Shelley Looney

Shelley Looney
Born	January 21, 1972 Brownstown, MI, USA
Height	5 ft 5 in (165 cm)
Weight	145 lb (66 kg; 10 st 5 lb)
Position	Forward
Hockey East team	Northeastern
National team	United States
Playing career	1990–2005
Medal record Representing  United States Women's ice hockey Olympic Games 1998 Nagano Tournament 2002 Salt Lake City Tournament IIHF World Women's Championships 2005 Sweden Tournament 1992 Finland Tournament 1994 United States Tournament 1997 Canada Tournament 1999 Finland Tournament 2000 Canada Tournament 2001 United States Tournament 2004 Canada Tournament

Shelley Looney (born January 21, 1972 in Brownstown, Michigan and raised in Trenton, Michigan) is an American ice hockey player. She won a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics and a silver medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Looney played collegiately at Northeastern University from 1991–94, winning multiple awards including ECAC All-Star, 1993 ECAC Tournament MVP and ECAC Player of the Year, 1993-94. She was inducted into Northeastern College’s Hockey Hall of Fame in 1999. Looney is currently head coach of the Buffalo Beauts of the National Women's Hockey League.

Playing career

In the gold medal game at the 1998 Winter Olympics, Looney scored the game-winning goal.^[1] In the fall of 2002, Looney played with Team USA teammate Cammi Granato for the Vancouver Griffins of the National Women's Hockey League. She finished second on the team and fourth in the Western Conference with 35 points (10-25) in 24 regular-season games. She participated for Team British Columbia at the 2003 Esso Women's Nationals. She was named B.C. Player of the Game in the Bronze Medal Game,^[2] despite losing to Team Quebec.

While still playing for Team USA, Looney went into coaching, serving as an assistant with the Under-17 Boys' National Team Development Program in 2003, then joining the University of Vermont as assistant coach of the women's team in 2005-06. She left that position to train for the next Olympics.

In 2006, she was one of the final players cut from the Olympic team that would go on to with a bronze medal at Turin. She ended her USA Hockey career with 61 goals and 136 points in 151 games.

Today, Shelley is Hockey Director for the Buffalo Bison Hockey Association.

"Thank You Canada"

In 1980, the government of Canada helped six Americans escape from Iran when students stormed the US embassy, precipitating the Iran Hostage Crisis. Shelley, then a seven-year-old girl growing up in Brownstown Township, Michigan, wrote a letter of thanks to Canada. The letter was later transcribed and released as a single by Mercury Records in March 1980, under the title "(This Is My Country) Thank You, Canada". The brief (1:26) spoken-word record received some airplay and made Cashbox's Top 100 (two weeks at #99) and Billboard Magazine's "Bubbling Under The Hot 100" chart nationally, peaking at #109. (Ironically, Looney would later score the game-winning goal against the Canadians in the 1998 Olympics gold-medal game.)

Awards and honors

• 1993 ECAC Tournament Most Valuable Player ^[3]

References

1. IIHF Top 100 Hockey Stories of All Time, p.52, Szymon Szenberg and Andrew Podnieks, 2008, Fenn Publishing Company Ltd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, ISBN 978-1-55168-358-4
2. "Team Alberta captures seventh national title". Hockey Canada. Retrieved 25 November 2010.
3. http://www.ecachockey.com/women/tournament/Women_All-Tournament_Teams.pdf

External links

• bio