On Wednesday, the Arizona Coyotes announced they hired Dawn Braid as the full-time skating coach. This makes Braid the first female to coach in the National Hockey League.
Braid worked as a part time coach with the Coyotes last year, following periods of employment with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Anaheim Ducks, Buffalo Sabres and Calgary Flames. Before consulting with the NHL, Braid served as the director of skating development at the Athletes Training Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, where she worked with many semi-pro and professional athletes. NHL players that Braid has coached include San Jose Sharks captain Joe Pavelski and New York Islanders captain John Tavares. Both players have spoken highly of Braid to NHL.com since working with her.
In a released statement, Braid responded with pride and excitement to her hiring.
"It's something that I've wanted to see happen," she said. "The fact that they respect what I do enough to name me as a full-time coach, or to name me as the first female coach in the NHL, I take a ton of pride in that. I've worked very hard for this opportunity. It's been going on for years and I just look forward to going even further with it."
In recent years, professional hockey has become increasingly more inclusive of women. No woman has played in a pro hockey game since 1992 when goaltender Manon Rheaume took the ice for the Tampa Bay Lightning in an exhibition game against the St. Louis Blues. In 2015 however, two female ice hockey players--including four time Olympian Angela Ruggiero--formed the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL). This league now gives woman an opportunity to play professional hockey in the United States and Canada after finishing their NCAA careers. Before the formation of the NWHL, no such league existed.
The NHL is the third of the big four professional sports leagues (the other three being the MLB, NBA and NFL) to hire a woman as a full-time coach. The New York Jets of the NFL hired assistant coach Kathryn Smith in 2003, and in 2014, the NBA's San Antonio Spurs hired ex-WNBA superstar Becky Hammon as an assistant coach.
