(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
It has always been in Jordan Nash-Boulden’s blood to be an Sun Devil. Entering her second season, Nash-Boulden is the lone goalie for the Arizona State women’s club hockey team.
Growing up in Cave Creek, Arizona, she didn’t have to travel very far to attend Arizona State.
“It was my senior year that I got in contact with coach because I saw they were starting a team and I was just interested in playing,” said Nash-Boulden. “I think it was kind of a dream come true for me, I had my tuition paid for.”
Her parents and several family members are alumni of ASU. Going to ASU allowed her family to keep the tradition alive and extend their college experience watching their daughter.
Being an only child has its perks. Last season, Nash-Boulden recalled that her parents attended almost every out-of-state trip and came to every home game possible.
Before getting into hockey, she used to have many of her birthday parties be ice skating parties at the local rink. During these parties, she was the kid holding onto the edge of the boards, barely being able to skate around.
If she wanted to get into hockey, her parents told her she needed to learn to skate first. After learning how to skate, she began her hockey career as a right-wing before making the move to become a goaltender.
“Playing goalie always appealed to me. I don’t know if it was the gear, but I hopped in net. I bought my own first pair of pads, they were roller hockey pads,” said Nash-Boulden.
Off the ice, the sophomore is a colorful human being.
She is a fan of the band Twenty-One Pilots, introduced to her by teammate and long-time friend Erin Rawls. Since then, she has attended two of their concerts and even met the band through a radio contest being “lucky caller number ten.”
“It was pretty much the best day of my life. I was so nervous, I remember exactly what I said and most of it was not a good sentence, but I just couldn’t put my thoughts together,” said Nash-Boulden of the experience.
Other than being a fan of Twenty-One Pilots, she considers herself a big nerd. Growing up, she was a Power Ranger every year for Halloween and is an enormous fan of Star Wars.
She accounted one experience as a child where she told Princess Leia at Walt Disney World that Darth Vader was her favorite character.
“It’s like a sin now (that I said that),” Nash-Boulden said while laughing.
Besides being a goalie for the Devils, one could consider her a part-time Ghostbuster.
“I am actually a part of a charity group that does volunteer work in the community and we dress like Ghostbusters,” she explained. “We have done work with Kids Need to Read and all sorts of different charity organizations and get to put on the proton pack and go out into the community.”
Her favorite part about going out is seeing the look on the children’s faces and making a difference in their life because they got to see the Ghostbusters.
In their first season together, Nash-Boulden formed a strong bond with senior defenseman KC McGinley and the relationship has continued to flourish.
“We have known of each other for quite a while, but we just hit it off from the beginning and we super loved each other, she’s my girl,” said McGinley. “I knew I could always count on her. Being a defenseman you want to have a good bond with your goalie, but her and I, it’s pretty special, we are very close.”
McGinley has known Nash-Boulden for years, since she began playing as a goalie. Years past and they met again when the two started playing for ASU.
“I have nothing but good things to say about her and I know she’s a lot harder on herself and I try to get her out of her head on that,” said McGinley. “Because regardless, at the end of the day she’s the one who always has our back and she keeps us in every single game.”
Last season, Nash-Boulden played twelve games for the Sun Devils, splitting her time with the team’s other goaltender, Brianna Hersom. However for the first half of this season, the team will be relying completely on Nash-Boulden after Hersom was diagnosed with an ACL tear at the end of last season.
“It’s really cool to see her take that responsibility so seriously and take charge and that’s exactly what we need right now,” head coach Lindsey Ellis said. “We only have one goalie option, so she’s doing pretty well.”
So far, Nash-Boulden has come up solid for the Devils in their first two games of the season against GCU, only allowing two goals.
