Post #96 – 6/16/23 – Friday’s Sifters
Little lobs of news and info from around the world of women’s college hockey and beyond
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Coaching News, Whitehouse Travels, Swedes Check, New Commish
It’s been an eventful week.
Coaching hires and promotions have been announced, Wisconsin went to the Whitehouse, Sweden is expanding it’s body checking rule, and the ECAC hired a new commissioner.
Let’s get to it.
Coaching News At Vermont, Lindenwood, and Princeton
University of Vermont Assistant Coach Alex Gettens has been promoted to Associate Head Coach. Alex will begin his 6th year this upcoming season.
Reah Coad, former Head Coach of the Buffalo Beauts of the PHF, has been named an Assistant Coach at Lindenwood University. Coad spent 2 years behind the bench for the Beauts. You can read the release HERE.
Princeton has hired a new assistant coach, Melissa Samoskevich. Samoskevich comes from Quinnipiac where she was the Director of Player Development and Operations while also playing for the Connecticut Whale of the PHF. Prior to her time at Quinnipiac, Samoskevich previous coached at Penn St.
Wisconsin Almost Misses Whitehouse Visit
Darn E-mail spam folders!
The 2023 National Champs the Wisconsin Badgers finally made the trip to the Whitehouse last week to be honored on College Athlete Day. Strangely, the trip almost never happened.
Read the crazy story HERE.
Sweden Expands Checking Rule
The Swedish Ice Hockey Federation is expanding its checking rules in women’s hockey.
In addition to the SDHL and NDHL, checking/body contact will now be allowed in Sweden’s four younger regional Junior women’s leagues as well.
86% of players surveyed reported having a positive experience with the new checking rules that were introduced for the 2022-2023 season. The new rules allowed intentional body-contact along the boards or if players were skating in the same direction but no opposite directional open-ice hits were allowed.
This past season, The NCAA standard on body contact, not so much changed, but was an area of focus and more was allowed. The NCAA rules don’t allow for intentional body contact as Sweden’s rule do, but the NCAA game is definitely getting more physical.
You can read the full story on Sweden’s decision HERE.
The ECAC Lands New Commissioner
Doug Christiansen has been named Commissioner of ECAC Hockey. He takes over for Commissioner Stephen Hagwell who has held the commissioner’s post since 2005.
As a former Union College Men’s hockey player (1998-2002) and most recently in his role as Deputy Commissioner of the United States Hockey League (USHL), Christiansen brings a vast hockey background to the position.
You can read more on his hiring HERE.
Until Next Time Everyone… Be Well and take Care,
-Streams for games in the ECAC can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in the WCHA can be found HERE. Subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams in Hockey East this year can be found HERE. Hockey East once again is streaming all game live and for FREE.
-Streams for CHA games with the exception of Penn St. can be found HERE. Paid subscriptions will be necessary to watch games.
-Streams for NEWHA games can be found at each teams’ website. Subscriptions may be necessary to watch games.
NCAA Coaching Changes… Keep up with all the coaching changes across D-I and D-III HERE.
Recruiting Events/League Online Directory… Find all the recruiting events on WCH.org right HERE. Want to add your event? Click HERE to fill out our WCH.org event form.
Grant Kimball is founder and contributing writer at Women’s College Hockey.org and beginning his 4th season as an Assistant Coach with the Yale University women’s hockey program. Grant has developed an experienced perspective in the world of women’s ice hockey, having coached and recruited players from across the globe during his 25+ year amateur and NCAA coaching career. He has coached at 6 NCAA DIII and DI programs in the NCHA (D3), the CHA, WCHA, Hockey East, ECAC, and the Ivy League (DI). Beyond coaching, Grant served as a site representative for the 2019 NCAA quarterfinal of the D-I NCAA Tournament. He also currently serves as an Officer with the American Hockey Coaches Association as Vice President of Membership and sits on the AHCA’s Women’s Hockey Executive Committee.
