Courtney Kessel - Women's Ice Hockey Coach (original) (raw)

Courtney Kessel joined the Boston University women's ice hockey staff as an associate head coach in May 2023.

An assistant at Princeton since 2019, Kessel was head coach of Hockey Canada's gold-medal winning team at the 2023 IIHF U-18 Women's World Championships.

Kessel made an immediate impact at Princeton as the 2019-20 squad won its first ECAC Hockey tournament title and posted a program-record 26 wins. That team had three players ranked in the top 12 nationally in goals and points per game. In 2021-22, Princeton became the first No. 8 seed in ECAC history to win a series against the top-seeded team.

Before Princeton, Kessel served as head coach of the Toronto Furies of the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), leading them to the semifinals of the 2018-19 Clarkson Cup in her first and only season. Prior to her professional coaching stint, Kessel won three world championship medals with Hockey Canada, claiming a gold and two silvers.

This will mark a return to Hockey East for Kessel, who was an All-American and a first-team league all-star at New Hampshire and captained the Wildcats during her senior year (2010-11) before playing five seasons with the Brampton Thunder and then spending a year overseas with Ice Dream Kosice (Slovakia) and Linköping HC (Sweden). She was named the CWHL Rookie of the Year in 2012 and was a two-time all-star.