By Jared Sugerman
Laura Schuler was hired to take a women’s hockey program in disarray and put it back on the road to respectability. She did that, and now she is moving on.
“I think she was settling into her role as a head coach. The program has certainly improved, and the success that we have going forward will be in some measure attributable to her,” said Northeastern Athletics Director Peter Roby.
Schuler announced her resignation from her position as head coach at Northeastern April 21. She will leave her alma matter to become the head assistant coach at the University of Minnesota Duluth under Shannon Miller. Her resignation will be effective May 28.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity,” Schuler said. “To be able to learn from the very best is going to be a tremendous experience for me, so I’m really looking forward to it.”
Miller, who captured her fourth national title as head coach of the Bulldogs in 2008, was left with a vacancy on her bench when former assistant Julie Chu resigned to devote more time to the preparation of the US Olympic team for the 2010 games in Vancouver.
“I had chatted before with Shannon Miller a couple of summers ago, and the opportunity was never really there to go and coach with her,” Schuler said.
But Chu’s departure left Schuler with a decision to make.
“It was a hard decision because I thought that I had to kind of finish the job that I had started at Northeastern, and knowing the players we were bringing in for next year, I knew that we were on a real positive curve,” Schuler said.
With help from Schuler, the women’s hockey program is starting to look more like it did when she played here from 1989-93. Having already solidified itself as one of the elite women’s hockey programs in the country, Northeastern went 74-24-5 during Schuler’s playing career, qualifying for the playoffs every year.
Schuler registered 64 goals and 57 assists as a Husky, and led Northeastern in scoring with 20 goals and 13 assists during the 1990-91 season. She also served as the Huskies’ captain during her senior season.
Schuler returned to Northeastern after building UMass Boston’s women’s hockey team. She coached the team from its inception in 2001 until 2004, when she won Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Coach of the Year after guiding her club to an appearance in the ECAC semifinals during its first season as a varsity team.
As Northeastern’s head coach from 2004-08, her record was 23-99-10, including an 18-58-7 Hockey East record. However, she has added three Hockey East All-Rookie team members to Northeastern’s squad in the last two years: forward Chelsey Jones in 2007; forward Kristi Kehoe in 2007; and goalie Leah Sulyma in 2008; and her incoming recruits include goalie Florence Schelling, defensemen Sam Watt and Stephanie Gavronsky.
Schelling, a goaltender for the Swiss National Team, posted a .939 save percentage and a 2.40 goals-against-average in three appearances at the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy. She was also the first woman to play in the Swiss National B League.
Watt, who hails from Alberta, Canada, was selected as a member of the Canadian National U-18 team, and was named Canada’s top defenseman at the 2007 Canadian National U-18 Championships.
Gavronsky, another native of Alberta, registered 10 goals and 16 assists last season with the Sherwood Park Fury, making her one of the top scoring defensemen in the Alberta Major Midget Female Hockey League. Like Watt, Gavronsky played for Team Alberta at the 2007 Canadian National U-18 Championships.
When contacted near the end of April, Roby said the search for a new coach is underway, and that he would consider candidates already on the Northeastern staff, as well as those not previously employed by the university.
“There’s not that many of these types of jobs available around the country, and so there’s already been quite a bit of interest in the position,” Roby said. “I’m very confident that we’re going to find a very talented coach to lead our women’s ice hockey program.”
