Showing posts with label Arcadia University. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arcadia University. Show all posts

Sunday, April 04, 2021

Kelsey Koelzer: The first African American head hockey coach in the NCAA

It's taken two years but history maker Kelsey Koelzer will make her debut as the head coach of the Arcadia University’s women’s ice hockey head coach in the 2021-2022 season. She is the first African American head hockey coach, male or female in the NCAA.

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Kelsey Koelzer named coach of Arcadia University’s women’s ice-hockey program

Kelsey Koelzer has been a pioneer before.

An African-American woman in ice hockey, she cut her teeth and several other body parts in boys leagues, then became a first-team all-American at Princeton and the National Women’s Hockey League’s top overall draft choice.

Now Koelzer, 24, will break more ground as the first coach of Arcadia University’s new women’s ice-hockey program, which along with a men’s team will begin play in the 2021-22 season.

“To be able to provide more girls an opportunity to play at the college level should be amazing,” Koelzer said. “Hockey helped me get a degree from the best school in the country.”

She’ll start recruiting in October and Arcadia hopes her stature in a sport she discovered at age 4 will propel its new program, which, along with a men’s team, launches in the 2021-22 season. Vince Pietrangelo, the lead assistant at SUNY-Canton, will coach the men.

A Horsham Pennsylvania native, Koelzer was a three-time all-Ivy performer as a Princeton defender and a member of the USA Select Under-22 team. After graduating in 2017, she was drafted into the NWHL and was named its all-star game’s MVP. She’s also a member of the NHL-NHLPA Female Hockey Advisory Committee, a group aiming to increase women’s participation in the sport.

“I’ve mentioned her to some people and they’re impressed. They all say, `Whoa, she’s your coach?’” said Brian Granata, Arcadia’s athletic director. “Her passion is impressive. She’s extremely humble, very mature.”

[SOURCE: PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER]