Every band has its leader, every com­pa­ny has its CEO and every hock­ey team has its cap­tain. Yet Jaime Fox is not your aver­age cap­tain. The UConn senior has a rare com­bi­na­tion of being bril­liant on the ice and fun­ny off it. She’s a leader and a prankster all in one.

Fox has been a sta­ple on the Huskies’ defen­sive unit over her four years with the team, record­ing 44 points in 146 games, but she brings a lot more to the team than what shows up on the box score. Whether it’s prank­ing a team­mate by tap­ing equip­ment to her stall or hyp­ing the team up between peri­ods, Fox has been a huge influ­ence on her teammates.

“I real­ly look up to her,” sopho­more Natal­ie Snod­grass, the lead­ing scor­er on the team, said. “Just because…she can be a real­ly awe­some team­mate but a real­ly good cap­tain as well.”

Fox grew up about 20 min­utes out­side of Toron­to in Markham, Ontario, where she comes from a fam­i­ly of hock­ey play­ers. Her dad grew up play­ing goalie, and although her mom start­ed lat­er, the fam­i­ly con­sid­ers her a “star for­ward.” So, it’s no sur­prise that Fox start­ed play­ing hock­ey at 6 years old, and her younger sis­ters, Dani (who is her team­mate at UConn now) and Jay­den, fol­lowed in her footsteps.

When she was young, her par­ents would make a rink in their back­yard, and Fox and her sis­ters would be out for hours after school play­ing hock­ey until it was pitch black. It’s safe to say Jaime was des­tined to be a great hock­ey play­er from the start.

Fox was orig­i­nal­ly a for­ward, but she tran­si­tioned to defense at age 10 per a coach’s request. In the fol­low­ing years, it became her dream to play hock­ey in college.

“Once I found out that you could play hock­ey in col­lege, I want­ed to,” she said. “My last year of midget was when it was an actu­al possibility.”

After high school, Fox moved to Whit­by, Ontario, where she played junior hock­ey for the Whit­by Wolves. Madi­son Badeau, a team­mate of hers on the Wolves, was recruit­ed to UConn a year before she was, and Fox said that she heard noth­ing but good things about the school from Badeau.

When Fox got recruit­ed and vis­it­ed UConn for the first time, she knew it was the place for her. In fact, she told head coach Chris MacKen­zie on that vis­it that she knew she want­ed to come to UConn.

“This was the cam­pus that I was the most tak­en with,” Fox said. “Right away, I was like this feels like home, this is awe­some. The coach­es were great. Every­one was so nice when I came and visited.”

MacKen­zie said the com­bi­na­tion of her skills and her enthu­si­asm about UConn made her a real­ly easy play­er to want to recruit to be part of the program.

“We saw a reli­able, steady defense­man,” he said. “When she vis­it­ed here, she impressed me with her matu­ri­ty, and I could tell she real­ly liked UConn.”

She loved UConn then, and she still loves it now. Fox said that she has got­ten so much from her four years as a Husky. She’s become a bet­ter hock­ey play­er and a bet­ter per­son thanks to the ded­i­ca­tion of the coaches.

“The coach­es want to shape you,” she said. “As much as they want to make you a bet­ter play­er, they’re try­ing to make us bet­ter peo­ple as well to set us up for the real world.”

MacKen­zie said from the time she was a fresh­man, Jaime stepped in and per­formed at a high lev­el as the team’s most reli­able defense­man, and her skills have only improved.

Fox said she believes her smarts are the best part of her game. Her team­mates agree, one even call­ing her hock­ey IQ “insane.”

But apart from being a great play­er, a cap­tain has anoth­er equal­ly impor­tant job as a leader. MacKen­zie said he thinks Fox has stepped into the cap­tain role very well.

“She’s done a great job,” he said. “The con­sis­ten­cy has been there, the lev­el of ener­gy has been there and her per­for­mance has been there, so I think she’s done a great job.”

Fox said it has been easy to cap­tain this team because she and her team­mates are all so close. She said she just has to have empa­thy and hold peo­ple account­able, which has been very easy to do with this team of “21 best friends.”

Her younger sis­ter Dani, who is now a fresh­man on the team, said hav­ing Jaime, who she has looked up to her whole life, as a leader of the team has made her adjust­ment to the school and the team much easier.

“All my ques­tions that I had about the school and even about some of the plays that we run in prac­tice, I could just go and ask her, and she’d be real­ly cool about answer­ing with detail,” Dani Fox said.

Fox said she was real­ly excit­ed to have Dani on the team because she has enjoyed her time at UConn so much and it’s awe­some to see Dani have the same great experience.

Now that her time at UConn is com­ing to an end, Fox reflect­ed on her career as a Husky. Her favorite mem­o­ries were when they beat New Hamp­shire in triple over­time in the Hock­ey East Tour­na­ment her fresh­man year, and when they beat Boston Col­lege to advance to the Hock­ey East Finals for the first time in pro­gram his­to­ry last year. How­ev­er, her favorite part of being a mem­ber of the UConn women’s hock­ey team has noth­ing to do with wins and losses.

“My favorite part is com­ing to the rink every day,” she said. “Every­body makes me laugh. I always have a smile on my face. Every sin­gle per­son on that team knows how to make a bad day bet­ter, and it’s been the best.”

As much as Fox prais­es her team­mates, they have equal­ly great things to say about her.

“Being part of the team with her for the last four years has been awe­some,” senior Nora Maclaine said. “She’s sup­port­ive, she will put it all on the line for the team and she’s just an all-around great teammate.”

“[She brings] a whole lot of laughs,” Snod­grass said. “She’s just some­body who every­body wants to talk to.”

MacKen­zie praised Fox for all that she has brought to the program.

“Her con­sis­ten­cy over the course of four years has been out­stand­ing,” MacKen­zie said. “It’s a mod­el for all our oth­er play­ers to see, and it’s some­thing we’ll miss when she graduates.”

Fox has no plans of leav­ing her con­nec­tion to hock­ey behind after grad­u­a­tion. She said she would like to con­tin­ue her hock­ey career after she grad­u­ates, poten­tial­ly in Europe, but if not, she would at least like to remain involved in hock­ey in some way.

Fox will grad­u­ate with a degree in account­ing in the upcom­ing months, but her lega­cy at UConn as a cap­tain and a team­mate will live on for years to come.