Maddie Rooney

Maddie Rooney was in net for the United States when they won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics — a moment that arrived before she had even finished her college career at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Born and raised in Andover, Minnesota, Rooney started playing hockey at age four but spent her first years as a skater; she recalled on the InGoal Radio podcast that her parents kept her away from the position until she was nine, partly because of the cost of goalie equipment ^[1]. Once she made the switch, she never went back.

At UMD, Rooney played four seasons (2015–2020) and left as the program's all-time career saves leader with 3,449 — a record that includes three of the top four single-season saves totals in Bulldogs history, and she is one of only two UMD goaltenders to have recorded more than 1,000 saves in a season. Her national-team career ran alongside her college years and continued well beyond them: she represented the U.S. at the 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021 IIHF Women's World Championships, winning gold in 2017 and 2019 and silver in 2022. At the Olympics, she added a silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Games to her 2018 gold. In 2018, she was named the recipient of the Bob Allen Women's Player of the Year Award, given annually to the outstanding American-born women's ice hockey player.

Between her college and PWHL years, Rooney competed in the PWHPA, first with Minnesota in 2020–21 and then with Team Adidas in 2022–23. On the InGoal Radio podcast, she described those years as a fundamentally different structure — a small group of Minnesotans practicing together during the week and then dispersing to play for separate PWHPA teams on weekends, never working on systems with their actual teammates ^[1]. The PWHL, she said, was "a night and day difference."

Rooney joined PWHL Minnesota — the Frost — when the league launched, playing in front of a home crowd of more than 13,000 fans in a regular-season game against Montreal that set a PWHL attendance record at the time. On the InGoal Radio podcast, she described that game as "one of the top memories of my career" ^[1]. Growing up in Minnesota and watching boys' hockey, her goaltending role model was Marc-André Fleury. She spoke on the podcast about the shared quality she saw between his game and her own: a focus on movement and athleticism over a purely technical approach, and an enjoyment of the moment ^[1].

InGoal Radio episode 243 went deep into the technical side of her game — her emphasis on skating as a foundation, her years-long work on lateral balance and avoiding the habit of widening out on shuffles, and the mental-performance tools she uses between saves, including the square breathing method she learned through sports psychology work ^[1]. She also discussed her time as a remote volunteer goaltending consultant for UMD during the 2022 Olympic year, working on practice plans and game film while simultaneously coaching at Centennial Women's High School — and watching a young Emma Söderberg develop in net for the Bulldogs before eventually facing her across the ice in the PWHL ^[1].

InGoal Magazine has covered Maddie Rooney in one podcast appearance.