A simple, selfless McLinskey shuns the spotlight — and lets his play do the talking

At one point in Liam McLinskey’s youth hockey career, he tried out for a team as a relative unknown. That is, quite literally, nobody in the program knew the name of this young kid from Pearl River, N.Y., a small town about 45 minutes north of New York City, with around 10,000 residents.

What the program did see, however, was a talented player who won battles in the corners and rose to the occasion — and he beat out others to earn a spot on the team. 

But when the McLinskey family checked the website to see if Liam had made the roster,they didn’t see his name. What was listed? The boy in the blue Pearl River jersey. The organization had no clue who that boy was — but they knew for certain that he was pretty darn good at hockey. 

To this day, McLinskey basks in anonymity. He’s a natural introvert, one who shuns the spotlight and deflects any attention brought directly to him. 

So as accolades poured in after McLinskey’s jaw-dropping junior season at Holy Cross, it’s easy to imagine his discomfort. His 2023-24 campaign concluded with a laundry list of historic feats:

Hobey Baker Top 10 finalist — the first in program history. 

All-American — just the second ever in Holy Cross’ Division I history. 

Atlantic Hockey Player of the Year — the first Crusader selection since 2006. 

The league scoring champion, finishing the year with 47 points off of 19 goals and 28 assists — tied for the second-most points in a single season in the Crusaders' Division I era. 

He squirms when asked about all of the attention that’s come to him as a result. The soft-spoken McLinskey mentions that his teammates like to bust his chops for all of the national recognition, and that as congratulatory text messages rolled in last spring, he rolled with the punches. 

When addressed more directly: You really don’t like the spotlight, do you? He, too, is much more direct in his answer. 

“Yeah,” he said, “I do not.”

“If you don't know him, and he doesn't know you, he can come off as a little bit aloof,” said Holy Cross head coach Bill Riga. “He has a quieter voice, and his mannerisms are humble. But anyone that gets to know him deeply knows how good of a person he is, and how good of a competitor he is.”

That’s an important distinction: He’s wired to win. He’s inherently competitive, and no matter the laurels bestowed upon him — or any resulting semblance of pressure — his primary focus is on putting his teammates in the best position to skate off the ice with a victory. 

Three games into his senior campaign, McLinskey is one of just two returning Hobey Baker finalists in all of college hockey. The Crusaders begin Atlantic Hockey play this weekend, with a two-game homestand against Army West Point starting on Saturday, Oct. 19. 

“He wants to win,” said senior John Gelatt, McLinskey’s roommate, and one of his closest friends. “He's very passionate about winning, and he's handled the pressure very well. Obviously there was a big story around him last year, but I think that he tries to not let it get to him. He put in a lot of work over the summer, because he knew that there was this pressure on him, and he wanted to meet those expectations — and even exceed them.”

McLinskey is an easygoing, self-proclaimed “simple guy.” When he isn’t playing hockey, he loves to golf, play Xbox, hang out by the pool, listen to Noah Kahan and watch TV. Gelatt notes that McLinskey would rather blend in and not be noticed around campus — he’s content to walk around in his flip-flops and a hat, completely incognito. 

“He definitely is very quiet until you get to know him, and people think that he's this very closed-off person,” Gelatt said. 

“But once you get to know him,” he adds, “he's definitely not.”

For someone who comes off as initially shy, McLinskey is fiercely loyal to his teammates. As you peel back the layers, he’s a caring friend, one who is able to relate to others easily. And his sense of humor carries through all he does. (He’s a comedy movie aficionado, with a penchant for memorizing film quotes — he can recite nearly the entirety of his favorite movie, Step Brothers.)

His approach to nearly everything is one that is selfless. He’d rather remain in the shadows, refining his craft and setting his teammates up for success.

“It's not natural to him, to attract attention,” Riga said. “But that's one of the things that’s endearing about him, is that he doesn't have that ego at all. That makes him likable, and it makes other coaches respect him as well.”

Though the 6-foot-3 McLinskey has been renowned for his scoring prowess, he’s not necessarily a power forward. Far from just a north-south skater, he can go east-west as well, scanning the frozen sheet as he looks to carve up an opposing defense.  

“His overall hockey sense is off the charts,” Riga said. 

As his game has progressed throughout his collegiate career, his play has become more creative. He’s adapted to how teams defend and double-team him, evolving from being just a goal scorer into a refined passer, opening up the best scoring opportunities for the team. 

“He's just as good defensively with his habits as he is offensively,” Riga said. “At the end of the game, I want him out there, because he can diagnose what the other team is going to do, and break it up better than maybe anyone on our team.”

So what makes Liam McLinskey so good at hockey, when he’s otherwise not someone who wants eyes on him? Very simply put, a comfort level comes with being on the ice, where he can forget everything else and be free.

“I’m just comfortable with everything,” he said. “Knowing that I’m prepared, knowing my job on the ice, and knowing that I can do my job.”

