Courtney Kessel has been named the sixth head coach of the Princeton women’s hockey team.
Kessel, who spent four seasons as an assistant coach at Princeton from 2019 to 2023, most recently was behind the bench in the PWHL as head coach of the Boston Fleet.
She takes over for Cara Morey, who left for the PWHL earlier this offseason.
“It is an exciting moment for Princeton women’s ice hockey with the return of Courtney Kessel in her new role as head coach,” said Princeton director of athletics John Mack. “She is a bright coaching mind with head coaching experience and success at the highest levels of professional and international hockey. She also has a wealth of knowledge about Princeton and our hockey program and knows first-hand what it requires to recruit, develop and mentor exceptional student-athletes at our university. I can’t wait to welcome Courtney, Blake and their family back to campus and support them as they begin this next chapter for Princeton women’s ice hockey.”
Kessel brings years of experience as a coach and leader at the collegiate, international and professional levels to Hobey Baker Rink.
In addition to her time as head coach with the Fleet, she spent the 2018-19 season as head coach of the CWHL’s Toronto Furies.
The first head coach in Fleet history, Kessel guided the team to the Walter Cup Finals in 2024.
She has also been part of the coaching staff for three gold medal-winning teams with Hockey Canada, including a stint as assistant coach with the senior national team en route to a gold medal at the 2024 World Championships and serving as head coach of the 2023 Under-18 National Team that won gold.
“I am grateful to have the opportunity to return to Princeton and serve as women’s ice hockey head coach,” Kessel said. “My time at Princeton was special to me personally and professionally, and I am excited to rekindle those relationships with student-athletes, alumni, friends and colleagues. I am thankful to John Mack, Anthony Archbald and the entire search committee for their dialogue throughout the process and their support as I start this new role. It is bittersweet to move on from the Boston Fleet and the amazing people building that organization and the PWHL as a whole.
“This opportunity was the only one that could draw me away from where I was, and it is because I believe there is no better place to coach and develop student-athletes than at Princeton University. I look forward to getting to know the current team and building upon the foundation already established by wonderfully successful coaches and teams.”
During her four years at Princeton, Kessel was part of a historic 2019-20 season that included Princeton’s first-ever ECAC tournament championship. The Tigers went 26-6-1 during that season, securing the ECAC crown with a 3-2 win in overtime at Lynah Rink over No. 1 Cornell.
That win secured an automatic bid to the 2020 NCAA tournament where the Tigers were slated to be the No. 6 seed and take on Northeastern before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled that tournament and the entire 2020-21 season for the Ivy League.
Princeton returned in 2021-22 and made more history by becoming the first-ever No. 8 seed to knock off the No. 1 seed in the ECAC tournament with a series win in three games at Harvard capped by a 3-2 win in Game 3.
Over her three full competitive seasons with the Tigers, Kessel was part of a group that went 54-36-7 overall and 36-26-4 in the ECAC.
Five players who played at Princeton during Kessel’s tenure as an assistant have gone on to play in the PWHL, including 2024 No. 1 overall draft pick by New York Sarah Fillier, as well as Maggie Connors (Toronto), Mariah Keopple (Seattle), Rachel McQuigge (Ottawa) and Claire Thompson (Vancouver). Another Tiger who played for Kessel, Annie MacDonald, played in the PHF for Toronto during the 2021-22 season.
Kessel has also had a hand in developing a pair of Olympic gold medalists during her time as an assistant with Princeton in Fillier and Thompson, who won gold with Canada in 2022 in Beijing. Fillier won gold while taking a gap year from Princeton before returning to Baker Rink for two more standout seasons. Thompson, who had graduated in 2020, took a gap year of her own from medical school to represent her country en route to gold.
A 2011 graduate of New Hampshire, Kessel was a second-team All-American in 2010 and was twice named first-team all-Hockey East. She was drafted No. 6 overall by the Brampton Thunder in the 2011 CWHL Draft and went on to an international career that included three stints on the Canadian senior national team, where she won gold in 2012 and silver medals in 2013 and 2015.
