Laura SCHULER

Canadian-born forward Laura Schuler played six sports in high school, which included captainships of the volleyball, field hockey, ice hockey, and soccer teams, and she earned MVP awards in the former three activities. She then entered Boston’s Northeastern University in 1989, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in cardiovascular health and exercise, and spent four seasons on their ice hockey team. Perhaps her best year was her sophomore (second) one, where she scored 20 goals and 13 assists to cap off the year as the scoring leader in all categories (goals, assists, and total points). During her final year she was elected the team’s captain, but saw her season cut short after suffering a leg injury. Her next stop was the University of Toronto to study exercise science, where she also spent several years as a member of the ice hockey squad. College was not her only outlet for the sport, however, as she joined the Canadian women’s national team in the year of its founding, 1990, and captured gold medals at World Championships in 1990, 1992, and 1997. Her final major international tournament was the 1998 Winter Olympics where she suited up for six matches and took home a silver medal at the first official women’s ice hockey tournament at the Games. She was a member of the national team until 2001, at which point she became the founder and head coach for the University of Massachusetts at Boston’s women’s ice hockey team, earning the Eastern College Athletic Conference Coach of the Year Award in 2004. After the end of that season she became the head coach for the program at Northwestern University. She had previously coached the Stouffville Midget AA and New York Rangers Midget AA squads in Ontario from 1998 through 2000 and had been director of operations for Schuler’s Hockey Excel, a hockey instruction business, from 1995 through 2001. She was inducted into Northeastern University’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.