US Olympian Shelley Looney Gets New Title: Lindenwood Lions Head Coach

On June 27th, Lindenwood announced two time US Olympian Shelley Looney as the new head coach of their NCAA Division I ice hockey program. There was excitement in the women's hockey community that day, to see a big name in women's hockey move to the head coaching ranks. That excitement is shared by Coach Looney:

"This is an exciting time for the Lindenwood Women’s Hockey program with a new coach and rink. I will bring years of hockey experience as both a player and a coach. Additionally, I believe that successful teams are a result of a positive team culture. I am very excited about joining the Lindenwood University community. Lindenwood offers amazing opportunities for student athletes and I look forward to working with the team daily to assist each player to be the best person and athlete that she can be."

Lindenwood is the third CHA program in as many years to hire a new head coach, following RIT in 2018 and Penn State in 2017. The hires suggest these schools want to win and get results that reshuffle the CHA standings, as these three are typically in  four to sixth place. However, the CHA is coming off a year where last place Lindenwood earned wins against the top two teams in  the league, and fifth place RIT took seven out of eight league points from eventual CHA Tournament champion Syracuse. Anyone can beat anyone in the CHA, and that wasn't always the case.

Looney is aware of that changing landscape within women's hockey and looks to help strengthen the CHA. "Collegiate women’s ice hockey has changed a great deal since my playing days and its growth has been amazing. As a youth program director, I have watched the college game closely and have many colleagues and former teammates spread throughout college hockey. I am looking forward to joining college hockey and being a part of the CHA to help the conference continue to become stronger."

As a player, Looney is best known for scoring USA's winning goal in the gold medal game at the 1998 Olympics. She played for Northeastern, graduating in 1994, and was a mainstay with Team USA in the nineties and early aughts. Looney retired from playing hockey in 2005, after winning a World Championship gold medal with Team USA. In all, Looney retired with an Olympic gold and silver medal, and one gold and seven silver medals at the World Championships.

Looney's coaching career began alongside her playing career, and includes NCAA Division I experience with Hockey East's Vermont Catamounts in 2004-2005. Since then she has coached at Nichols School, coached with USA Hockey's high performance programs and at the World University Games, and been the Director of Buffalo Women's Hockey.

With her name recognition, accomplished playing career, and lengthy coaching career, Looney is a logical hire at the NCAA Division I level. While there is reason for the Lindenwood program to be optimistic about the future, first some sobering facts:

At Lindenwood, Looney inherits a team that has never had a winning record in its 8 years of NCAA Division I play (Independent in 2011-2012; CHA past 7 seasons). Its best overall season at the NCAA level was 2017-2018, when it finished with a 10-20-1 record (8-12 in conference). This past season, the team regressed to 7-22-4 overall, and their 3-14-3 conference record produced a last place finish. Lindenwood has never finished better than 5th place in CHA play, in a six team league.

Additionally, Lindenwood has lost Taylor Girard as a transfer to Quinnipiac this summer. Girard finished her sophomore season with a team leading 24 points in 25 games in 2017-2018. She played only 8 games in her most recent season, scoring 7 points. There may be other transfers, not yet made public.

The roster and schedule for the 2019-2020 season has not been released, but Looney indicated they would welcome six freshmen. Other schools published schedules reveal Lindenwood's non conference slate includes 10 games against WCHA opponents: Wisconsin, Bemidji, St. Cloud (4 games), and Minnesota State, and four games against Union and Clarkson of the ECAC.

It is a great task to turn Lindenwood into a winning program, but given recent wins against top teams in the league and recent program changes, one can envision a roadmap to getting there:

At the NCAA level for Lindenwood, there is no greater historical bright spot than Nicole Hensley. Former goalie Nicole Hensley (2012-2016) went on to Team USA and gold medals at the 2016 and 2017 World Championships, and 2018 Olympics. That narrative of individual success, delivered by fellow Olympic gold medalist Coach Looney may have some recruiting impact.

More recently Lindenwood placed four players on All CHA teams. Sierra Burt was named to the 2018-2019 2nd All CHA Team, and Taylor Kirwan, Sophie Wolf, and Jada Burke were named to the All Rookie Team. This speaks to the skill and potential of current players, which could also help recruiting.

