Danielle Bilodeau ‘01 begins her 11th season behind the bench with the Cornell women's hockey team in 2016-17. Bilodeau, a former women's hockey captain for the Big Red, has been a key part in the program's rise to national prominence. She served as an assistant coach until she was promoted to Associate Head Coach for Women's Hockey in February 2014.
Bilodeau, who joined the Cornell coaching staff in 2006, was instrumental in the recruitment of the Class of 2011, a quartet that helped the Big Red to a pair of NCAA Frozen Four appearances in 2010 and 2011. She has also assisted in the recruitment of 12 members of the Canadian U22 National Team over the past 10 seasons.
With Bilodeau behind the Cornell bench, the Big Red has posted a record of 193-108-27 over the past 10 seasons, including four consecutive ECAC Hockey regular-season championships from the 2009-2010 season to the 2012-2013 season, and league tournament championships in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014. Cornell has also gone 22-8 in ECAC Hockey tournament games over the past 10 seasons after having lost each of the school's first 14 league tournament contests. Cornell has also won four ECAC Hockey tournament championships and four Ivy League championships since Bilodeau joined the staff.
Additionally, the Big Red has seen a host of players garner individual awards during Bilodeau's tenure with the program. Cornell has had seven different players collect a total of 16 All-America awards, including three-time first-team selection Laura Fortino '13, two-time first-team selection Brianne Jenner '15, and four-time second-team selection Lauriane Rougeau '13. Cornell has also had ten players named as nominees for the Patty Kazmaier Award, with three of them - Rebecca Johnston three times, Fortino and Jenner twice and Jillian Saulnier once - being selected as top 10 finalists for the award, and one being named a top 3 finalist (Saulnier).
Bilodeau returned to Ithaca after serving as an assistant coach at Princeton for four seasons, helping the Tigers to their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance in 2006. With the Tigers, she coached Andrea Kilbourne, who would go on to win a silver medal with the United States at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Nikola Holmes, who played for Germany in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. In her four seasons at Princeton, the Tigers won at least 20 games three times and posted a combined record of 77-37-9.
Bilodeau has also coached extensively at summer camps, helping to run the Cornell ice hockey camps since her arrival and serving as a head coach at the Princeton camp for three summers as well as Bowdoin College's clinic in 2004 and 2005. She was also a coach for the Pacific Steelers Showcase in 2005.
Bilodeau was a four-year letterwinner for the Big Red, earning All-Ivy League honors as a sophomore and serving as team captain as a senior. She was the recipient of the Cornell Athletic Department's Jeff Stenstrom Memorial Award as a freshman and was a nominee for the Hockey Humanitarian Award. Bilodeau was also an Academic All-ECAC Hockey selection and a member of both the Red Key Athletic Honorary Society and the Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC). After graduating in 2001 with a degree in communication, she played one season with the Beatrice Aeros of the NWHL, helping that team to a league and Ontario championship while reaching the finals of the Canadian national tournament.
Updated: 5/16/16
