Aerin Frankel

Aerin Frankel grew up in Chappaqua, New York, and by the time she left Northeastern University in 2021, she had won the Patty Kazmaier Award — given to the top player in women's college hockey — become the inaugural recipient of the WHCA National Goalie of the Year award, and led the Huskies to the NCAA championship game. She would win the WHCA award again in 2022, making her a two-time honoree. Her freshman year at Northeastern, she led all NCAA rookies in save percentage at .934. As a sophomore, she recorded a 28-save shutout over Boston University, becoming the first goaltender to blank BU since Florence Schelling accomplished it in 2011. By the time her college career concluded, she had set program records in save percentage, goals-against average, wins, and shutouts.

Frankel's decorated NCAA tenure translated directly to international prominence. She has earned five IIHF Women's World Championship medals representing the United States — gold in 2023 and 2025, silver in 2021, 2022, and 2024. During the 2023 World Championship, she served as the primary goaltender and posted a 3-0 shutout over Germany to advance the United States to the semifinals. That tournament also marked a historic milestone: Frankel became the first U.S. women's goaltender to start five consecutive games at the national team level in 26 years.

When the PWHL launched its inaugural season, Frankel was Boston's starting goaltender and carried that workload deep into the postseason. She started all eight of Boston's playoff games, finishing first among all goaltenders in minutes played and saves made, with 286 saves across 580:58 of playoff time. In the semifinal series against Montréal, she made 109 saves on 111 shots in the first two games, including 56 saves in a 2-1 triple-overtime win in Game 2. She was a finalist for PWHL Goaltender of the Year that season and earned a PWHL Second Team All-Star selection in 2024.

In her second PWHL season, Frankel appeared in 23 games — ranking first in the league in both games played and minutes at 1,342:18 — and finished with a record of 12-8-3-1. She ranked second in the PWHL in save percentage among starting goaltenders at .921, and on January 31, 2025, became the first goaltender in PWHL history to record 1,000 saves. She was a Goaltender of the Year finalist for the second consecutive year. On February 12, 2025, she recorded a shutout against New York in a 4-0 Fleet victory. On August 4, 2025, she signed a two-year contract extension with Boston through the 2027-28 season.

The 2025-26 season brought a string of records. Frankel recorded seven shutouts in 22 PWHL starts, a league record, including three consecutive shutouts — also a PWHL record — during a scoreless streak of 236 minutes and 45 seconds. She added three shutouts in five games at the Milano-Cortina Olympics, an Olympic record, and became the first American goaltender to record a shutout against Canada at the Games. Across 27 starts that season she posted 10 shutouts. She was named the Billie Jean King MVP award winner and PWHL Goaltender of the Year for 2025-26.

Colin Hodd's piece for InGoal examined the foundation behind that run of shutouts, with Frankel's own words — drawn from her podcast conversation — at the center of the story ^[1]. On Episode 346 of the InGoal Radio Podcast, Frankel spoke with Kevin Woodley about managing attention and pressure, the mental side of performing on larger stages, and the technical building blocks she returns to ^[2]. "I rely a lot on my skating. It's really important for me to be a good skater," she said. "It's something I still work on and I think you can never be good enough of a skater." The article and the podcast together trace how those principles connected to the most productive goaltending stretch of her career — and what she was focused on when InGoal caught up with her, freshly back from the Olympic Games with gold around her neck and a Walter Cup in her sights ^[1].

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