Canadian centre Jennifer Wakefield, a mainstay of the Canadian national team throughout the 2010’s, and a two-time Gold winner at the Olympics and World Championship, today announced her full-time transition to coaching, leaving the game as a player at the age of 34.

After a collegiate career at both New Hampshire and Boston University, Wakefield made her pro debut with the Toronto Furies of the CWHL, spending just one season in Canada before joining Sweden’s SDHL in 2014, splitting nine pro seasons in Sweden between Linköping, Luleå, Brynäs, Djurgårdens, Skärblacka and MoDo, capturing league titles in 2015 and 2018, and notching 164 goals and 259 points in only 167 career games, along with another staggering 55 points in 38 playoff games. It was with Almtuna of the Swedish League where Wakefield made her coaching debut as an assistant, now taking her coaching talents full-time to the University of Ottawa, where she will serve as an Assistant Coach with the GeeGees.

A native of Toronto’s suburbs, Wakefield debuted for the national team at the 2007 Four Nations Cup, her first of nine appearances, where she captured five Gold (2007, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014) and four Silver (2008, 2011, 2012, 2015) Cups in her career. She would debut at her first of six World Championships four years later in 2011, winning her lone Gold medal in 2012, to go along with five Silver (2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017) medals. Wakefield also captured Gold at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, along with Olympic Silver in her final national team appearance at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. Wakefield would also serve with the Dutch national team as an assistant coach, spending two seasons in the Division IA Championship, helping the Oranje get to within one point of their first Women’s Worlds in 2024.

Wakefield captured the IHLC thirteen times over the course of her career, winning first in 2007 in the lead-up to the Four Nations Cup, with her final victory coming a decade later in a pre-Olympic exhibition game. We wish Jennifer and her family the very best for her retirement and the things to come!

Photo Credit: Bleacher Report – IIHF – HHOF – IOC