Skating Their Way to Success — On and Off the Ice
While balancing academics and extracurricular activities can be difficult for any college student, it’s particularly challenging for Autumn Coulthard ’23, MBA ’25 and Elly Monaco ’25, who simultaneously pursue their studies while perfecting death spirals, sit spins and twizzles.
As members of the Haydenettes, an elite synchronized ice skating (or “synchro”) team based in Lexington, Massachusetts, Coulthard and Monaco spend at least 20 hours per week with their teammates preparing for national and international competitions; this includes off-ice ballet, choreography and strength training sessions as well as on-ice practices. Despite their demanding schedules, both consider it an honor and a privilege to be a member of the most successful synchro team in U.S. history: The Haydenettes have won a record 31 U.S. National Championships — including this year’s, which were held in Coulthard’s hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, and marked the team’s 14th straight gold medal victory — and are five-time World Synchronized Skating Championships bronze medalists. This weekend, the Haydenettes made history once again, placing second — the team’s best-ever showing, and the first silver medal for any U.S. team since 2007 — at the 2024 World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia.
Introduced in 1956 and initially known as precision team skating, synchro was officially sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU) in 2004. Today, it’s the fastest growing skating discipline, with more than 600 registered teams in the U.S. alone. Like singles and pairs figure skating and ice dancing, synchro is a captivating blend of athleticism and artistry — but requires objectively more precision and skill, given that 16 skaters glide across the ice at the same time, performing lifts, spins and other intricately choreographed movements in unison.
For Coulthard, a Double Falcon who majored in Management (with a concentration in Entrepreneurship) and minored in Marketing and Law as an undergraduate and is currently pursuing her MBA, the collaboration and dedication required to excel in an elite team sport has benefits beyond the ice rink. “Being a Haydenette for the past five years has taught me how to step up when no one else is willing to, but also to know when to step back and let other people stand in the spotlight,” she shares, noting that developing the capacity “to be brave, to be vulnerable and to make genuine connections with others” is essential for success in the workplace, too.
Monaco, a Lexington, Massachusetts native majoring in Marketing and minoring in Experience Design (formerly Information Design and Corporate Communication), agrees, adding that she and Coulthard are particularly grateful to their Bentley professors, who are “super helpful and have supported us every step of the way.”
Among their most ardent fans is Lynn Wolf, a Lecturer in Accounting who serves as adviser for the Bentley Skating Club. Coulthard and Monaco co-founded the club with fellow Falcons Aileen Colligan ’24 and Emma Swenson ’22 to encourage others in the Bentley community to experience the joy of ice skating. In addition to hosting monthly open skate events in the Bentley Arena, the club has sponsored a Skate for Life relay to benefit the American Cancer Society and raised funds to purchase rental skates for the arena. “I’ve seen firsthand how hard these women work, both on and off the ice,” Wolf says of Coulthard and Monaco, marveling at their ability to “give 100% to everything they do.”
Coulthard wouldn’t have it any other way. “There is strength in unity beyond belief,” she says of being a Haydenette. “It’s all about putting our best skate out there and creating magic on the ice, together as a team.”