“He feels free on the ice — and that's how he expresses himself,” Riga said. “Just letting Liam be Liam, is what makes him successful.”

In many ways, McLinskey was destined to play hockey — it was in his blood. In Pearl River, his entire family grew up within a 10 to 15 minute radius; his uncles all played hockey, so McLinskey and his older brother, Ryan, attended learn-to-skate classes early on with their cousins. 

As the younger McLinskey grew more comfortable with skating, and saw that he could be successful in the sport, it began to stick. As he worked his way up from mites through each level of youth hockey, he loved spending time with his cousins, but also found joy in his own talent. 

“That translates to what he's doing now,” said his father, Terry. “He is never happier than when he is on the ice.”

McLinskey’s older brother went on to play college and professional baseball, and his cousins went on to play collegiate ice hockey: C.J. McGee graduated from Quinnipiac after last season, and Drew Fortescue, a New York Rangers draft pick, currently plays at Boston College. 

The family is a lively bunch that is unconditionally supportive of everyone’s endeavors, athletic or otherwise. Holidays are enthusiastic, with the closely located households rotating hosting duties, and his cousins’ dogs Bodie and an aptly named Gretzky adding extra energy. The family travels in droves to support each other — when McGee won a national championship with Quinnipiac in 2023, dozens of extended family members made the trip to Tampa for the Frozen Four, with McLinskey joining celebratory photos via FaceTime. An equally large group reunited in Hamden, Conn., last December, when the Crusaders faced the Bobcats, and McGee and McLinskey played against each other.

“Somebody said to me one time: you're like wolves, you travel in packs, which is true, there's always more than just the five of us,” said Laura McLinskey, who is one of five siblings, and the mother to Liam and Ryan and their sister, Grace. “When we go on vacation, there's always another family with us, sometimes all the families. We're fortunate that it's just a big, huge group that cares about each other, supports each other, and celebrates wins.”

McLinskey began his collegiate career at Quinnipiac as a freshman, recruited by Riga, who was then the associate head coach for the Bobcats. He entered Quinnipiac after a season as the top scorer in the league for the NCDC’s Jersey Hitmen — but when he arrived in Hamden, he only played in two games. For someone who had felt a great deal of confidence following a standout juniors season, it was a frustrating experience. He had made good friends at Quinnipiac, but entered the transfer portal, and decided to take a leap of faith and start over in a new environment at Holy Cross. 

The transition wasn’t easy at first. A reserved McLinskey was hesitant to speak up around his teammates, and beyond that, his confidence was broken in the one area where he always felt comfortable: on the ice. 

“When I first got here, I wasn’t fully comfortable playing my own game,” McLinskey said. “Being on the ice, I didn't have a lot of confidence, just because I came off a year where I didn't really play a game. So I was like: ‘Why would you think you're any good?’” 

But he remained committed to his training — as time passed, and as lineups settled, his confidence slowly began to restore. At the same time, McLinskey began to refine his skills beyond his nose for the net. Throughout it all, Riga had faith in his ability to not only keep scoring, but to put all of the pieces together. 

“I knew that was still there,” Riga said. “You don't lose that ability — you lead a league in scoring, you know how to score…I think you saw the first half of that first year, he was getting back into it. He was feeling his way. We were teaching him those things, those details, and he was absorbing it all. 

“And then we hit the second half of the year — and that's when it all went boom, and he started to score.” 

McLinskey ended his sophomore year with 21 goals, tied for second-most all-time in program history. Nine of those goals came in a spirited postseason run by the Crusaders to the Atlantic Hockey Championship Game, setting a conference record for tournament goals. 

That set the stage for a decorated junior season a year ago, where he became one of the top stars in all of college hockey. And early in his senior season, his sights are set on a conference title and playoff berth for the Crusaders. 

“For him to come here and trust and have faith that…this program could get him where he wanted to go,” Riga said, “it takes a lot of belief in yourself and a lot of hard work and trust to do those things — and then to take it to another level, and not be satisfied with that, is a whole other piece.

“But for him, he needed a new start, and came here, and I don't know if he could have done any more to change around his life than he's done here.”

“Growth doesn't come without discomfort,” Laura added. “And he's certainly had his share of discomfort. He's done a really great job and made a really good situation for himself, hockey-wise, school-wise — he set himself up for a very successful future.”

At this point, McLinskey’s pregame routine is down to a comfortable science — true to form, it’s nothing complex. When he gets to the rink, he eats a Honey Stinger with peanut butter, tapes his stick, joins in on a game of sewer ball with his teammates, then dribbles a soccer ball alone. 

After the team’s warmups, he eats a couple of pretzel rods and drinks a cup of beet juice before focusing in on the game ahead.  

McLinskey doesn’t overthink his approach against any opponent. He trusts his preparation — when he’s at the rink, he’s at home, and he’s where he’s meant to be. 

“If you're watching during a pregame and they're playing good music, he's dancing, he's bouncing around, he's feeling it — he loves it,” Terry said. “And that is when he's at his best: When he's on the ice.”

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