Cambridge, Massachusetts – Harvard Women's Ice Hockey Landry Family Head Coach Laura Bellamy today closed her coaching staff with the hiring of Venra Hovi, who will join the group as an assistant coach. Hovi, a two-time Olympic medalist with Finland, brings a wealth of coaching and playing experience at both the professional and collegiate levels to this new role with Harvard Women's Ice Hockey.
Bellamy is excited to add Hovi to the staff and looks forward to the impact she will have on the program in the future.
“We are very excited to add Venla to our staff. She brings top-level experience as a three-time Olympian and most recently coached in the professional ranks,” said Bellamy. . “Venla's ability to clearly communicate with his players and help them grow as individuals will be beneficial to us as well. The Harvard community is made up of people from all over the world, and our coaching staff We are proud that her familiarity with high-performance environments will help us as we strive to regain national prominence in women's ice hockey.”
Most recently, Hovi served as head coach of the Metropolitan Riveters of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) for the 2022-23 season. She led the team to 11 wins in her first season, the most in the group since the 2017-18 season.
A renowned pioneer in professional hockey, Hovey was famously hired by the NHL's Winnipeg Jets as a development coach prior to the 2019 season, making her the first woman to join the team as a coach. In her first role as a full-time coach, she worked on skill development and technique with players from the youth level to the Jets and their American Hockey League affiliate, the Manitoba Moose.
In addition to his role with the Jets, Hovey held an assistant coaching role at the University of Manitoba in 2018-19. She led the Manitoba Bisons to a third-place finish in the USports Women's Hockey Championship in 2018-19, and totaled 34 wins in the two seasons she was on staff in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
Hovi’s first head coaching role began in 2020 when she took over as leader of the Okanagan Hockey Academy U17 program. She served in this role for two seasons before departing for PHF.
One of the most decorated players in the history of Finnish women's ice hockey, Hovi represented Finland at the Olympics three times. Finland, led by Hovi, won two bronze medals at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Until Hovi retired from her active career in 2019, she represented Finland in more than 200 international competitions.
Her illustrious 15-year playing career lasted from 2004 to 2019 and included stints with multiple Finnish professional clubs before attending the University of Manitoba from 2015 to 2018. During her 2017-18 season with the Bisons, Hovey led her team to the USports Championship and became the first in program history to win the golden Pass Her trophy. The forward was recognized for her performance in the championship, where she was named the 2017-18 Bison Sports Female Athlete of the Year.
Her success didn't stop there, taking her talents to the Canadian professional ranks in 2018-2019. Hovey helped Clarkson win the Cup for the second time in the group's history in just one season with the CWHL's Calgary Inferno. Hovi also became the first Finnish player to win the trophy.
Hovi holds a bachelor's degree in Communication and Applied Linguistics from the University of Vaasa and a graduate degree in English as a Second Language (ESL) from the University of Manitoba.
