In May, we wrote about Kelsey Koelzer, the hockey history maker who is blazing a path for women, particularly Black women, in hockey.
This past weekend the trailblazer made her historic coaching debut for Arcadia University, and while it didn’t produce the winning outcome in the boxscore, it felt like a championship moment.
The NCAA DIII school, which is located outside of Philadelphia, lost its opening game on Saturday to Worcester State University 5-0. On Sunday they lost again, 3-2 back in Pennsylvania.
Despite the losses, the weekend was another major accomplishment in Koelzer’s incredible hockey career.
The Pennsylvania native started hockey at an early age after finally getting her mother’s ok to do so.
“Initially, my mom did not want to let me play hockey because it was not something that girls did back in 1998/99,” Koelzer said to WPVI TV.
But not only did she do it, she excelled, eventually playing for Princeton University, where she dominated.
Koelzer was a three-time, First-team All-Ivy League honoree for the Tigers. She was also Princeton’s first First-team All-American.
She was the team captain in her senior year as well as the Ivy League Player of the Year, Ivy League Champion, and led the Tigers to the NCAA national quarterfinals.
Her accolades made the choice easy for the Metropolitan Riveters of the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), who selected her with the first overall pick in the league’s 2016 draft.
That made Koelzer the first African American player selected with the top pick in the highest level of professional hockey in America.
And she did not disappoint
In 2018 she led the Riveters to the NWHL championship and was named co-MVP of the 2018 NWHL All-Star Game.
A year later in 2019, the 24-year-old Koelzer moved to the other side of the bench as the head coach of Arcadia’s inaugural hockey program.
It’s a program she built from scratch over two years and through a pandemic, leading to her long-awaited, history-making debut this past weekend.
“It’s exciting,” said Koelzer. “It’s obviously different from what I’m used to. You have a leadership role as a player and people that look up to you. As a coach, it’s a bit more of a backseat leadership type role.”
Kelsey Koelzer is a young, first-time coach, but she understands the weight of her role as well as the responsibilities that comes with her position.
And she takes it seriously.
“I still think there’s a lot of importance in seeing that leadership role behind the bench and seeing someone like myself being seen leading a team full of young women on the ice,” said Koelzer. “It’s certainly a different kind of first but it’s one that I think at this stage in my life, I’m excited that I’m in that role and have an importance in a different way.”
The inaugural season for Arcadia and Kelsey Koelzer has begun so the spotlight is on.
But Koelzer was built for it, so expect lots of future shine to come from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
