On the day she is set to be the top draft pick in the 2026 PHWL Draft, American defender Caroline Harvey was today awarded the IIHF’s Female Player Of The Year Award for the 2025-26 season, capping a season in which she won the Patty Kazmaier Award as top NCAA player, along with MVP honours at the 2026 Olympics in Milan.

The 23-year old Harvey, who capped her collegiate career with her third NCAA Championship on the Wisconsin Badgers, also took home WCHA Player and Defender of the Year awards, and became just the third defender to win the Kazmaier. Entering the PWHL Draft in Detroit, Michigan, Harvey is the near-unanimous expectation to go first overall to the Vancouver Goldeneyes, which would make her the first defender to go with the top pick in PWHL history.

At February’s Olympics in Italy, Harvey finished tied atop the Olympic points table with nine points (two goals and seven assists) in seven games, helping Team USA to their third Olympic title in history over Canada, and first since 2018. In addition to tournament MVP honours, Harvey was also named as Top Defender, and was named to the tournament all-star team.

Winning an Olympic Silver in Beijing at the age of 19, Harvey has since added two Gold (2023, 2025) and three Silver (2021, 2022, 2024) World Championship medals to her medal case, also being named Top Defender at the Worlds in 2023 and 2025. The future is bright for this up and coming star, who is already amassing quite a medal haul at such a young age.

Harvey received 77.3% of the vote to win the trophy, beating out Alina Müller (9.1%) of Switzerland, Team USA defence partner Laila Edwards (4.5%) and 2025 winner Marie-Philip Poulin (4.5%) of Canada, with the bottom rounded out by Americans Taylor Heise and Megan Keller.

Photo Credit: NBC Olympics – IIHF – HHOF – IOC