A few weeks ago, Bethany Brausen officially became the head coach of the St. Thomas women’s hockey program after having the interim tag placed on her for 12 games following the abrupt resignation of then-head coach Joel Johnson.

After a successful playing and coaching career at the University of Minnesota, along with the Tommies’ sweep of then-No. 4 Minnesota Duluth during Brausen’s interim stage, it was no surprise that UST decided to put the future of the program in her hands.

Hockey is basically in Brausen’s blood, and some family influences helped guide her into fully embracing the sport she loves.

“My dad, he always kind of played, more informally though, so he would always kind of just do some pick-up hockey and stuff, so we definitely grew up in the rink,” Brausen said recently. “But a lot of the credit I give to my hockey involvement was actually for my cousin Connor, and he was like my best friend. I was attached at the hip with Connor, and he decided that he was wanting to play hockey, and so anything that he did, I was sold on as well. So, looking back, that was probably the biggest reason I got in was my best friend, my cousin. And then I feel like once I started playing, as most people know, it’s a hard sport to get out of. It’s just something you fall in love with pretty quickly.”

After earning Ms. Hockey honors as a senior and leading Roseville Area High School to a state championship in 2010, Brausen stayed in the Twin Cities and decided to suit up for the WCHA powerhouse Golden Gophers, even though it wasn’t as easy of a decision as one might think.

Choosing the Gophers
“When I was growing up, Minnesota was kind of the premier program in the Twin Cities,” she said. “It was really the only option in some ways for Minnesota kids just to get really high-level visibility, and so when I was growing up, there were people that I knew like Winny Brodt and Ronda Curtin, they were both Roseville people, and they ended up at Minnesota. So, I think I was kind of the traditional story of growing up in the Twin Cities and having the Gophers 10 minutes away from my home, and so that was definitely a big part for me when I went through the recruiting process.

“There were some other schools that I was considering. I thought about going out east. I even considered, you know, could I go to an Ivy League, things like that. But at the time just growing up in the Twin Cities and having an option that was close to home that had just such a rich tradition of success was definitely a big part of it.”

Brausen helped lead the Gophers to back-to-back national championships in 2013 and 2014 and then back to the title game in 2015. Then she decided to turn to coaching, which ended up being a perfect fit for her considering what she majored in during her time at Minnesota.

“I think to some degree I always knew that I wanted to coach in some capacity,” she said. “What’s interesting is I think growing up and even into my college years, I don’t know if coaches do a good enough job really kind of advocating and promoting a career profession of coaching. So, for me when I was at Minnesota, I’d never really thought about it as a full-time job. I actually originally got my master’s (degree) in counseling, and then I was pretty much set up with my PhD applications. I thought I’d go on and become a psychologist and maybe work in sports psychology, or industrial organizational psychology.

“So that was kind of my path originally and then at that point when I was starting my second year of my master’s program is actually when (Gophers head) coach (Brad) Frost called me and offered for me to come back and coach Minnesota. I think I always knew I wanted to coach. I coached at high school (at Breck) for a couple years. I coached in OS stuff all growing up but for me, I never really thought of it as a career profession until the opportunity presented itself. And then, similar to falling in love with hockey at a young age, it felt impossible not to fall in love with the coaching side of it as well later.”

When asked if her multiple degrees have helped her as a coach, Brausen said they definitely have played a role.

“My undergraduate was in psychology,” she said. “I think that that really applies to any sector that you go into and that’s kind of why I was drawn to that degree originally and then the masters in counseling. I actually did a internship with Premier Sports Psychology as well during that time and so, I really got pretty nuanced in the mental side of sports, and really just kind of the mental side of life, too, and how we can be the healthiest version of ourselves. And so, I think between those two programs and then the current one I’m in right now is actually in organizational leadership.

“So, for me, education has always been something I’ve been really passionate about and I just believe that everyone can and should be lifetime learners if we want to keep getting better. So, I definitely think between those three different types of degree programs it’s really set me up to be a really well-rounded coach.”

