal,
” Sasha 
said.
“Everything worked out per-
fectly. Coach Knight was looking for Division 
I players like myself and I told him my team 
(Long Island) is off the weekend of the (World 
University Games) semifinals and medal 
games. Now three other girls from my team 
will be playing for Team USA.
“Lake Placid isn’t that far from Long Island. 
My teammates and I will just hop in the car 
and drive there. It should take about five 
hours.
”
The Long Island quartet will miss one of 
Team USA
’s five round-robin games against 
Japan, Czechia, Great Britain, Slovakia and 
Canada on Jan. 12-18 because of a schedule 
conflict, but all four players will be available 
for the World University Games semifinals 
Jan. 20 and medal games Jan. 21 if Team USA 
qualifies.
“I’m so excited,
” Sasha said. “I’ll be wearing 
a Team USA sweater, representing my country, 
in my last season of competitive sports.
”
Sasha was named the Jewish News Female 
High School Athlete of the Year in 2017 at the 
end of an outstanding sports career at Detroit 
Country Day that included two tennis state 
championships.
She enjoyed her four seasons playing tennis 
at Emory.
But it wasn’t a smooth ride for her at the 
private school near Atlanta, Georgia. She 
had a plate and seven screws inserted into 

her injured wrist in 2018, 
saw the 2020 season canceled 
because of the COVID-19 pandem-
ic, and she missed time on the court in 
2021 because of COVID-19 quarantines and a 
positive test for the virus.
On a positive note, she was one of three cap-
tains of Emory’s Division III national champi-
onship team in 2021, the same year she gradu-
ated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
After finishing her Emory tennis career, 
Sasha was hungry to play competitive hockey 
again, so she looked for a Division I collegiate 
program that offered a master’s degree in busi-
ness administration.
Tod Hartje, Sasha’s father, was solidly 
behind Sasha’s desire to play competitive 
hockey again.
Tod won an NCAA championship with 
Harvard University hockey team before he 
became the first American to play hockey for 
a team in the Soviet Union and played for the 
NHL
’s Winnipeg Jets.
“I told Sasha she absolutely should play 
hockey again if she wants to,
” Tod said. “I knew 
she would be somebody every coach would 
want playing defense. She’s very competitive, 
she has a will to win, she knows how to defend, 
and she’s great at making the first pass out of 
your zone.
”
Sasha ended up at Long Island mainly 
because then-women’s hockey coach Rob 
Morgan knew her from when he was the Yale 
women’s hockey coach, and he recruited her to 
come there.
Even though Sasha has a third year of eligi-
bility at Long Island because of the pandemic 
and switching sports, she’ll be done with hock-
ey there after this season because an MBA is a 
two-year program. 

Send sports news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.

Sasha Hartje will compete for 
Team USA in women’s hockey 
at the World University Games.

Hockey is Her World

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Sasha 
Hartje

LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY

Sasha Hartje 
takes a shot 
for the Long 
Island University 
women’s hockey 
team.

LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY

46 | JANUARY 5 • 2023 

