STORRS, Conn. — After a groundbreaking season, University of Connecticut Women’s Hockey head coach Chris MacKenzie has been named the CCM/AHCA Women’s Division I Coach of the Year, according to a release from the Hockey East conference.
The 2023-2024 Huskies made history multiple times over by winning the program’s first Hockey East regular season title and first Hockey East tournament championship while appearing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time.
In his 11th season as head coach of the UConn women’s ice hockey team, MacKenzie, 49, led the Huskies to a 25-8-5 overall record and a 19-4-4 record in Hockey East play. Since he took over the program in 2013, MacKenzie has compiled a rapidly improving record of 151-157-43, including three consecutive winning seasons.
While UConn lost to Minnesota Duluth 1-0 in double overtime on March 14 in the NCAA Regional, bringing the season to an end, this campaign was without question the most successful in team history. The Huskies set program records for most wins, most conference wins and longest winning streak.
MacKenzie hails from Niagara Falls, Ontario and played four seasons at Niagara University in New York, during which he was captain all four years. After setting scoring records there, he became an assistant coach for the UMass-Lowell men’s hockey program for eight seasons.
His first collegiate head coaching opportunity came at his alma mater, Niagara, where he took over the women’s ice hockey team for two years before the school cut the program. MacKenzie then spent a year as an assistant women’s hockey coach for Ohio State before landing the UConn job.
Over the past decade, UConn has slowly gotten better, and this year’s historic team was assisted by Associate Head Coach Casey Handrahan and Assistant Coach Elizabeth Wulf.
MacKenzie and his wife Allison live in Storrs, Conn. with their 12-year-old daughter Morgan and nine-year-old son Ren.
Dalton Zbierski is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at dzbierski@FOX61.com.
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