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STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

MAGYAR JEGKRONG

Elle Hartje was making a name for herself in women’s hockey at the dawn of the new year.

The 20-year-old Yale University sophomore from Bloomfield Hills was averaging 1.29 assists per game, the highest average among NCAA Division I women’s hockey players.

Hartje had six goals and 18 assists in 14 games for the Bulldogs (10-3-1), who were ranked No. 6 in the country, the highest ranking in program history. Hartje’s emergence is no accident.

A decision that took her far out of her comfort zone and to the other side of the world during a pandemic is paying huge dividends.

Hartje lived during the 2020-21 hockey season in Bratislava, Slovakia, where Jan and Eva Rival, her maternal grandparents, were born, lived as adults and got married.

Anita Rival, Hartje’s aunt, also lived in Bratislava until she was 4, moving with her parents to the U.S. in 1968.

Family ties were important, but hockey was Hartje’s focus while she was in Slovakia. She played for a club team — HC SKP Bratislava — that earned a bronze medal in the Elite Women’s Hockey League, which has teams

ABOVE: Elle Hartje scores

CREDIT: YALE UNIVERSITY

from Hungary, Germany, Poland, Austria, Sweden and Kazakhstan.

She also played for the Slovakia national team in games against Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic after fulfilling a requirement set by Slovakian and international hockey organizations to establish residence in Slovakia by living in that country for at least eight months.

The 5-foot-5 forward received permission from USA Hockey to join the Slovakia national team. She’ll be eligible to rejoin the U.S. national team player pool following next month’s Winter Olympics.

Hartje’s adventure in Slovakia was worth it.

“I grew up there as a hockey player,” she said. “I had time to reflect. I became more thoughtful. I became more aware of my strengths and weaknesses.

“I also got faster and stronger and because the game there isn’t as physical as the game here, I had more time and space to make plays, and I improved those skills.

“I was lucky. I played hockey almost every day last season. Many women in the U.S. didn’t have that opportunity.”

Hartje also grew up as a person while she was in Slovakia. She had to. Despite her family’s connection to the country, she was a stranger in a foreign land.

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SIMONE BEDNARIK TATIANA ISTOCYOVA LUCIA ISTOCYOVA

LEFT: Budapest, Hungary is the backdrop for this photo of Elle Hartje, who was in Budapest with the Slovakia national women’s hockey team. MIDDLE: Elle Hartje (left) and Slovakian club team linemate Lucia Istocyova show off their bronze medals from the Elite Women’s Hockey League’s 2021 playoffs outside the rink in Budapest, Hungary. RIGHT: What’s old in Bratislava, Slovakia? The 18th-century Old Town. Bratislava

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she had to quarantine for two weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to family friends, she had an apartment in the city where she could stay, and food was brought in for her.

She lived in a hotel in Bratislava along with her club teammates the rest of the time she was there. The team had a floor to itself.

Her roommate, Simone Bednarik, spoke English.

But the rest of her teammates “spoke only serviceable English,” Hartje said.

Her club and national team coach spoke broken English.

“I was on my own in a place where very few people spoke good English,” Hartje said. “And I couldn’t go home any time I wanted like I can now (at Yale).”

Hartje said she experienced harsher COVID crackdowns in Slovakia than have been imposed in the U.S., like a country-wide 8 p.m. curfew.

“And restaurants were delivery-only the entire time I was there,” she said.

But there was time for bonding with her teammates, walks in Bratislava, and the club team provided three meals a day.

When Hartje ate a traditional Slovakian meal, she sent a photo of it to her grandmother, who has been making Slovakian meals for her since she was a youngster.

Despite the quarantine, language barrier, canceled, postponed and rescheduled club league games and the cancellation of the World Championships in France because of the pandemic, Hartje said she loved her stay in Bratislava.

It’s certainly a different place than Bloomfield Hills or New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale is located.

Bratislava, with a population of a half-million, is the capital of Slovakia, and home to many universities, museums, theaters and art galleries. It’s situated along the Danube River, near Slovakia’s borders with Austria and Hungary.

Old Town, a pedestrian-only area that dates to the 18th century, is known for its packed bars and cafes when there isn’t a pandemic.

At the top of a hill is the reconstructed Bratislava Castle, which overlooks Old Town and the Danube.

Hartje’s mother, Nicole Hartje — Jan and Eva Rival’s daughter and Anita Rival’s sister — is glad Elle made the trip.

“Elle turned a difficult situation into a positive life experience,” Nicole said.

The difficult situation was caused by the pandemic, which shut down the Yale women’s hockey team for the 2020-21 season.

Elle took a leave of absence from Yale for the 2020-21 school year, which opened the door for her to go to Slovakia, spend eight months there and play for the national team.

She hasn’t been back to Slovakia since coming home in late March.

She planned to compete with the Slovakia national team in an Olympic qualification tournament in November but was ill (not with COVID) and decided not to travel.

It turned out to be a wise decision.

The four Yale games Elle would have missed had she traveled — against Cornell, Colgate, Harvard and Dartmouth from Nov. 5-13 — were all wins for the Bulldogs, who outscored their four opponents 22-4.

Elle had two goals and six assists in those games.

She had a great freshman season at Yale in 2019-20.

After scoring a hat trick in her first collegiate game and earning ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week honors, she ended up sixth among Division I freshmen with .89 points per game, had 11 goals and 14 assists, and led her team in plus-minus with plus-23.

Yale won a team record 17 games, finishing 17-15 for first-year coach Mark Bolding.

Elle is considering playing soccer for Yale starting this spring. She didn’t play in her freshman year because of a broken leg she suffered late in the hockey season.

Elle was an outstanding multi-sport athlete at Detroit Country Day School.

She was a four-time state champion in tennis, going 97-1 during her high school career, and a four-time All-State selection in soccer.

Her accomplishments helped her earn a prestigious honor in 2019, when she was one of three girls named a High School Athlete of the Year by the Jewish News and Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation.

Outside of high school, Elle was the captain and scoring leader for the Belle Tire 19U women’s hockey team that won a silver medal in 2018 and a bronze medal in 2019 at the USA Hockey national championships.

Elle is one of four children of Tod and Nicole Hartje. Tod played hockey at Harvard University and won a national championship. Nicole was the captain of the tennis team at Harvard.

The family attends Temple Shir Shalom in West Bloomfield Township.

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BOTTOM: Sunrise in Budapest, Hungary

BELOW: Elle Hartje (27) battles for the

MAGYAR JEGKRONG

ELLE HARTJE