Looney also needs to hire an assistant coach, which is an opportunity to better the skill within the program's coaching ranks. Former assistant Corey Whitaker has taken a head coaching position at Shattuck St Mary's. Greg Haney, who joined Lindenwood in 2018 as an assistant coach, is still listed as an assistant. This is conjecture, but I've wondered if Hensley might make a return as full time coach. Hensley was an assistant coach at Lindenwood in 2016-2017 before centralizing with the National Team. She is among the 200 athletes sitting out from North American pro hockey this year, and would be an asset to any college program.

Lindenwood will also be playing in a brand new rink, the Centene Community Ice Center,beginning this fall. The rink is located in Maryland Heights, seven miles from Lindenwood University and will also be the St. Louis Blues' practice facility, and home to the St. Louis Lady Cyclones, a local girls program. To date, Lindenwood played in a functional but plain off campus rink twenty miles from campus.

Playing at Centene will better impress out of town recruits, and playing in the same rink alongside the local girls hockey program, may attract some home grown talent. The area's most notable women's ice hockey product is All American Jincy Dunne of O'Fallon, Missouri, who plays for Ohio State. With a high profile coach and new rink, Lindenwood may be in the conversation to motivate players of her stature to stay home, in the future.

It will be at least a year before players Looney recruits matriculate at Lindenwood. Until then, she will need coach up the roster she already has, and her ability to do so remains to be seen, although her resume reveals obvious potential. Even if she improves everyone's play however, climbing the standings won't be easy given the dynamics of the CHA.

In 2018-2019, first year head coach Chad Davis improved RIT's goals against average from 4.03 to 2.4 per game, while increasing goals scored from 1.2 to 1.91 per game. It moved the needle on their record, but they still finished fifth in the conference. At Penn State there are obvious improvements in the past two years under Coach Kampersal, and yet they've not moved from fourth place. That said, the narrowing of the gap is evident, and one has to think change could happen any year now, particularly for Penn State, but the opportunity exists for RIT and Lindenwood too.

If Looney can shore things up with the existing talent, recruit based on her name recognition in women's hockey until she proves herself as a college head coach, and make smart hires, one can imagine this program improving and creating some movement in the CHA standings.

The long suffering St. Louis Blues recently delivered one coveted trophy to the area. Under Coach Looney, can the Lindenwood Lions deliver another?

Episode 3: Danielle Grundy of the Grindstone Award Foundation

In Episode 3 of My Hockey Podcast, Danielle Grundy joins me as the first ever guest of the podcast!

You can listen to the episode on Itunes: Danielle Grundy and the Grindstone Award Foundation
or on the web by clicking here:   Danielle Grundy and the Grindstone Award Foundation

Danielle is the president and co-founder of the Grindstone Award Foundation, a CRA registered charity based out of Kelowna, BC, that provides grants to girls across Canada. Grindstone was founded in 2014, and last year gave grants to 30 girls across Canada. Although it started with two co-founders today Grindstone has a team of people working hard to serve their mission.

On this 25 minute episode we talk about how the Grindstone Award Foundation raises money and provides grants to enable Canadian girls to play hockey, who would otherwise be unable to play due to financial hardship.

We discuss Grindstone's 3rd annual charity tournament happening July 19-21 in Kelowna, BC. Funds raised in the tournament go towards providing grants to deserving Canadian girls.

Canadian Olympic gold medalist Natalie Spooner will join Grindstone and participate in all three events of the charity tournament. 

We also discuss the August 1st deadline for applying for a grant. The Grindstone Award Foundation team seeks to give out 50 grants this year, so share the word that girls should apply!

In the second half of the podcast we talk about how people can support Grindstone, what it was like to start a charity, navigating setbacks, being part of a movement within girls and women's hockey, and what it felt like to give that very first grant back in 2015.

Have a listen and then check out www.grindstoneaward.com to learn all about this charity. Follow the Grindstone team on twitter at grindstoneaward and instagram at Grindstone Award.

If you like what you hear please subscribe, rate and review My Hockey Podcast on Itunes. Finally, a big thank you to Danielle for joining me on my podcast today.