Hard work elevates Plymouth High senior to elite ice hockey status
Plymouth High School senior Maggie Kime motors up the ice with the puck for the Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club.
Before most people have downed their first cup of coffee on summer mornings — heck, before most of us have rolled out of bed — Plymouth High School senior Maggie Kimes has already endured two hours of CrossFit training and run several sprints up the sledding hill at McClumpha Park.
After returning to her Plymouth home to eat and rest for a few minutes, Kime drives to a local ice rink to work on her skating before she heads back home to shoot pucks into a makeshift batting cage set-up.
Her afternoons are equally busy with skills-building and cardiovascular exercises.
She does this six days a week during the summer months, leading to the question: Is it any wonder Maggie Kime is regarded as one of the top teen-aged women ice hockey players in the country?
“When I was 5, I told my dad (Greg) I wanted to play hockey in the Olympics someday,” revealed Kime, who started playing when she was 4. “Ever since then, that’s been my goal.”
The next level
Kime will continue her hockey career this summer at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts. A fast-rising program both in men’s and women’s hockey, Merrimack was one of many top-shelf college programs pursuing the ultra-talented defenseman before an unfortunate injury at a premier USA Hockey camp cooled the interest of the NCAA’s super-elite teams.
“A few years ago, I had a good shot at making the USA Hockey U18 team,” Kime reflected, referring to the invitation-only program that spawns a high percentage of U.S. Olympic hockey players.
“During the first night of evaluations I tore my medial collateral ligament , medial patellofemoral ligament and dislocated my knee cap in a collision with a goalie. Basically, everything fell out of place around my knee.”
Somehow, Kime played with the injury the entire week of the camp, hoping the big-time college coaches would see how mentally tough she was while playing with the ailment that would have sent most other players packing their duffel bags and heading home.
“Looking back, continuing to play with the injuries was a mistake because I looked absolutely awful,” she said. “It was also a blessing in disguise, though, because Merrimack stuck with me and I quickly discovered that is the place for me.”
‘Reminds me of Plymouth’
Kime chose Merrimack over Boston University and Penn State, among other suitors.
“I love the coaching staff, the program’s vision,” Kime said. “And I love the campus. It’s small and North Andover reminds me a lot of Plymouth. It’s a Catholic school and I’m a Christian, so it’s a great fit.”
Kime is proof that young athletes need to dedicate all of their time to one sport in order to move on to the next level.
Kime started playing lacrosse when she was 8 to help maintain her fitness during hockey’s off-season.
She earned MHSAA Division 1 All-State lacrosse honors for Plymouth High School as a sophomore.
“I thought about trying to walk onto Merrimack’s lacrosse team as well as play hockey, but I still want to try to make an Olympic hockey team someday or play professionally, so I’m going to focus strictly on hockey and school in college,” she said.
And that’s not all: Kime was the first freshman to make the varsity squad for the Plymouth-Canton Community Park’s unified girls field hockey team, for which she excelled all four years of high school.
Overcoming adversity
She has excelled in all three sports while living with the thyroid disorder Hashimoto’s disease, which doctors predicted would limit her height to a maximum of 5 feet, 2 inches. Thanks to early detection and medication, she now stands 5 feet, 8 inches.
It wouldn’t be an understatement to say Kime is incredibly involved in the P-CEP student community. She is co-president of The Park’s Campus Christians club and president of the three-school campus’s Warriors For A Healthy Mind mental-health club.
“Like most athletes, I’ve gone through mental-health struggles,” she said. “When I was young, I wasn’t always in the best shape all the time and I had to push through with mental toughness. The Warriors club gives students on campus an outlet to improve their mental health.
“And with Campus Christians, I let faith run my life and I’ve learned there are a lot of students at P-CEP that were looking for a club like this. It’s hard at times juggling everything, especially when sports seasons overlap, but I look at my calendar every day hope for the best.”
She delivered a 100-watt smile.
And she works two jobs: at Encore Smoothie in Canton and as a concessions employee at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth.
Kime said none of her hockey success would have been possible without her parents, Greg and Wendy Kime, who own Kime Realty.
“I got my work ethic from them,” she said. “They are the hardest-working people I know. Hockey is not an inexpensive sport, so I feel blessed I have parents who have supported me 100% through my journey.”
Ed Wright can be reached at 734-664-4657 or edwright@socialhousenews.com.
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