McGill announces appointment of Grills as additional full-time coach in women's hockey
Chelsea Grills of Stittsville, Ont., has been appointed as a full-time assistant coach for the McGill University women's hockey team.
The Martlets will now have the benefit of four coaches on a daily basis, two of them full-time. The extra salary was made possible after the University received a $1-million coaching endowment in 2007 from two former McGill hockey players, David Kerr (BSc'65) and his wife Sheryl (BCom'67). It made national headlines as the largest-ever gift for a women's university sports team in Canada. The Martlets won their first-ever CIS championship the next year and went on to capture three national titles in four years.
Grills, a former captain with the NCAA's St. Lawrence University who also skated for the Canadian national under-22 team, was an assistant coach at the University of Vermont last year after a similar role for two seasons at Amherst College. She began her coaching career in 2008 at the North American Hockey Academy in Stowe, VT.
"Chelsea will be a great addition to our staff," says Martlets bench boss Peter Smith, a former national team coach who has guided the Martlets to a 360-128-31 overall record in 13 seasons. "She will bring a great deal of knowledge and experience, particularly in the areas of skill development and recruiting. We are very fortunate to have great assistant coaches in Amey Doyle and Stewart McCarthey here at McGill. Adding Chelsea to that mix is very exciting for the program. I can hardly wait for the season to begin."
Grills, who officially begins her duties at McGill on July 1, earned an undergraduate degree in psychology (2007) and a master's in education administration (2008), both from St. Lawrence. During her stint at Amherst, she worked with the forwards and helped develop an offensive attack that scored a team record 117 goals en route to the NCAA's Division III national championship in 2010.
Over her university playing career, the 5-foot-6 sniper compiled 169 points, including 70 goals, in 139 games overall with the Saints from 2003 to 2008. She led them to three appearances at the NCAA's Frozen Four Tournament.
Doyle, originally from Smiths Falls, Ont., is a former all-star goaltender with the Martlets who joined the staff after graduating in 2002. She will focus her energy this season on coaching the McGill goaltenders.
McCarthey, a native of Scotland who resides in Pierrefonds, Que., returns for a sixth season. He brings 34 years of coaching experience at the Pee Wee, Bantam AA and Midget AAA levels, primarily in the Lac St. Louis, North Shore and Dollard des Ormeaux regions of Montreal.
