Lindenwood's women's hockey team features players from 12 different nations. The roster has promise, and a new head coach to help them realize that potential in Max Gavin.
Located in metropolitan St. Louis, the world of women's hockey has come to Lindenwood University. This season, Lindenwood's women's hockey team, which competes at the NCAA Division 1 level in Atlantic Hockey America, will feature players from 12 nations.
Not only are there players from the United States and Canada, Lindenwood's roster includes athletes from Europe and Asia. They'll boast players from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, and Spain.
The majority of those players have represented their nation at the U-18, and some at the senior national levels.
It's a diverse roster in terms of geography, and they'll be guided by new head coach Max Gavin. Gavin joined Lindenwood after two seasons as an assistant coach with Boston College. He held the same role with Dartmouth for two seasons, and has head coaching experience at the Junior A men's level in Ontario's NOJHL.
"Excited to be here, honored to be part of this program and the AHA as well," said Gavin. "Things are going great, getting settled in, and we're really excited. Great energy around the program right now, you know, hopefully continue to build off some of the success they saw last year, and continue to make that climb."
As Gavin joked, players from Lindenwood's roster will have plenty of places they can stop and stay around the world with their former teammates. The number of nationalities and languages represented add to Lindenwood Gavin believes.
Players like Slovakia's Tatiana Blichova and Michaela Paulinyova, and Norway's Silje Gundersen who will be joined by three young recruits from her nation were impact players last season bringing unique skill sets and experiences.
Pl"It's been a lot of fun just to see the different dynamics from different cultures and, you know, learning how they operate, so it's been really fun, and I think it's a cool thing to see. Places that maybe were non-traditional in my first few years of coaching in the last 10 years, and I think that's well represented across our league. There's players from all different parts of the world, and I think it just goes to show hockey's growing, and that's really exciting."
Lindenwood will open their season with a pair of non-conference series' playing NEWHA's Post University twice on September 18 and 19, followed by a series against Hockey East's Merrimack the following weekend. They play their first AHA conference games October 3 and 4 against second year program Delaware.
