Georgia Schiff enters the PWHL draft as a gritty, offensive presence with four years of Cornell hockey in tow. Now, she's allowing herself to dream bigger.
It was just this past season that one of Georgia Schiff’s coaches pulled her aside to ask her if she’d ever considered playing in the PWHL.
“I'm like, 'Whoa, do I think I'd want to play in the P-Dub? That's like a dream come true,'” Schiff remembered saying. “From there, I had it more in my mind, like, 'Okay, what are the steps I need to take to get there?'”
She grew up in Montpelier, Vermont, where she played boys hockey up until mid-way through her junior year of high school, including three years of full-contact. As the college game grows increasingly physical due to the influence of the PWHL, her time with the boys has given her an advantage in moving the puck, battling in the boards and being able to take a hit.
“I think that when I have success on the ice, it's when I'm playing the toughest, the grittiest I can be,” Schiff said.
She tallied 12 goals, 16 assists and 45 blocks in the 2025-26 season. For her, it was the season she’d been working toward throughout four years of extra sessions and video.
“This is the year it paid off, but I really do think it is the accumulation of my four years,” she said. “I think it's really just showing up myself and putting the work in, but also I think there's a lot of other people involved as well.”
Her coaches and teammates, four of whom have also declared for the draft, were there to give her the extra push, helping with additional early practices.
“If you're willing to put in the work and the time to get better, there's always a couple of girls or some people on the team who are free and ready to do that as well,” Schiff said. “It's awesome, our class is super close.”
Schiff chose Cornell because of its reputation as a hard-working program, and has emerged with a close-knit senior class and community that extends throughout the campus. At the dining hall, a picture of the team is hung up, and she’s always being asked how her games went. Coming from a small town herself, it was the perfect fit.
“The community here that our team has built, I think that's been super important to me with my upbringing, that I found really special about Cornell,” Schiff said.
Standout Cornellians like Izzy Daniel and Rory Guilday have led the way for Schiff and her teammates, including Avi Adam, Mckenna Van Gelder, Grace Dwyer and Alyssa Regalado, to enter the draft.
“Just being a great person, a great teammate, I find that it helps you be a better hockey player, and I think that's something that they've shown, especially when I was teammates with them,” Schiff said of the recent graduates.
Her dad put her on the ice at 4 years old, taught her to skate and eventually coached her. Now, her dream of playing professionally might come true on PWHL draft day.
“He said that I always had a smile on my face when I was at the rink, so he just kept bringing me back,” she said. “I fell in love with the games when I was really young.”