LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — 24 athletes, coaches, and alums with ties to ECAC Hockey are set to represent USA Hockey and Hockey Canada in this week's U18 and Collegiate Series games in Lake Placid, NY. Among those invited as players and team staff are 18 student-athletes who are rostered for the 2023-24 ECAC Hockey season, two alumni, and four active coaches.
Colgate leads the way with six active players between the two rosters, along with assistant coach Chelsea Walkand, who is the Head Coach of the USA Collegiate Series team. Cornell has four players in the event (three for Hockey Canada), while Quinnipiac, Yale, Princeton, Clarkson, and Brown are all represented by active student-athletes as well. Yale goaltending coach Mackenzie Bruch will work with Walkand as Team USA's goaltending coach for the Series.
Among the invitees are three-time ECAC Hockey Women's Tournament Champions Sydney Bard and Allyson Simpson, both of whom claimed their third consecutive postseason title with the Raiders in 2023 and will be returning for a fifth season in the maroon and gray. Colgate's Elyssa Biederman Cornell's Grace Dwyer will reunite in the red, white, and blue for the first time since claiming silver together at the 2022 IIHF U18 Women's World Championship in Madison, Wisconsin.
ECAC Hockey players will account for 12 spots on the Hockey Canada Collegiate Select roster, the most of all D1 conferences.
The full list of players with ECAC Hockey ties:
Sydney Bard (Colgate, USA)
Elyssa Biederman (Colgate, USA)
Anne Cherkowski (Clarkson, Canada)
Dominique Cormier (Princeton, Canada)
Grace Dwyer (Cornell, USA)
Elle Hartje (Yale, USA)
Jade Iginla (Brown, Canada)
Maya Labad (Quinnipiac, Canada)
Sarah MacEachern (Cornell, Canada)
Ashley Messier (Cornell, Canada)
Olivia Mobley (Quinnipiac, USA)
Hannah Murphy (Colgate, Canada)
Emmalee Pais (Colgate, Canada)
Madeline Palumbo (Colgate, Canada)
Sarah Paul (Princeton, Canada)
Alyssa Regalado (Cornell, Canada)
Ally Simpson (Colgate, USA)
Sara Swiderski (Clarkson, Canada)
Colgate women's hockey assistant coach Chelsea Walkland has been appointed head coach of the U.S. Collegiate Select team after serving as an assistant coach for the 2022 U18 squad that claimed silver in Madison, Wisconsin. She'll be joined behind the bench by Yale volunteer coach Mackenzie Bruch, who will serve as the Collegiate Select team's goaltending coach. Dartmouth women's hockey head coach Liz Keady-Norton will lead the U-18 Select team; Keady-Norton was an assistant on the American U-18 team that claimed bronze in Sweden this past January.
Quinnipiac head coach Cass Turner will serve as an assistant coach on the bench of the Hockey Canada Collegiate Select team. The team was selected by Hockey Canada Vice President of Hockey Operations and former St. Lawrence star Gina Kingsbury and Senior Manager of Player Development and Scouting Cherie Piper, who is a Dartmouth women's hockey alum.
For daily updates on ECAC Hockey news, stories, awards, and more, be sure to follow @ecachockey on Twitter, ecachockey on Instagram, and like the ECAC Hockey Facebook page.