Concord’s Maria Armaganian had a job offer on the table to stay in Boston after graduating from Northeastern University last year. Her heart told her she wasn’t done playing field hockey.
Armaganian took the jump across the pond to continue playing professionally and signed with Schaerweijde in the Netherlands. So far, she said, it’s been both welcoming and overwhelming.
“Even with college field hockey, I had never felt this welcomed somewhere. So it’s just such a good feeling to have,” she said.
Armaganian, the daughter of Concord High field hockey coach Nicole Armaganian, was a highly touted prospect as the state’s field hockey player of the year in 2021.
She was part of a team that reached the Division I field hockey championships in 2019 and won the 2020 ice hockey championship with the Crimson Tide. She earned all-state honors in field hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse throughout high school. Her resume impressed the Huskies’ staff.
The defender was selected to the U.S. Women’s National Indoor Team in 2024 for her strong performances in college. Back then, she was the only New Englander on that team. Now she’s the first American to play for a team in the Netherlands. She wants to reach the pinnacle of the sport.
The Netherlands boasts the strongest women’s field hockey league in the world, the Women’s Hoofdklasse. As the old saying goes, iron sharpens iron. Armaganian hopes she can hone her game to earn a spot on the U.S. Women’s National Outdoor Team.
An opportunity
Armaganian’s experience playing indoor field hockey is what got her foot in the door and onto the field in the Netherlands. The U.S. national indoor team head coach, Joep Van Der Coelen, helped her connect with teams looking for new players for the 2026-27 season and she received plenty of calls back.
She went through the interview process and recruitment until finding the right fit. One of Schaerweijde’s players, Hannah de Gast, played at UMass Amherst and knew of Armaganian. De Gast helped bring her on board.
Many teams were skeptical of bringing an American over without watching her play first because of the stylistic and cultural differences that can make the adjustment difficult. Schaerweijde took a chance.
“The pace of the play is just … it’s insane. It’s so fast. They think five steps in advance before they do anything. It’s just very tactical,” Armaganian explained.
After a tryout, meeting the coaches, board members and the team and then receiving an offer, she was convinced it was the right move.
Armaganian moved just two weeks ago and will play in the Overgangsklasse league this season as the team looks to earn promotion to the Promotieklasse, the second-highest tier of field hockey in the country.
“Being here just might give me a whole other skill set that I don’t have unlocked yet,” she said.
Moving and adjusting
Armaganian wakes up, finishes her hagelslag (buttered toast with chocolate jimmies) and rides a bright orange Formula 1-themed bicycle three minutes down the streets of Zeist, a city to the east of Utrecht and south of Amsterdam, to her team.
Moving across the world to play professionally is no easy task, but she’s getting there. A few things have been tricky, like adjusting to the lack of air conditioning and learning Dutch.
Armaganian is taking a crash course in the language as she tries to keep pace with the preseason schedule. The team’s season doesn’t begin until Sept. 6, so the monthlong run-up is giving her time to learn the ins and outs.
She’s had staff members and teammates translating everything from Dutch to English for her, but she’s slowly getting the hang of it. She’s not in Concord High’s Spanish class anymore.
“We went over like actual strategy and pressing and outletting for our upcoming game, our scrimmage this Saturday,” she said last week. “And that definitely was a bit of a brain overload for me. But I think I think sometimes it’ll be fine.”
Armaganian is rooming with teammates just a short distance from the training center and said the place is much more peaceful than downtown Boston. She still misses the comforts of home and family, but she knows this opportunity is worth it.
Debut season
Training takes three hours every day in the summer heat. Afterward, she heads inside to the clubhouse to hang out with teammates and go over details from practice.
Schaerweijde wants that promotion this season, and they’re going to push for it from day one. The team was shorthanded on defense last season, and Armaganian will fill a crucial gap for them.
On top of preparing for the rigors of the upcoming season, Armaganian is working on finding a job, which is required as part of her visa.
She studied industrial engineering and graphic and information design at Northeastern, but she’s also thinking outside the box to break into the job market while balancing her responsibilities as a player. She’s hoping to use some of her artistic and design talents to help her team grow its reach and branding, too.
Armaganian has something to prove as the new American on the team, and Schaerweijde has something to prove as it tries to move up. Little by little, piece by piece, Armaganian is pulling it all together in hopes of making an impact.
“Being the only person here that’s done this before has been really cool, and it’s something that I’m extremely proud of,” she said. “But yes: Long story short, freshman-year Maria would have never believed that I’d be here right now.”