Mark Carney is part of Harvard's history of Canadian hockey players. Trump's foreign-student ban could imperil that tradition

Globe and Mail

a day ago

Donald Trump is determined to purge foreign students from Harvard University, an institution he has accused of antisemitism and having 'birdbrains' on its elite faculty, as well as an administration permissive of 'known illegal activity.'
But if the President succeeds, he may also winnow down the benches at Harvard's sports program, whose hockey teams have long been studded with Canadian players, including a third-string goalie who would go on to become this country's prime minister, Mark Carney.
In an executive order last Wednesday, Mr. Trump suspended entry into the United States of 'any alien' for study at Harvard, claiming that the school 'is no longer a trustworthy steward of international student and exchange visitor programs' and accusing it of providing insufficient information on alleged criminal activity by its students.
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The order was blocked the following day by a federal judge. But Attorney-General Pam Bondi promised to 'vigorously defend the President's proclamation,' which forms part of a sweeping effort by the administration against Harvard that has included freezing more than US$2.5-billion in federal grants to the university. It has also made two attempts to block foreign students from attending the school, citing allegations of criminality.
The 555 Canadians enrolled at Harvard comprise the school's second-largest cohort of international students, at nearly 10 per cent, the university's statistics show. Only China sends more of its own to Harvard's schools, which include its business, law, medical and public health programs.
But Canadians are represented in much greater strength on Harvard Crimson hockey teams. A digital roster archive maintained by the Crimson sports program shows that, over the past 15 years, Canadian-born players have made up more than a fifth of the men's hockey program and nearly a quarter of the women's teams.
Hockey at Harvard will feel the pain if it is stripped of Canadians, said Bill Cleary, who was the men's hockey coach at the school for nearly 20 years.
'If you're counting on them to be a part of your team, and then they tell you you can't use them, obviously it's going to hurt,' he said. 'We've had such great success with Canadian boys coming down here. And I'd hate to see that stop.'
For Mr. Cleary, whose predecessor as coach was Ontario-born Ralph 'Cooney' Weiland, 'it doesn't make any sense in the world to me why they're even talking about this.'
Among the players Mr. Cleary coached was Mr. Carney, a goaltender from Alberta who 'spent more time in the library than on the ice,' cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland wrote in her book Plutocrats.
Mr. Cleary, now 90, can recall little about Mr. Carney's talent on the ice. What he does remember is that 'he was refreshing because he loved playing. And the fact that he wasn't starting didn't affect him at all.'
But other Canadians at Harvard left a larger mark on the sport, including Mr. Carney's school roommate, Nepean, Ont.-born Peter Chiarelli, who captained the Harvard team in the 1980s and went on to become general manager of the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers. Allain Roy, from Campbellton, N.B., was a Crimson goalie in 1989, when the team won the NCAA championship.
Two decades earlier, defenceman David Johnston was named an 'All-American' for his contributions to the Harvard team. The future governor-general 'would catch the puck in his teeth to stop it going in the net,' former teammate Tom Heintzman recalled in a University of Waterloo alumni profile. Mr. Johnston's daughter, Sarah, also played for the Crimson. Montreal-born Timothy Barakett, who played for the Crimson in the late 1980s, is now Harvard's treasurer. More recently, Mississauga-born left-winger Mick Thompson led the team in points last year.
At least two Canadian-born former Harvard players are now in the NHL: Alex Killorn of the Anaheim Ducks and former Toronto Maple Leafs centre Alexander Kerfoot, who now plays for the Utah Mammoth.
The university has called Mr. Trump's attempt to block foreign students 'illegal,' and a hearing on the temporary block of that order is scheduled for June 16.
The Trump administration's actions amount to the weaponization of U.S. bureaucratic processes by an executive branch that includes people who think 'they need to destroy the liberal universities because they see them as a political enemy,' said Ricardo Hausmann, a scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The notion that Harvard is a bastion of antisemitism is, he said, laughable. The university's president and board chair are both Jewish, as is the dean of the Kennedy School, which offers programs in public policy and international affairs. Prof. Hausmann himself is Jewish.
If the White House prevails, the school can employ digital tools to allow foreign students to attend remotely, Prof. Hausmann said.
A Zoom call, however, seems like a difficult way to join a hockey practice.
If Canadians are barred from attending Harvard, there is no shortage of American-born hockey players to fill the gap, said Bill Keenan, a forward who began playing for Harvard in 2005.
Still, he said, losing Canadians on the ice would constitute 'a massive loss from a cultural perspective.'
When Mr. Keenan was growing up in New York City, he believed the first step to hockey greatness was simple: 'I gotta become Canadian. Because that sort of validates you.'
'Hockey's ethos is derived from Canada, in my eyes,' he said.
After Harvard, he played in Belgium, Germany, Finland and Sweden, experiences he wrote about in a memoir, Odd Man Rush: A Harvard Kid's Hockey Odyssey from Central Park to Somewhere in Sweden – with Stops along the Way.
There was at least one Canadian on each of those teams. He can't imagine a Crimson squad without a Canadian.
'It would be bizarre to go into a Division 1 college hockey locker room and not hear some guy saying, 'eh,'' he said. 'It just doesn't make sense.'