Denisa Křížová (born 3 November 1994) is a Czech

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

player for

PWHL Vancouver PWHL Vancouver is an upcoming professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that will compete in the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). They are the league's first announced expansion franchise, part of the league's ...

of the

Professional Women's Hockey League The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL; , LPHF) is a women's professional ice hockey league in North America. The league comprises eight teams, four each from the United States and Canada. The teams play a Season (sports), regular season ...

(PWHL) and a member of the

Czech Republic women's national ice hockey team The Czech women's national ice hockey team is the national women's ice hockey team of the Czech Republic. Since 2021, the team has been officially known in English as Czechia. The women's national team is controlled by Czech Ice Hockey Associatio ...

Ice hockey career

Across four years of

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the go ...

with the

Northeastern Huskies women's ice hockey The Northeastern Huskies women's ice hockey team represents Northeastern University. The Huskies play in the Hockey East conference. History The women's varsity hockey program started in 1980 under Don MacLeod, who was named the coach the follo ...

program, Křížová put up 169 points in 143 games, the sixth-highest scorer in the university's history. Křížová became the first player born in the Czech Republic to be drafted into the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL; renamed PHF in 2021) when the Connecticut Whale selected her with the thirteenth pick overall in the

2017 NWHL Draft Seventeen or 17 may refer to: *17 (number) * One of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017, 2117 Science * Chlorine, a halogen in the periodic table * 17 Thetis, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Literature Magazines * ''Seventeen'' (American maga ...

. She signed her first professional contract with the

Boston Pride The Boston Pride was a professional women's ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was one of the four charter franchises of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). The Pride played at Warrior Ice Arena, which is also the practice fac ...

on 2 August 2018. After only one year with the Pride, she returned to Europe to play with Brynäs IF Dam in the

Swedish Women's Hockey League The Swedish Women's Hockey League (), abbreviated SDHL, is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Sweden. It was established in 2007 as the by the Swedish Ice Hockey Association and was renamed prior to the 2016–17 season. The league has ...

(SDHL). She scored 47 points in 34 games in her first season with the team, good for seventh in league scoring. Křížová returned to the PHF in 2022 to play one season with the

Minnesota Whitecaps The Minnesota Whitecaps were a professional ice hockey team in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF). They played in Richfield, Minnesota, part of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, at the Richfield Ice Arena. Established in 2004, the ...

. She was drafted in the eighth round of the 2023 PWHL Draft by

PWHL Minnesota The Minnesota Frost are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that competes in the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL). They are one of the six charter franchises of the league. The team plays its home games at Xc ...

. During the 2023–24 season, she recorded three goals and three assists in 24 regular season games. During the playoffs she recorded two goals in ten games, and helped Minnesota win the inaugural

Walter Cup The Walter Cup () is the championship trophy awarded annually to the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) playoff champion. History Origins On April 4, 2024, the Professional Women's Hockey League announced in a press release the name of th ...

. On 21 June 2024, Minnesota re-signed Křížová to a one-year contract for the 2024–25 season. On 9 June 2025, Křížová was drafted 12th overall by

in the

2025 PWHL Expansion Draft The 2025 PWHL Draft was the third annual draft in Professional Women's Hockey League history, and took place on June 24, 2025, at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Kristýna Kaltounková was selected first overall by th ...

International play

As a

junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Aircraft * Ekolot JK-05L Junior, a Polish ultralight aircraft * PZL-112 Junior, a Polish training aircraft * SZD-51 Junior, a Polish-made training and club glider Arts and entertainment Characters * Bowser Jr., ...

player with the Czech national under-18 team, Křížová participated in IIHF U18 Women's World Championships in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

and

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

. With the senior national team, she represented the Czech Republic in the women's ice hockey tournament at the

2022 Winter Olympics The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas wit ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

and at the

IIHF World Women's Championship The IIHF Women's World Championship is the premier international women's tournament in ice hockey. It is governed by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The official world competition was first held in 1990, with four more champions ...

Top Division tournaments in

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, and

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

; the Division I Group A tournaments in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, and

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

; and the Division II tournament in

Ball hockey career

Křížová is also an elite

ball hockey Ball hockey is a team sport and an off-ice variant of the sport of ice hockey. The sport is also a variant of one of several floor hockey game codes; more specifically, it is a variant of street hockey. Ball hockey is patterned after and clos ...

player and has represented the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

at the

Ball Hockey World Championship The Ball Hockey World Championship is a biannual ball (street) hockey competition for women's and men's national teams. The first women's world championships were played in 2005, located in Pittsburgh, PA. The first championship was played in 19 ...

for more than a decade, winning a gold medal in

, silver in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

, and bronze medals in

, and

. She was named Best Forward of the tournament in 2017 and was selected to the All Star team in 2019 after leading all players in scoring.

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

Awards and honors

2017 Ball Hockey World Championship The 2017 Ball Hockey World Championship will be the 12th ball hockey world championship, and will be held in Pardubice, Czech Republic. The tournament began on 1 June 2017, and the gold medal game was played on 10 June 2017. Slovakia entered the t ...

Best Forward *

2019 Ball Hockey World Championship The 2019 Ball Hockey World Championship was the 13th ball hockey world championship, and was held in Košice, Slovakia. The tournament began on 14 June 2019, with the gold medal game to be played on 22 June 2019. The Canada women's national ball ...

Scoring Champion *

Tournament All-Star Team *2023

Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) was a women's professional ice hockey league in the United States and Canada that operated from March 2015 until June 2023. The league was established in 2015 as the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), com ...

Foundation Award *

2025 So far, the year has seen the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudanese civil war, and the Gaza war. Internal crises in Bangladesh post-resignation v ...

Champion

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Krizova, Denisa 1994 births Living people Ball hockey players Boston Pride players Brynäs IF (women) players Czech expatriate ice hockey players in Sweden Czech expatriate ice hockey players in the United States Czech women's ice hockey forwards Ice hockey players at the 2022 Winter Olympics Minnesota Whitecaps players Northeastern Huskies women's ice hockey players Olympic ice hockey players for the Czech Republic People from Horní Cerekev Sportspeople from the Vysočina Region Walter Cup champions Minnesota Frost players