Kristin Elizabeth Wendell-Pohl (born September 12, 1981) is an American former women's

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 ...

player and current amateur scout for the

Pittsburgh Penguins The Pittsburgh Penguins (colloquially known as the Pens) are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh. The Penguins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), E ...

of the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...

. During the 2004–05 season, Wendell set an

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

record for most

short-handed goal 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 fo ...

s in one season, with seven. At the conclusion of her college career, she held the record for most career short-handed goals, with 16. Both marks have since been equaled by

Meghan Agosta Meghan Christina Agosta (born February 12, 1987) is a Canadian women's ice hockey forward, who last played for the Montreal Stars of the Canadian Women's Hockey League. Agosta played for the Canada women's national ice hockey team and is a thr ...

. Wendell is currently in the Top 10 for all-time NCAA scoring, with 237 career points.

Playing career

While attending

Park Center Senior High School Park Center Senior High School (PCSH) is a four-year public high school located in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, United States, on 7300 Brooklyn Blvd. PCSH is located near the border of two northwest twin cities suburbs, Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn C ...

Brooklyn Park, Minnesota Brooklyn Park is a suburban city on the west bank of the Mississippi River, upstream from (north of) the Twin Cities in northern Hennepin County. It is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 86,478 at the ...

, Wendell led the girls' hockey team to a state championship. At the time she graduated from high school, Wendell was the state of Minnesota's all-time leading girls' high school scorer. Wendell was a co-captain of the

Minnesota Golden Gophers women's ice hockey The Minnesota Golden Gophers women's ice hockey team plays for the University of Minnesota at the Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis. The team is one of the members of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) and competes in the National ...

team. A

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

, she scored 133 points in two seasons (2002–2003, 2003–2004) for the Gophers. Wendell scored the game-winning goal in the 2005

Western Collegiate Hockey Association The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college ice hockey conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated as a me ...

(WCHA) championship game against

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. Wendell followed that with a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three Wick ...

against ECAC champion

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

. Wendell was the NCAA runner-up in the scoring race to her teammate

Natalie Darwitz Natalie Rose Darwitz (born October 13, 1983) is an American ice hockey executive, coach, and retired player, most recently serving as general manager of PWHL Minnesota in the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). Darwitz was a member of t ...

with 98 points. Wendell did lead the NCAA in short-handed goals, with seven. She won the

Patty Kazmaier Award The Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award is given to the top female college ice hockey player in the United States. The award is presented during the women's annual ice hockey championship, the Frozen Four. The award was first presented in 1998. The ...

in 2005 for best female collegiate hockey player. Wendell was the first player from Minnesota, and the first from the WCHA, to win the award. Wendell was one of the stars of the

United States women's national ice hockey team The United States women's national ice hockey team is controlled by USA Hockey. The U.S. has been one of the most successful women's ice hockey teams in international play, having medaled in every major tournament. In 1998, the women's Olympic ...

, and served as their

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

. She made her debut with the team at th
1998 Three Nations Cup
At the

2005 IIHF Women's World Championship The 2005 IIHF World Women's Championships was held April 2–9, 2005, in Linköping, at Cloetta Center (now called the Saab Arena), and Norrköping, at Himmelstalundshallen, in Sweden. USA won their first gold medal at the World Championships ...

, Wendell was named MVP, and led all players in scoring with nine points, as the United States won its first

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

at the women's world championships. She was a member of the United States team at the

2006 Winter Olympics The 2006 Winter Olympics (), officially the XX Olympic Winter Games () and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February in Turin, Italy. This marked the second time Italy had hosted the Winter O ...

, winning a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

Post-playing career

Following her playing career, Wendell-Pohl coached girls high school hockey in Minnesota with her husband, and former NHL player, Johnny Pohl. She was then hired by the

as a scout on November 6, 2021, becoming the third woman to hold a scouting position with an NHL team after

Cammi Granato Catherine Michelle Granato (born March 25, 1971) is an American former ice hockey player and one of the first women to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November 2010. She currently works as an assistant general manager for the Vancou ...

and

Blake Bolden Blake Alexis Bolden (born March 10, 1991) is an American former ice hockey player, and scout for the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). On October 11, 2015, she became the first African-American player to compete in the Nation ...

. Her responsibilities are to scout amateur players, predominantly high school players, in the Minnesota area. In 2024, Wendell-Pohl was announced as an inductee into the

Hockey Hall of Fame The Hockey Hall of Fame () is a museum and hall of fame located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League (NHL) records, memorabilia and National Hockey Le ...

Personal life

In , Wendell was the fifth girl to play in the

Little League World Series The Little League World Series is an annual baseball tournament for children (primarily boys) aged 10 to 12 years old, held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Originally called the National Little League Tournament, it was later renamed for th ...

, and the first to start at the

catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the catc ...

position. Wendell was featured on the

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

game show, ''

Figure It Out ''Figure It Out'' is an American children's panel game show that aired on Nickelodeon. The original series, hosted by Summer Sanders, ran for four seasons from July 7, 1997, to December 12, 1999. The show was revived in 2012, with Jeff Sutph ...

'', when she was 16. She married

player John Pohl on August 11, 2007, in

Roseville, Minnesota Roseville is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. It is one of two Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Twin Cities suburbs that are bordered directly by Saint Paul, Minnesota, Saint Paul and Minneapolis (Lauderdale, M ...

. They have three daughters.

Awards

* 2000 Minnesota Ms. Hockey Award * 2000 Bob Johnson Award for excellence in international competition (awarded at the USA Hockey Annual Congress) * 2001

Bob Allen Women's Player of the Year Award The Bob Allen Women's Player of the Year Award is given annually by USA Hockey to an outstanding American-born female ice hockey player. It was first presented in 1994. History In 2007, the name of the award was changed to honor the late Bob Alle ...

* 2002 Olympic Silver Medal * 2003, 2004 NCAA D1 W. Ice Hockey Champion * 2004 Little League Hall of Excellence * 2004 NCAA Division I women's ice hockey tournament Most Outstanding Player * 2004 NCAA All-Tournament Team * 2005 NCAA All-Tournament Team * 2005 Patty Kazmaier Award * 2005 USA Hockey Bob Johnson Award * 2005 Most Valuable Player, Women's World Hockey ChampionshipsCollins gem Hockey Facts and Stats 2009-10, p.545, Andrew Podnieks, Harper Collins Publishers Ltd, Toronto, Canada, * 2006 Olympic Bronze Medal * 2007 All-Star, Women's World Hockey Championships * 2019

U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame The United States Hockey Hall of Fame was established in 1973 with the goal of preserving the history of ice hockey in the United States while recognizing the extraordinary contributions of select players, coaches, administrators, officials and ...

* 2024

References

External links

*
Krissy Wendell
at the U.S. Olympic Team website via

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...