Jess Koizumi

Jessica Koizumi was an ice hockey player for the Montreal Stars of the CWHL. Koizumi was born in Honolulu, Hawaii but was raised in Simi Valley, California.

NCAA
Prior to joining the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs, she participated for Cal Selects Hockey Club from 1999-2003, and was recognized as the Cal Selects Player of the Year for 2002-03. Koizumi competed for the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and finished her career ranked seventh all-time on the Bulldogs scoring list. She accumulated 155 points (84 goals, 71 assists). In 2006-07, she led the Bulldogs with six game-winning goals. Koizumi was also a two sport star, as she also participated in softball with the Bulldogs.

In her senior season (2006-07), Koizumi was also Bulldogs captain. The final game of her NCAA career was the championship game of the 2007 NCAA women’s Frozen Four. During the semifinal match of the Frozen Four tournament, Koizumi registered two goals (including the game-winner) and an assist as the Bulldogs bested Boston College in double-overtime.

USA Hockey
Koizumi has attended the USA Hockey Women’s National Festival from 2004 to 2007. In September 2007, Koizumi was selected to be part of the American contingent competing in the 2007 Four Nations Cup, held in Leksand, Sweden. From 2004 to 2006, Koizumi was a member of the United States U-22. In addition, she claimed a gold medal at the roller hockey world championships in July, 2006. At the 2008 IIHF World Women’s Championship, Koizumi was part of the gold medal winning roster.

She has also represented Team USA at three Women’s World InLine Hockey Championships, from 2005 to 2007 respectively.

CWHL
Koizumi played in the CWHL with the Montreal Stars and the Boston Blades. In 2010, the Stars reached the 2010 Clarkson Cup semi-finals. The following year, Koizumi was part of the 2010–11 Boston Blades season. After competing in the 2009 Clarkson Cup finals with the Minnesota Whitecaps, she would win the Cup for the first time in 2013. During the 2013-14 Boston Blades season, Koizumi reached 49 career points, making her the all-time leading scorer in franchise history.

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Coaching career
After graduation, Koizumi joined the Bulldogs coaching staff. On September 27, 2010, Koizumi was hired as an assistant for the Yale Bulldogs women's ice hockey program. She works for head coach Joakim Flygh, who was an assistant at Minnesota-Duluth while Koizumi played there. In the 2013-14 season, Koizumi helped Yale to its first ECAC Hockey Championship tournament game win since 2005, as the Bulldogs beat Harvard 3-2 in double overtime in game one of the quarterfinals in Cambridge on Feb. 28, 2014.

During her time as an assistant at Yale, Koizumi has helped recruit and develop a Yale team that has improved its winning percentage by more than 100 percentage points over the previous season in back-to-back years (2012-13 and 2013-14). The team scored 51 goals in ECAC Hockey games in 2013-14, the most since 2006-07. Yale's ECAC Hockey quarterfinal win over Harvard, which was ranked No. 5 in the country at the time, represented the first time a No. 7 seed had won a game in the ECAC Hockey tournament.

At Yale Koizumi has helped coach an ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Year (Phoebe Staenz, 2013-14) and multiple players who have earned all-conference honors. In addition to Staenz, who won an Oympic bronze medal with Switzerland in 2014, Koizumi has worked with other players who have participated with various national team programs as well. Current Yale goalie Jaimie Leonoff was a second team All-Ivy League selection in 2012-13, and earned a spot at Hockey Canada's National Women's Program goaltending camp in June of 2013. Past Yale goalie Jackee Snikeris was a first team All-ECAC Hockey honoree and ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year in 2010-11, and was selected to USA Hockey's annual Warren Strelow Goaltending Camp for the fourth straight time in 2011.

Koizumi has been a part of a program at Yale that has maintained high academic standards. The Bulldogs had 18 ECAC Hockey All-Academic Team selections in 2012-13, second-most in the conference. The team had 16 selections in 2011-12, tied for the most in the conference. The Yale program has also placed an emphasis contributing to the community at large. As a team, Yale was named the Dave Solomon Memorial Sports Persons of the Year by the New Haven Register for 2011. The award honored the Bulldogs for their community service efforts, including the annual Mandi Schwartz Marrow Donor Registration Drive at Yale (held in memory of Mandi Schwartz '10 (1988-2011) and her battle with cancer) and "Yale Bulldog PAWS (Pediatric Alliance With Student-athletes)", a program started by Zupon that pairs Yale athletic teams with pediatric patients from Yale-New Haven Hospital to serve as a support group.

Awards and honors

 * 2002-03 Cal Selects Player of the Year
 * 2003-04 WCHA All-Rookie Team
 * 2006-07 All-WCHA Third team selection
 * 2007 Frozen Four All-Tournament Team

Personal
In May 2007, Koizumi graduated from Minnesota-Duluth with a major in psychology and a minor in coaching. She was eligible for the NCAA Post Graduate Scholarship and earned her Masters of Education degree in 2009.