Dr. Chelsea Laden (born September 12, 1992) is an American optometrist, paranormal investigator, television creator and retired

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

goaltender, who played with the Connecticut Whale and

New York Riveters The Metropolitan Riveters (originally the New York Riveters) are a professional women's ice hockey team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with home games at the American Dream Meadowlands ice rink. They were one of the four charter franchi ...

of the

Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...

(PHF).

Playing career

During her teenage years, she played ice hockey for

Lakeville South High School Lakeville South High School (LSHS) is a high school located Lakeville, Minnesota, United States. To meet the needs of a growing population, in the early 2000s the district began construction of LSHS. LSHS enrolled students for the first time in ...

Lakeville, Minnesota Lakeville is an exurb of Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and the largest city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. It is approximately south of both downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul along Interstate Highway 35. Starting as a flourishi ...

, serving as team

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

twice and earning all-state

MVP In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

honours four times. From 2011 to 2015, she played NCAA Division I women's ice hockey with the

Quinnipiac Bobcats The Quinnipiac Bobcats are the 21 sports teams representing Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut in intercollegiate athletics. The Bobcats compete in the NCAA Division I and are members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, joining on ...

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United States. This relati ...

, serving as the starting goaltender of the women's hockey programme in her

junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

and

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

seasons. As a

freshman A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...

, she was named ECAC Hockey

Rookie A rookie is a person new to an occupation, profession, or hobby. In sports, a ''rookie'' is a professional athlete in their first season (or year). In contrast with a veteran who has experience and expertise, a rookie is usually inexperienced ...

of the Week for the week of November 29, 2011, and notched her first career collegiate shutout in a 3–0 victory over

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy *Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' *Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York **North Syracuse, New York *Syracuse, Indiana * Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, Miss ...

in January 2012. She was named ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Month in October 2013 and was a three-time ECAC Hockey All-Academic Team selection. After graduating from Quinnipiac, she was ready to end her ice hockey career due to a lack of viable opportunities in the sport. However, when the PHF (then NWHL) was founded that summer by

Dani Rylan Dani Rylan Kearney (born August 5, 1987) is an American entrepreneur and former ice hockey player. She is the founder and former commissioner of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), the first professional women's hockey league in the United ...

, she was able to sign her first professional contract, worth $14,000, with the Connecticut Whale. She made her PHF debut in late October 2015, backstopping four third-period

penalty kill Short-handed is a term used in ice hockey and several related sports, including water polo, and refers to having fewer skaters (players) on the ice during play, as a result of a penalty. The player removed from play serves the penalty in the pen ...

s in a victory over the

Buffalo Beauts The Buffalo Beauts are a professional ice hockey team based in Amherst, New York, United States. The team was established in 2015 as one of the four founding franchises of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), originally named the National Women' ...

, the first away victory in Whale franchise history. She then missed several months of the season dealing with a finger injury. In February 2016, she became part of the first-ever trade in PHF history, being traded to the

in exchange for Shenae Lundberg.

Television career

In 2019, she began starring in a

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

original

paranormal television Paranormal television is a genre of reality television that purports to document factual investigations of the paranormal rather than fictional representations seen in traditional narrative films and tv. Over the years, the genre has grown to be ...

show called ''Destination Fear'' along with her brother, Dakota Laden, and friends Tanner Wiseman and Alex Schroeder. The show follows the group of self-proclaimed 'paranormal explorers' as they travel to reportedly haunted, paranormal hotspots across the United States at which the team separates and sleeps alone at the end of each night and records their experiences. The Ladens and Wiseman had previously produced a similarly-themed documentary called '' Trail to Terror'' in 2016. The documentary was shown in Theatres at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota on October 29, 2016.

Television

Personal life

Laden was born on September 12, 1992, in Lakeville, Minnesota to Rob and Polly Laden. She has four siblings, an older sister Mykenna, and younger siblings Dakota, Tavian, and Isabella. She is currently engaged to Jake Rancic who she met while they were both studying at Illinois College of Optometry. Laden has a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in pre-medical sciences from

Quinnipiac University Quinnipiac University () is a private university in Hamden, Connecticut. The university grants undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees through its College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business, School of Engineering, School of C ...

and a Doctor of

Optometry Optometry is a specialized health care profession that involves examining the eyes and related structures for defects or abnormalities. Optometrists are health care professionals who typically provide comprehensive primary eye care. In the Uni ...

degree from

Illinois College of Optometry The Illinois College of Optometry (ICO) is a private optometry college in Chicago, Illinois. Graduating approximately 160 optometrists a year, it is the largest optometry college in the United States and the oldest continually operating educati ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Laden, Chelsea 1992 births Living people American women's ice hockey goaltenders Paranormal investigators Ice hockey players from Minnesota People from Lakeville, Minnesota Ice hockey people from Dakota County, Minnesota Metropolitan Riveters players Connecticut Whale (PHF) players Quinnipiac Bobcats women's ice hockey players