As far as her PhD goes, the soon to be Dr. Bethany is in her last year of her program and is in her dissertation stage before she’ll be defending it later in 2025. The topic is appropriately related to women’s hockey, which is a topic “near and dear to her heart.”

“I’m looking at four different coaches across the country Division 1 women’s hockey, and the question I’m trying to answer is what are the thoughts, beliefs, and practices of these four coaches who seek to help their student athletes flourish,” she said. “Essentially the question is really about how do we go above and beyond, kind of, traditional approaches to coaching. How do we go beyond kind of just black-and-white there’s a player you have their coach and it’s kind of old-school and traditional, but how do we go beyond that and actually develop these student athletes holistically and from a social psychological academic full life perspective?

“So that’s the answer, or the question I’m trying to answer, and I will get back to you in some months hopefully. If I get some good insights in that way.”

Brausen says all four of the coaches she’s researching are female and not just from the WCHA, which makes for an interesting study.

“It’s called purpose of sampling,” she said. “So, what you do is, if you were actually kind of ingrained or engulfed into a certain population or a certain demographic, you can actually hand select people based on your experience or feedback from others of who would be the best candidates, and so that’s how I went about selecting my participants. I can’t say specifically who they are from an anonymous standpoint, but they are all female and that was just by chance. It could’ve been a male, but just by chance, the four that were really the best fit for the study were females. I have a couple of head coaches, and a couple are associates or assistant coaches. I have one that’s an Ivy League coach, I have some from the WCHA, and some from other conferences. So, it’s really a nice blend to get some different perspectives from a wide range. So, it’s been fun.”

Joining the Tommies as an assistant coach
With a psych background and a successful tenure at Minnesota, Brausen joined the Tommies bench and there were a couple of factors that made her switch from maroon and gold to purple and gray.

“I think the biggest thing is that, number one, I had been with Minnesota both as a player and as a coach for so many years at that point, so nearly a decade, and it was fun and it was rewarding and it was so many great things, but it was a very seasoned program,” she said. “So, for me, the opportunity to go somewhere that was new and different and really building from the foundation up, was pretty much the opposite experience of what I currently had. Like with academics, I’m just a really high achiever by nature where I want to do things differently. I want to always keep pushing myself, and so for me, the opportunity to go coach somewhere that was new, and was different, and was building something from that foundation level was such a new challenge and very exciting for me.

“And the other part of it is I went around and I walked the St. Thomas campus when I was considering coaching there. I vividly remember the thought of ‘Gosh, it’s going to take some years. It might take three or four years to really kind of start to build that program, but that is not a program I want to recruit against in the future.’ I just remember vividly having that thought because as a potential student athlete when I walked around that campus, this is where I would’ve wanted to go. If I could do the recruiting process now today, the fact that it’s this beautiful, small private school in a very safe part of the Twin Cities, your professors come to your games, they know you by name, they know your family members’ names. It was just a different academic and athletic experience. Just being a lot more intimate. Our athletic director (Phil Esten) and our sports administrators, they’re at almost every single game.

“So, it’s just a different environment at St. Thomas. So, I think it was both of those things. It was this new and different challenge that was so different than anything I’ve experienced and then on the other side of it, it’s not for everyone necessarily, but for the right people looking for something different in our conference. St. Thomas offers a completely different experience than any other school in the WCHA.”

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Back with the Whitecaps this season when she turns 44 years old on Feb. 18, it begs the obvious question: How long will she keep playing professional hockey?

“Oh, that’s always the question,” Winny said. “I don’t know yet. I could be Tom Brady… day-to-day.”

In some ways, it could be tough to imagine a world where Winny isn’t playing hockey. Or more precisely, it could be tough to imagine what the girls’ hockey world looks like without the influence of Winny. She’s created so many opportunities to help grow the girls’ and womens’ games.

Another Minnesota hockey standout, Krissy Wendell, might have put it best when describing what Winny means to the growth of girls’ hockey.

“I’m scared to think about, if there was no Winny Brodt, what the state of girls’ hockey would be in the state of Minnesota, to be honest with you,” Wendell said. “I think, single-handedly, she’s continued to push boundaries in a way that’s successful.”

