Sarah Shantz-Smiley (born 24 August 1982) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

-born

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

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 coach. She has been a member of the Iceland women's national team since 2011, the same year she was named the Icelandic Women's Ice Hockey Player of the Year.

Playing career

Having played for the

University of Windsor The University of Windsor (UWindsor, U of W, or UWin) is a public university, public research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has approximately 17,500 students. The university was incorporated by ...

in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (now

U Sports U Sports (stylized as U SPORTS) is the national sport governing body for universities in Canada, comprising the majority of degree-granting universities in the country and four regional conferences: Ontario University Athletics (OUA), Résea ...

), Shantz-Smiley graduated in 2005. Following university, she competed with the now-defunct

Montreal Axion The Montreal Axion were a National Women's Hockey League team (2003 to 2007) located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Axion represented Quebec at the 2005 Esso Women's Nationals. They were previously known as Bonaventure Wingstar (1998–99) and ...

in the original

National Women's Hockey League 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 ...

. During the 2005–06 NWHL season, Smiley appeared in 35 games, logging 4 goals (of which three were game-winning goals) and 4 assists for 8 points. In 2006, she signed on to play in the

Icelandic Women's Hockey League Íslandsmót kvenna í íshokkí (English: Icelandic Women's Hockey League), also known as Hertz deild kvenna for sponsorship reasons, is an ice hockey league in Iceland. Its current champion is SA Ásynjur. It is run by Ice Hockey Iceland. Leag ...

. In 2008, Shantz-Smiley would play for a club team in Australia. Smiley has also played for the Iceland national women's team competing in Group B at the

2012 IIHF Women's World Championship Division II The 2012 IIHF Women's World Championship Division II consisted of two international ice hockey tournaments organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation. Division II A and Division II B represent the fourth and fifth tier of the IIHF Wom ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. During Iceland's first game of the event, Shantz-Smiley earned an assist on a goal scored by Birna Baldursdóttir.

Coaching career

In December 2006, Shantz-Smiley was hired as the head coach of the Iceland women's national team. In 2008, she became the first woman to be the head coach of a men's Ice Hockey team in Iceland when she was hired as the head coach of

Skautafélag Akureyrar Skautafélag Akureyar, also known as SA for short, is an Icelandic sports club founded in 1937 and based in Akureyri, Iceland. It is best known for its ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ic ...

men's team. Shantz-Smiley also spent team coaching a youth team in the community of Akureyri in 2010. In 2011, Iceland was ranked 29th in the world, and was the host country for the 2011 IIHF Women's World Championship Division IV. During that same year, Smiley worked with Deirdre Norman from the Women of Winter hockey organization in Toronto and helped launch a women's division in the Iceland International Ice Hockey Tournament.

Personal

Shantz-Smiley received an Icelandic citizenship in 2011.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shantz-Smiley, Sarah 1982 births Living people Canadian emigrants to Iceland Canadian women's ice hockey forwards Ice hockey coaches Icelandic ice hockey forwards Montreal Axion players Ice hockey people from Toronto University of Windsor alumni 21st-century Canadian sportswomen