Dr. Chelsea Laden (born September 12, 1992) is an American optometrist, paranormal investigator, television creator and retired

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

goaltender, who played with the Connecticut Whale and

New York Riveters The Metropolitan Riveters (originally the New York Riveters) were a professional women's ice hockey team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with home games at the American Dream Meadowlands ice rink. They were one of the four charter franchi ...

of the

Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) was a women's professional ice hockey league in the United States and Canada that operated from March 2015 until June 2023. The league was established in 2015 as the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), com ...

(PHF).

Playing career

During her teenage years, she played ice hockey for

Lakeville South High School Lakeville South High School (LSHS) is a high school located Lakeville, Minnesota, United States. To meet the needs of a growing population, in the early 2000s the district began construction of LSHS. It enrolled students for the first time in f ...

Lakeville, Minnesota Lakeville is an exurb of Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and the largest city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. It is about south of both downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul along Interstate 35 in Minnesota, Interstate 35. Lakeville w ...

, serving as team

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

twice and earning all-state

MVP MVP most commonly refers to: * Most valuable player, an award, typically for the best performing player in a sport or competition * Minimum viable product, a concept for feature estimating used in business and engineering MVP may also refer to: ...

honours four times. From 2011 to 2015, she played NCAA Division I women's ice hockey with the

Quinnipiac Bobcats The Quinnipiac Bobcats are the 21 sports teams representing Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut in intercollegiate athletics. The Bobcats compete in the NCAA Division I and are members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, joining o ...

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I college ice hockey, ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United ...

, serving as the starting goaltender of the women's hockey programme in her

junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Aircraft * Ekolot JK-05L Junior, a Polish ultralight aircraft * PZL-112 Junior, a Polish training aircraft * SZD-51 Junior, a Polish-made training and club glider Arts and entertainment Characters * Bowser Jr., ...

and

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

seasons. As a

freshman A freshman, fresher, first year, or colloquially frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational in ...

, she was named ECAC Hockey

Rookie A rookie is a person new to an occupation, profession, or hobby. In sports, a ''rookie'' is a professional athlete in their first season (or year). In contrast with a veteran who has experience, a rookie is typically considered needing more tra ...

of the Week for the week of November 29, 2011, and notched her first career collegiate shutout in a 3–0 victory over

Syracuse Syracuse most commonly refers to: * Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse * Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area Syracuse may also refer to: Places * Syracuse railway station (disambiguation) Italy * Provi ...

in January 2012. She was named ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Month in October 2013 and was a three-time ECAC Hockey All-Academic Team selection. After graduating from Quinnipiac, she was ready to end her ice hockey career due to a lack of viable opportunities in the sport. However, when the PHF (then NWHL) was founded that summer by Dani Rylan, she was able to sign her first professional contract, worth $14,000, with the Connecticut Whale. She made her PHF debut in late October 2015, backstopping four third-period

penalty kill Short-handed is a term used in ice hockey and several related sports, including water polo, and refers to having fewer players on the ice during play, as a result of a penalty. The player removed from play serves the penalty in the penalty box f ...

s in a victory over the

Buffalo Beauts The Buffalo Beauts were a professional ice hockey team in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). They played in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo, at the Northtown Center. The Beauts were established in 2015 as one of the four founding f ...

, the first away victory in Whale franchise history. She then missed several months of the season dealing with a finger injury. In February 2016, she became part of the first-ever trade in PHF history, being traded to the

in exchange for Shenae Lundberg.

Filmography

In 2019, she began starring in a

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, who previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in Manhattan, with ...

original

paranormal television Paranormal television is a genre of reality television that purports to document factual investigations of the paranormal rather than fictional representations seen in traditional narrative films and TV. Over the years, the genre has grown to be ...

show called ''Destination Fear'' along with her brother, Dakota Laden, and friends Tanner Wiseman and Alex Schroeder. The show follows the group of self-proclaimed 'paranormal explorers' as they travel to reportedly haunted, paranormal hotspots across the United States at which the team separates and sleeps alone at the end of each night and records their experiences. The Ladens and Wiseman had previously produced a similarly themed documentary called ''Trail to Terror'' in 2016. The documentary was shown in Theatres at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota on October 29, 2016.

Television

Web

Personal life

Laden was born on September 12, 1992, in Lakeville, Minnesota to Rob and Polly Laden. She has four siblings, an older sister Mykenna, and younger siblings Dakota, Tavian, and Isabella. She is currently married to Jake Rancic who she met while they were both studying at Illinois College of Optometry. Laden has a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in pre-medical sciences from

Quinnipiac University Quinnipiac University ( ) is a private university in Hamden, Connecticut, United States. The university grants undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. It also hosts the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. History What became ...

and a Doctor of

Optometry Optometry is the healthcare practice concerned with examining the eyes for visual defects, prescribing corrective lenses, and detecting eye abnormalities. In the United States and Canada, optometrists are those that hold a post-baccalaureate f ...

degree from Illinois College of Optometry.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Laden, Chelsea 1992 births Living people American women's ice hockey goaltenders Paranormal investigators Ice hockey players from Minnesota Sportspeople from Lakeville, Minnesota Ice hockey people from Dakota County, Minnesota Metropolitan Riveters players Connecticut Whale (PHF) players Quinnipiac Bobcats women's ice hockey players 21st-century American sportswomen