Huskies women’s ice hockey head coach Heather Linstad had always looked at playing ice hockey as a way to get a good education and put herself on the path to a career in business. So when she completed her business degree at Providence College, where she was team captain for three years, Linstad started working as a regional sales manager for a transportation company.

That’s why, when Don McLeod, the former World Hockey Association goalie and pioneering women’s coach at Northeastern University, asked her to join the first women’s ice hockey team that would compete in the World Championships in 1990, she decided to continue working instead.

“I said: ‘I’ll be honest, I can’t take that much time off from my new job and I’m not sure where women’s hockey is going. I was a little too logical back then,” says Linstad, who earlier this year was named head coach for USA Hockey’s Under 18 National Team. The team will compete next January in the 2012 International Ice Hockey Federation World Women’s U-18 Championships in the Czech Republic.

Linstad is the second UConn head coach currently selected to lead a team representing the United States. Huskies women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma leads the USA National Women’s Team that will compete in the 2012 Olympic Games in London next summer. Three other UConn coaches have also coached national teams as either head coach or assistant: field hockey coach Nancy Stevens, men’s ice hockey coach Bruce Marshall, and former baseball coach Andy Baylock.

Just three years after turning down the chance to continue in hockey, Linstad was drawn back into the game when she became head coach at Northeastern. She stayed for eight years and led her team to the ECAC title, before arriving in Storrs to begin the women’s ice hockey program in 2000.

“I always thought hockey was a path to get my education and to pursue a career,” says Linstad, who is one of just three Division I women’s ice hockey coaches to have won 300 or more games. “Then all of a sudden my career became coaching.”

Developing players, developing the sport

Throughout her career, Linstad also has helped develop future women’s ice hockey players and coaches by participating in USA Hockey camps and presenting at the USA Hockey Masters Symposium.

“In reality you do USA Hockey to help develop the sport. I was one of the coaches at the festival in 1997, which was when we selected the 1998 Olympic team. It was the first and last time we won the gold,” she says. “From where the sport has come, even I didn’t have the forethought of how it would grow and expand. As it kept going, I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing in keeping it progressing.”

The U-18 schedule this summer will keep Linstad busy. By the time she returns to Mark Edward Freitas Ice Forum for the fall semester, she will have participated in several USA Hockey camps that will help select the U-18 team. In August, she and her assistant coaches – Hilary Witt, an assistant coach at Northeastern and former head coach at Yale; and Joel Johnson, assistant coach at Minnesota – will coach the team in the annual U.S.A.-Canada series. In July, she also will participate in an International Ice Hockey Federation camp, which is aimed at helping to develop ice hockey in other nations by providing workshops for players and coaches.

“It’s exciting to work with a different group of kids and a different kind of atmosphere,” Linstad says of her new assignment. “The international experience is going to be fun. It’s going to be a learning experience. But my hope, too, is the players are going to learn where women’s hockey has come from and to appreciate what they can do for the sport, too.”

Facing the challenges

With the World Women’s U-18 Championships held in January, Linstad will have to leave the Huskies briefly in mid-season, relying upon assistant coaches Jaime Totten, in her 11th season at UConn, and Kirsti Anderson, now in her third year.

“I absolutely have confidence in them,” says Linstad. “It’s good for them to get me out of their hair, to be the voice, and be in charge. Especially Jaime, she’s been here since the program began. During the season, I have to send my assistants away to go recruiting, so maybe it’s something completely new that I have to experience and feel what they feel during the season.”

During the upcoming 2011-2012 Hockey East season for the Huskies, Linstad will also rely upon the experience and leadership of her seniors, defenders Rebecca Hewett and Sami Evelyn and goaltender Alexandra Garcia. They will lead a Huskies squad that includes student-athletes who helped gain a national ranking two years ago and who last year had to cope with being forced to practice and play on the road after severe snowstorms piled up snow on the roof of Freitas Ice Forum, causing safety concerns.

“We had such a young team. They just got tired when we couldn’t be in the building. It took its toll on us,” she says. “That’s why I’m excited. We put them in some great situations and they really did respond. I’m excited about the depth we’re going to have and the personality of the team.”

The Huskies will again face a challenging schedule, with the regular competition in Hockey East against perennial powers Northeastern, Providence, and NCAA Frozen Four teams Boston College and Boston University, as well as an out-of-league game against NCAA quarterfinalist Minnesota-Duluth.

“Those are the games these kids came to college to play in, to be challenged all the time,” Linstad says. “They didn’t come here to get their individual stats and score goals when it’s easy. They want to score goals when it’s hard and at a high level. You have to play those games.”

Training for success

Linstad says she hopes that the 2011 Stanley Cup victory of the Boston Bruins will continue to generate interest in hockey, not just for young girls, but for the fan base of the sport.

“I always say hockey is one of the greatest sports, because at a minimum you have to have 16 kids coordinate to play the game at once. It’s different in other sports,” she says. “I just love the sport because it helps young women growing up to understand that when you work at a company you’ve got to get a lot of cogs working in one direction. For them to have that passion, I think transpires at some point that if you’re so dedicated, you’re going to have success; no matter what you do when you graduate, you’ll have the desire to be successful.”

In the meantime, Linstad will focus her attention on working with the more than 100 teenage girls who will be under her guidance this summer, when she wants to help develop talent so that her sport will continue to provide a path to education and opportunities.

“My hope as a coach is to develop 102 kids and then out of that in August, work with the cream of the crop,” she says. “Maybe I can develop the 102nd kid, and that’s the kid who takes that knowledge and thinks she could still make the Olympic team and ends up here at the University of Connecticut. If our pool gets better, then competition gets better and USA Hockey gets better.  And we have to do everything possible to get better. We’ve won a lot of world championships, but the ultimate goal is to get the Olympic gold medal back.”