Aerin Frankel

Aerin Frankel grew up in Chappaqua, New York, and by the time she left Northeastern University after four seasons of NCAA Division I hockey, she had won the Patty Kazmaier Award, been named the inaugural recipient of the WHCA National Goalie of the Year award, and led all NCAA rookies in save percentage with a .934 mark in her first season. That freshman year also included a 28-save shutout over Boston University — the first time a goaltender had blanked the Terriers since Florence Schelling did it in 2011.

At Northeastern, Frankel accumulated six additional Hockey East honors in 2021 alone, including Goaltending Champion, First-Team All-Star, All-Tournament Team, Championship MVP, and the PNC Bank Three Stars Award. She was a top-10 Kazmaier finalist the year before winning it outright, and she won the WHCA National Goalie of the Year a second time in 2022, after her collegiate career had concluded.

Frankel joined the Boston Fleet for the PWHL's inaugural season and became the club's starting goaltender. In her second PWHL season she appeared in 23 games — first in the league — and logged 1,342:18 minutes while finishing with a 12-8-3-1 record and a .921 save percentage that ranked second among starting goaltenders in the league. She was a top-three finalist for PWHL Goaltender of the Year in both 2024 and 2025. During the inaugural PWHL Playoffs, she started all eight of Boston's games, made 286 saves — the most of any goaltender in the postseason — and played 580:58 minutes, also first overall. In a semi-final series against Montréal, she made 109 saves on 111 shots across the first two games, including 56 saves in a 2-1 triple-overtime victory in Game 2.

On the international stage, Frankel has earned five IIHF Women's World Championship medals with the United States: gold in 2023 and 2025, and silver in 2021, 2022, and 2024. At the 2023 World Championship she served as the primary goaltender and recorded a 3-0 shutout over Germany to advance the U.S. to the semi-finals, becoming in the process the first U.S. women's goaltender to start five consecutive games at the national team level in 26 years.

The 2025-26 season brought another layer to that international record. While in Milano-Cortina for the Olympic Games, Frankel recorded three shutouts in five starts — an Olympic record — and brought home a gold medal with Team USA. She discussed the experience on Episode 346: Olympians: gold-medal winner Aerin Frankel from Team USA and Rei Halloran from Team Japan. the InGoal Radio Podcast, Episode 346. Back in the PWHL regular season, she added to that total: through 22 starts for the Fleet she had recorded seven shutouts, a PWHL record, including three consecutive shutouts and a scoreless streak of 236 minutes and 45 seconds, also a PWHL record. In a No Weird Tricks Required: Aerin Frankel and the Power of Goalie Basics Colin Hodd article for InGoal, Frankel described the mental approach underpinning that run, emphasizing presence and self-focus over external noise. "Just thinking about myself and my teammates and not really getting too wrapped up in what's going on outside the glass, just really focusing on what's inside," she said. On skating specifically, she pointed to fundamentals: "I rely a lot on my skating. It's really important for me to be a good skater. It's something I still work on and I think you can never be good enough of a skater." On August 4, 2025, she signed a two-year contract extension with Boston through the 2027-28 season.

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