Michelle "Shelly" Picard (born May 27, 1993) is a retired American

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 h ...

player who played defense for the

United States women's national ice hockey team The United States women's national ice hockey team is controlled by USA Hockey. The U.S. has been one of the most successful women's ice hockey teams in international play, having medaled in every major tournament. In 1998, the women's Olympic ...

. Picard also played for the

Harvard Crimson The Harvard Crimson are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than ...

and

Metropolitan 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 ...

. She later served as deputy commissioner of the

National Women's Hockey League 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 ...

from 2019 to 2021.

Playing career

NCAA

The first point of her NCAA career came on October 29, 2011, when she assisted on the game-winning goal against the

Clarkson Golden Knights The Clarkson Golden Knights are composed of 20 teams representing Clarkson University in intercollegiate athletics, including men and women's alpine skiing, basketball, cross country, ice hockey, lacrosse, nordic skiing, soccer, and swimming. Men' ...

. She

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

her 2013–14 season with the Crimson to play in the 2014 Olympics under her Harvard head coach,

Katey Stone Katey Stone (born April 17, 1966) is one of the most successful coaches in the history of Division I women's ice hockey. Stone has accumulated 494 victories and has coached 25 seasons as a head coach with the Harvard Crimson. Stone was the third co ...

. She returned for her junior 2014–15 season and was named

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

, leading the team to the 2015 national championship game where they lost to the

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 25 (12 men's, 13 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and competes in the Big Te ...

. She was also captain in her senior 2015–16 season for the Crimson.

USA Hockey

She first made the U.S. women's national under-18 team for the

2010 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship The 2010 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship was the third junior female world ice hockey championships. It was held from March 27 through April 3, 2010, in Chicago, Illinois. The championship is the Under-18 junior ice hockey edition of the wome ...

where the team won the silver medal. The next year, Picard was named the

of the gold medal-winning U.S. U18 team in the 2011 Championship. Later that year, she made her first appearance with the senior team at the

2011 4 Nations Cup The 2011 4 Nations Cup was a women's ice hockey tournament that was held in Nyköping, Sweden. All matches were held at the Stora Hallen arena. The November 10 match between Canada and the US marked the 100th time since 1990 that the two countrie ...

. She was a member of the

in five

IIHF Women's World Championship The IIHF World Women's Championship (WW or WWC), officially the IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship, is the premier international tournament in women's ice hockey. It is governed by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The offi ...

s from 2012 to 2019, as well as the

2014 Sochi Winter Olympics , ''Zharkie. Zimnie. Tvoi'') , nations = 88 , events = 98 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , athletes = 2,873 , opening = 7 February 2014 , closing = 23 February 2014 , opened_by = President Vladimir Putin , cauldron = , stadium = Fisht Olympic ...

NWHL

After leaving Harvard, Picard signed with the

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 ...

in 2016 for the second season of

. She played three seasons with the team, later rebranded as the

, and participated in the

3rd NWHL All-Star Game The 3rd NWHL All-Star Game took place on February 11, 2018 at TRIA Rink in Saint Paul, Minnesota. A skills competition was held the day prior on February 10, 2018. Brittany Ott of the Boston Pride and Amanda Leveille of the Buffalo Beauts serve ...

. She retired from playing in 2019 and joined the league as deputy commissioner and director of player development. In 2021, she left the league to pursue other opportunities and was replaced by Lisa Haley as director of player development.

References

External links

* * 1993 births Living people American women's ice hockey defensemen Harvard Crimson women's ice hockey players Ice hockey players from Massachusetts Ice hockey players at the 2014 Winter Olympics Isobel Cup champions Medalists at the 2014 Winter Olympics Metropolitan Riveters players New York Riveters players Olympic silver medalists for the United States in ice hockey People from Taunton, Massachusetts {{US-icehockey-defenseman-stub