Yale Bulldogs women's ice hockey
Yale University women's ice hockey (YWIH) is an NCAA Division I varsity ice hockey program at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. One of the oldest varsity women's ice hockey programs in the country, Yale women's ice hockey dates back to 1975. Beginning as a club sport, the program gained varsity team status in 1977–78. Yale competes in the ECAC Hockey League (ECACHL), along with Ivy League foes Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth and Brown. Both the Yale men's and women's ice-hockey teams play at Ingalls Rink, also known  as "The Whale". Coaches. The current head coach is Mark Bolding, who took over the helm in April 2019. He is the 11th head coach for Yale. In his first season with the team, the Bulldogs set a program record with 17 wins, including 13 conference wins, also a school record, beating the previous record set in 2004-2005. The season included a six-game winning streak, the longest in program history. Bolding came to the Bulldogs after serving as the head coach for the Norwich University women's ice hockey team. Joakim Flygh coached the Bulldogs from 2010 until  2019. In 2014-2015, the team tied the school's record for conference wins with 12, and finished with the second highest number of goals scored (93). Prior to taking on head coaching responsibilities at Yale, Flygh was an assistant coach at Harvard and University of Minnesota-Duluth. Flygh resigned as head coach in February 2019. Hilary Witt was the head coach from 2002 to 2010. Witt was named ECAC Women's Coach of the Year in 2002–03, and became Yale's all-time leader in wins in 2005. The 2004–05 squad set the school record for overall wins (16 ) and conference wins (12), earning a trip to the ECAC semifinals for the first time. The 2007–08 team broke the school record for goals in a season with 96 and finished with the second-most wins in school history, 15. History. Yale University debuted its women’s ice hockey program on December 9, 1975. Its first match was versus Choate-Rosemary Hall. The Bulldogs prevailed by a 5–3 tally. Two years later, the Bulldogs hockey program would attain varsity status. Laurie Belliveau played for Yale from 1994–1998. In four years, she participated in 98 games. Statistically, she logged 5,809 minutes , recorded 4,262 saves, and registered a .911 save percentage while posting a 4.32 goals against average. She has averaged more than 43 saves per game. In 1994–95, Belliveau became the first freshman in any sport to earn Ivy League Player of the Year honors. During the season, she made an ECAC record 78 saves in a game. The opponent was the Providence Friars women's ice hockey program. In 1998, Laurie Belliveau was one of two Ivy League players named first team All-Americans. This was the first time that Ivy League women's hockey players were bestowed such an  honor. Hillary Witt was hired as head coach for the 2002-2003 season, after working as the assistant coach for one season. The Bulldogs had a stand-out year in 2004-2005, with a program high 16 wins overall and 12 conference wins. The following year, they set the all time record for goals scored. Witt left at the end of the 2009-2010 season. On April 3, 2011, Yale player Mandi Schwartz succumbed to recurrent acute myeloid leukemia at age 23. She was a forward on Yale's women's hockey team and had a string of 73 consecutive  games played. In her honor, the Yale Bulldogs introduced the Mandi Schwartz Award in April 2011. The annual award is given in acknowledgement of a Yale Bulldog player’s courage, grit and determination. Aleca Hughes was named as the first winner. On what would have been her 24th birthday, the ECAC renamed its Student-Athlete of the Year Award in honor of Schwartz. YWIH participates in Bulldog PAWS, a program at Yale New Haven Hospital that teams children with brain tumors with one of the Yale Athletic Teams. In 2011, they adopted a nine-year-old girl, Giana, with a  brain tumor; she went to all of their home games. Alyssa Zupon was instrumental in developing the partnership. The Bulldogs broke the previous program record of wins and conference wins in the 2019-2020 season. They finished 17-15-0 over all, and 13-9-0 in conference play. They played perennial rival Harvard in the quarterfinals of the ECAC tournament. After an opening game loss, they won the second game in overtime. In the tie-breaker, they lost in triple overtime by a score of 3-2. In July 2020, the Ivy League announced that league play would be  suspended in Fall 2020 due to the 20202 coronavirus pandemic.