Bob Corkum, who played 12 NHL seasons, succeeds Robb Stauber as head coach of the U.S. women’s hockey team this season.
Corkum was announced as head coach Monday, along with assistants nine-year NHL defenseman Brian Pothier and Joel Johnson, who is in his 14th year on the University of Minnesota women’s team’s coaching staff. Corkum’s deal is through the 2019 World Championship. Pothier and Johnson were named on the staff only for next week’s Four Nations Cup.
Reagan Carey, director of U.S. women’s hockey since 2010, stepped down to pursue other opportunities.
Corkum previously was an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s under-22 team and head coach for the U.S. men’s team at the 2013 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. He played center for seven NHL teams between 1990 and 2002.
Stauber, a former Los Angeles Kings goaltender, was U.S. women’s head coach for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, guiding teams to world and Olympic titles. PyeongChang marked the Americans’ first Olympic hockey gold since the first Winter Games women’s hockey tournament in 1998.
Stauber and his wife were named co-head coaches of the newest NWHL team, the Minnesota Whitecaps, in May.
It is unknown if Stauber could return to the U.S. coaching staff before the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
The U.S. plays its first international tournament since the Olympics next week at the Four Nations Cup in Saskatchewan, an annual event that also includes Canada, Finland and Sweden.
The roster includes all of the stars from the Olympic team save captain Meghan Duggan, who is sitting out with an injury but plans to return to the national team later in this Olympic cycle, and twins Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando, who are pregnant.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
MORE: NHL helped end USA Hockey, women’s national team wage dispute
