Aerin Frankel

Aerin Frankel grew up in Chappaqua, New York, and spent four seasons playing NCAA Division I hockey at Northeastern University before becoming one of the central figures in professional women's hockey in North America. At Northeastern, she led NCAA rookies in save percentage with a .934 mark in her first season, and by the time she left the program in 2021, she had won the Patty Kazmaier Award — the top individual honor in women's college hockey — and had been a top-10 finalist the year prior. That same season she collected six Hockey East awards, including the Goaltending Champion, First-Team All-Star, Championship MVP, and All-Tournament Team honors. As a sophomore, she had recorded a shutout over Boston University that made her the first goaltender to blank BU since Florence Schelling in 2011.

Frankel was also the inaugural winner of the WHCA National Goalie of the Year award in 2021, then won it again in 2022 — the only player to hold the award in both of its first two years.

At the international level, Frankel has earned five IIHF Women's World Championship medals representing the United States: gold in 2023 and 2025, and silver in 2021, 2022, and 2024. During the 2023 tournament, she served as the primary goaltender and posted a 3-0 shutout victory over Germany to advance the U.S. to the semifinals. That run also made her the first U.S. women's goaltender to start five consecutive games at the national team level in 26 years.

In the PWHL, Frankel has been Boston's starting goaltender since the league's inaugural season. During the first PWHL playoffs, she started all eight of Boston's games, logging 580:58 minutes — first overall in playoff minutes — and made 286 saves, also first overall. In the semifinal series against Montréal, she made 109 saves on 111 shots across the first two games, including 56 saves in a 2-1 triple-overtime win in Game 2. In her second PWHL regular season, she appeared in 23 games — first in the league — and finished with a .921 save percentage, second among starting goaltenders, along with a shutout against New York on February 12, 2025. She was a top-three finalist for PWHL Goaltender of the Year in both 2024 and 2025. On August 4, 2025, she signed a two-year contract extension with Boston through the 2027-28 season.

The 2025-26 season brought a run of historic performances. Frankel posted seven shutouts in 22 starts for the Fleet, a PWHL record, including three consecutive shutouts — another PWHL record — and an overall scoreless streak of 236 minutes and 45 seconds. She also competed at the Milano-Cortina Olympics, where she recorded three shutouts in five games, an Olympic record, and helped the United States win gold. Across the PWHL season and the Olympics, she totaled 10 shutouts in 27 starts. In a conversation with InGoal Radio Episode 346: Olympians: gold-medal winner Aerin Frankel from Team USA and Rei Halloran from Team Japan., she described the experience: "It's been awesome. I had so much fun playing in my first Olympics with my team and being able to bring home gold was incredible."

When asked about her approach to that level of performance, Frankel pointed to fundamentals. "I rely a lot on my skating. It's really important for me to be a good skater," she said Episode 346: Olympians: gold-medal winner Aerin Frankel from Team USA and Rei Halloran from Team Japan.. "It's something I still work on and I think you can never be good enough of a skater." She described the drills she returns to as things "that might seem elementary," adding, "you're never too good of a skater. So for me, just continue to work on the basics." On managing the attention that comes with a high-profile season, she said: "I think for me, just being able to stay present and focus on what I can control, which is only myself and my preparation and not everything that's going on" Episode 346: Olympians: gold-medal winner Aerin Frankel from Team USA and Rei Halloran from Team Japan.. She noted that early in her PWHL career she had to adjust to playing in front of larger crowds, and that she came to manage that by "just thinking about myself and my teammates and not really getting too wrapped up in what's going on outside the glass."

Colin Hodd examined Frankel's 2025-26 season and the philosophy behind it in a piece for InGoal No Weird Tricks Required: Aerin Frankel and the Power of Goalie Basics, noting that her shutout totals came without any single technical secret — only sustained attention to skating and goaltending fundamentals.

InGoal Magazine has covered Aerin Frankel in one podcast appearance and one InGoal article.