Kelly Nash, a two-time national champion as a player at Wisconsin, has been selected as Long Island’s women’s hockey coach.
Nash arrives at LIU from the Premier Hockey Federation’s Metropolitan Riveters, where she served as associate head coach and head scout this past season. She previously played with the Riveters, winning an Isobel Cup championship in 2018.
She spent a combined six seasons as an assistant coach at the collegiate level. Her focus at Vermont (2013-17) and Princeton (2017-19) centered on player development, recruiting, practice planning, and video analysis and scouting.
“I’ve felt like I’ve always been able to build good player-coach relationships throughout my career and build that trust from the get-go,” Nash said in a news release. “I think my playing career has helped to get that started right off the bat with the players. And then, with my six years of Division I coaching as an assistant coach, I was really focused on player development, and working on skills specifically. That’s something I definitely want to bring to LIU.”
During her collegiate playing career, Nash produced 22 goals and 47 assists in 153 career games with the Badgers spanning four seasons. She earned the team’s Jeff Sauer Award as the “most dedicated player” as a senior and graduated in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
In just the team’s third season of varsity play in 2021-22, the Sharks went 17-15-3 overall and 15-3-2 in the NEWHA. LIU won its first NEWHA postseason title in 2020, wrapping up its first season as a varsity program in style.
“There’s a strong foundation that we can build off of here,” Nash said. “There’s just a lot of excitement going into this upcoming season. They’ve already experienced a bit of success early on.”
