Heather Linstad (born February 26, 1963) is an American

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 ...

coach, best known for coaching the

UConn Huskies women's ice hockey The UConn Huskies women's ice hockey team is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college ice hockey program that represents the University of Connecticut. The Huskies compete in the Hockey East conference. The Huskies pl ...

program during 2000 to 2013 and the Connecticut Whale 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) during the 2015–16 and 2016–17 seasons.

Coaching career

Prior to beginning her coaching career, she was a college

player for the

Providence Friars women's ice hockey The Providence Friars women's ice hockey team is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college ice hockey program that represents the Providence College. The Friars are a member of Hockey East. They play at the 3,030-seat ...

team and was honored as the ECAC Player of the Year in 1989. She was then head coach for eight seasons at

Northeastern Huskies The Northeastern Huskies are the athletic teams representing Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. They compete in thirteen varsity team sports: men's and women's hockey (in Hockey East); men's baseball, men's and women's basketball ...

from 1992 to 2000, winning the ECAC coach of the year 1994. In 2000, Linstad became the women's ice hockey coach at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

, coaching the

Connecticut Huskies The UConn Huskies (or Connecticut Huskies) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Connecticut, with its main campus located in Storrs, Connecticut. The school is a member of the NCAA's Division I and the Big Eas ...

for thirteen seasons. On February 13, 2010, Linstad obtained her 300th win as a head coach, with a 4–1 over her alma mater, the Providence Friars. Linstad abruptly resigned from her coaching position at the University of Connecticut on March 13, 2013, after two poor seasons. In 2016, she would be awarded the Women's Hockey Founders Award by the

American Hockey Coaches Association The American Hockey Coaches Association was formed in 1947 in Boston. The founding members coached college ice hockey but membership has grown to include coaches at every level of the sport from youth hockey to professional ice hockey, althou ...

for her contributions to the growth and development of women's ice hockey in the United States. Linstad was the head coach of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

U-18 women's ice hockey team through the 2011–12 season, coaching the team to a silver medal finish at the

2012 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship The 2012 U18 IIHF Women's World Championship was the fifth IIHF U18 Women's World Championship and was hosted in Zlín and Přerov, Czech Republic. It began on 31 December 2011 with the gold medal game played on 7 January 2012. Canada won the t ...

. On January 29, 2016, Lindstad was named as head coach of the Connecticut Whale of the National Women's Hockey League. She left the team after the 2016–17 season.

Controversy

A lawsuit filed against the

alleges Linstad dismissed a female hockey player from the team for not being stable enough following an alleged on-campus sexual assault by a male hockey player in 2011.

Coaching statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Linstad, Heather Living people UConn Huskies women's ice hockey coaches American ice hockey coaches Sportspeople from Chelmsford, Massachusetts Providence Friars women's ice hockey players American women's ice hockey centers Northeastern Huskies women's ice hockey coaches 1967 births Premier Hockey Federation coaches Chelmsford High School alumni Ice hockey people from Middlesex County, Massachusetts 20th-century American sportswomen