Jazmine Miley named coach of Paul Smith’s College women’s hockey team

Jazmine Miley, director of the Puerto Rico Ice Hockey Affiliation, has been named coach of Paul Smith’s Faculty women’s hockey crew.

Miley, a defenseman who also captained Puerto Rico’s women’s team to the 2021 Amerigol LATAM Cup championship, said she’s enthusiastic about coaching the tiny upstate New York college’s American Collegiate Hockey Association’s Division II women’s crew.

She said her ambitions are “Bringing in a lot more diverse players” and “just expanding the school, hockey-intelligent.”

The 27-year-previous Afro-Latina from Queens, New York, is the hottest in a small but escalating variety of females of colour who’ve entered the college or university coaching ranks.

Kelsey Koelzer, a buddy of Miley’s and a previous Countrywide Women’s Hockey League defenseman, became the to start with Black girl head coach when Arcadia University, a NCAA Division III university exterior of Philadelphia, employed her in 2020 to guide its women’s staff.

Division I Dartmouth University hired Nina Rodgers, a previous University of Minnesota and Boston University forward, as an assistant coach in July 2021. Olivia Soares, a former Ohio Condition College ahead, was hired as an assistant coach by Division III Colby College in August 2021.

“I want to turn into an ambassador for the reason that of the deficiency of diversity in women’s hockey,” Miley reported. “I would really like to be the woman that other women and females can glance up to an link with.”

Miley, who started participating in hockey at 13, played for Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan, and Chatham University in Pittsburgh, both of those NCAA Division III educational institutions, and for Liberty College in Lynchburg, Virginia, on its ACHA Division I and II teams from 2014-19.

Following college, she played and coached in Hungary, Norway, Finland and France. With the Puerto Ice Hockey Affiliation, Miley oversaw improvement of the U.S. territory’s men’s Division I and II teams and women’s and youth nationwide teams.

Miley reported she’ll go on to get the job done with the PRIHA whilst coaching at Paul Smith’s and she intends to engage in at the 2022 LATAM Cup Sept. 14-18 at the Florida Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs, Florida.