There will be no men behind the bench at St. Cloud State University when the puck drops on the 2025-26 NCAA women's hockey season for the first time. That comes after former head coach Brian Idalski departed for the new head coaching position with PWHL Vancouver, and he was replaced by Minnesota Frost assistant coach Mira Jalosuo.
Jalosuo will be joined, for the first time in program history, by an all-woman staff. Jalosuo's staff will include assistant coaches Jinelle Siergiej, Noora Räty and Emily Ach.Mir
Jalosuo takes over a program that saw three key members selected in the 2025 PWHL Draft, St. Cloud's largest cohort to turn pro. That group included forward Emma Gentry, defender Dayle Ross, and goalie Sanni Ahola.
The program retains a group of talented players heading into 2025-26 with leading scorer Alice Sauriol, Finnish national team members Sofianna Sundelin, Siiri Yrjola, and Emilia Kyrkko back, and Swiss national team member Laura Zimmerman, who showed offensive growth last season.
"The foundation is there, now it's just my job to take this program to the next level," Jalosuo said in her introductory press conference.
Jalosuo, 36, spent the past two seasons as the top assistant for the PWHL's Minnesota Frost helping the team win back-to-back Walter Cup titles. Her hiring as St. Cloud's new head coach waited formally until after the 2025 PWHL Draft where she was in charge of the Frost's scouting and drafting.
For Jalosuo, it's a return to St. Cloud State as she had served as an assistant at St. Cloud prior to accepting the position in the PWHL, but went to the pro game for multiple seasons to challenge herself and continue to grow as a coach. Part of that was the opportunity to coach players she'd played with herself.
"I saw the direction of this program, I knew it was going to get better, but I thought that's the one time in my life that I'm going to be truly challenged, just because there was players who I played with," Jalosuo said. "If I can get a buy in from Lee Stecklein who I played with, I think coaching is going to be very simple for me for the rest of my life."
Jalosuo and St. Cloud State hope that stands true and things get easier for the Huskies in the ever-challenging WCHA moving forward. It's a historic group for the Huskies featuring four women coaching, as the staff look to guide St. Cloud State into a new era of competition.