Starting Could 15, NWHL groups can re-sign gamers from their 2018-19 roster and their draft picks. Moreover, for these gamers who’ve accomplished their school eligibility and need to proceed their hockey careers, NWHL Free Company gives the most effective alternative to proceed enjoying on the highest degree girls’s hockey. The fifth season of the NWHL will start in October because the Minnesota Whitecaps look to defend their Isobel Cup championship.
My colleague Nathaniel Oliver will maintain THW readers up-to-date on Buffalo and Boston’s signings all through the summer time, whereas I publish updates on Connecticut and the Riveters. Collectively we will probably be holding readers knowledgeable of all of Minnesota’s signings.
Sullivan Turns into Boston’s Second Signing
Riveters Re-Signal Packer for Fifth NWHL Season
Delight Will get Fratkin Again for a third Season
On Could 22 the Connecticut Whale introduced their first signing for the upcoming season, coming to phrases with defender Shannon Doyle who has been with the crew since its inception. Doyle turns into the third of the primary 4 NWHL signings (becoming a member of Kaleigh Fratkin and Madison Packer) which have performed in each season for the reason that league started in October of 2015.
The 27-year-old has performed all 61 of her video games with the Whale and has 25 profession factors (5g-20a) along with a numerous quantity of blocked photographs. Doyle set a profession excessive with eight factors (3g-5a) this previous season whereas logging heavy minutes and he or she was named an NWHL All-Star for the primary time.
Previous to becoming a member of the NWHL, Doyle (from Baldwin, Ontario) break up her collegiate profession between Colgate College and Boston College, and he or she received a gold medal with Canada’s U18 crew in 2010.
Connecticut Whale defender Shannon Doyle in the course of the 2019 NWHL All-Star Weekend Expertise Competitors in Nashville. (Photograph by Michelle Jay)
Doyle Days
“We’re very excited to have Shannon Doyle again for a fifth season with the Connecticut Whale,” newly named GM Bray Ketchum mentioned in a press launch from the league. “She is a frontrunner on this crew and certainly one of our high defenders. Her ardour for the sport is all the time evident and I do know she goes to proceed to be a task mannequin on and off the ice.”
With a lot uncertainty across the recreation of girls’s hockey and over 200 gamers planning to not play in any league, Doyle felt it was vital sufficient to proceed to develop the NWHL by enjoying in it moderately than letting it burn down and attempt to begin one other league from floor zero.
Shannon Doyle of the Connecticut Whale. (Photograph Credit score: Matthew Raney)
“We now have the chance to be part of the one united league that may showcase gifted hockey gamers for a 24-game season,” Doyle mentioned within the press launch asserting her signing. “I sit up for making much more optimistic strides in Season 5 of the NWHL and holding the optimistic momentum going.”
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Doyle took to social media two days in the past to publish a really poignant and properly thought out publish that supplied her perspective on what’s at the moment occurring within the local weather of girls’s hockey. Just like the Packer signing with the Riveters two days earlier, will probably be intriguing to see which gamers observe the lead of a participant who has been concerned with the franchise in Connecticut from day one.
The Whale roster has undergone many makeovers over the earlier 4 seasons, however one fixed has been Doyle who has been usually regarded to for management on and off the ice with so many faces coming and going. “I’m proud and honored to characterize the Connecticut Whale for a fifth season,” mentioned Doyle, who’s an English instructor when she isn’t lacing up her ice skates.
“Connecticut is house to quite a few feminine youth hockey packages, and I’m very excited to work with them this season and to proceed being a task mannequin in such a hockey-loving state.”
In 4 seasons there have been 4 completely different champions hoisting the Isobel Cup on the finish of the season and what a narrative it could be if Doyle discovered a means to assist the Whale make it 5 in 5 seasons. This can be the season the place Connecticut has essentially the most returning gamers and so they might have a bonus in a league that nobody is aware of what it’ll appear like.