Winny’s accomplishments are quite extensive. Here’s a sampling:

• Inaugural Ms. Hockey winner, scored 62 goals and 61 assists in 30 games for the undefeated Roseville High School girls’ team that won a state title (1995-96)
• Senior Women’s A National Champion (1996-97)
• National champion with University of New Hampshire (1997-98)
• Team USA World Championship team (1999-2000, 2001-02, 2002-03)
• National champion with University of Minnesota Gophers (1999-2000)
• WCHA Defensive Player of the Year and top 10 finalist for Patty Kazmaier Award (2000)
• Founded OS Training and Minnesota Whitecaps (2004-05)
• Established Junior Whitecaps (2006-07)
• Western Women’s Hockey League Defensive Player of the Year (2006-07)
• Established Upper Midwest Elite League (2007-08)
• Analyst for KSTC-TV Channel 45 state girls’ hockey tournament (2006-present)
• Herb Brooks Foundation board member (2008-present)
• Minnesota Whitecaps player for 18 seasons (2004-present)
• Isobel Cup Champion (2018-19), runner-up (2020-21), finalist (2019-20)
• University of Minnesota M Club Hall of Fame Class of 2021
• Roseville Raider Hall of Fame Class of 2021

Ronda Curtin Engelhardt (L) and Laura Slominski behind the Minnesota Whitecaps bench during a Sept. 22, 2019 exhibition game vs. their alma mater, the University of Minnesota, at Ridder Arena. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Former Minnesota Whitecaps player and assistant coach, Laura Slominski, said the fact that Winny is involved with so many different aspects of the game is even more impressive than the fact that she’s still lacing up her skates in the Premier Hockey Federation (formerly the National Women’s Hockey League prior to the 2021-22 season).

“She has changed girls’ hockey in the state of Minnesota for not just being a pioneer and playing the game, but with everything she does in terms of her job and her camps and clinics,” said Slominski, who was an assistant Whitecaps coach through the 2021 season.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it was an easy task. As was common for players her age, Winny played on boys’ teams growing up, which also meant facing some discrimination and adversity during a time when there was a mindset that girls simply didn’t play hockey.

Winny remembers an exchange with a coach during her first spring-league game, a pick-up league without formal teams, when she was 10 or 11 years old. She went up to the coach to tell him she’d miss the next game. He didn’t know who she was and even asked if she was a girl.

“And I said ‘yeah,’ and he said, ‘well, I just thought you were a high-pitched hippie, long-haired hippie,” Winny said. “It was just such a time where you didn’t expect to see a girl playing hockey. At all.”

She continued to play with the boys until her senior year of high school. Without a girls’ team in place, her dad, Jack Brodt, met with the school board and Roseville athletic director to make it happen. She could have played for the Minnesota Thoroughbreds, a U19 team, but she wanted to play high school hockey, Jack Brodt said. She was a clear leader on the Roseville squad, with her 62 goals and 61 assists on the way to an undefeated season and a state title.

Dave Palmquist, the South St. Paul girls’ hockey coach from the very beginning of girls’ high school hockey, watched Winny play from the opposing benches. He remembers Roseville being a powerhouse the first couple of years in girls’ hockey. And when thinking of girls’ hockey in Minnesota, one of the first names that comes to his mind is Winny.

“Winny was the first girl that popped on the scene as far as really the amazing hockey skills that she had right from the get-go,” Palmquist said.

Slominski, who played for Burnsville, also had a front-row seat in seeing what Winny could do to the competition in high school. She heard the buzz about the Roseville team with Winny and the Curtin sisters, Ronda and Renee, knowing “it was like the whole neighborhood was on the team,” Slominski said.

When Burnsville and Roseville faced each other in the 1996 state tournament championship game, Slominski said she didn’t know what to expect, other than the opponent would be really, really good.

That played out as Roseville defeated Burnsville 5-2 for the state title.

“I just remember being out there against Winny, and she was just on a different level than anything we had seen before,” Slominski said.

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