Hamilton Middlebury Sports

Hamilton snipes Middlebury Coach

After their coach Brendon Knight left relatively unannounced this summer to be an assistant coach for Syracuse D1 women’s hockey program, the women’s hockey team here at Hamilton was coach-less. That was until just a few short weeks ago.

Enter Emily McNamara, Middlebury ’07.

According to the Hamilton athletic department website, she coached just four seasons at fellow ‘Cac-school Middlebury College. However, this snipe comes as no surprise due to her commitment to Hamilton’s summer hockey camp for girls beginning in 2007. She played on defense all four years at her alma mater from 2003 to 2007 and helped the Panthers record an overall record of 100-13-3 during her collegiate career. There, she accrued honors as both an athlete, making the NESCAC all-conference team in 2005 and 2006, helping the team reach three national titles in 2004, 2005, and 2006, as well as making the 2005 NCAA All-Tournament team, but more importantly as an academic, receiving a spot on the NESCAC 2006-2007 Winter All-Academic team.

In her post-graduation life, she has coached the Middlebury women’s hockey team to a winning record overall (from 2007-2011 a record of 50-7-7 in the NESCAC alone). Additionally, in both 2009 and 2011 McNamara led the Panthers to NESCAC conference titles, including NCAA D3 championship appearances and national semifinals.

And for graduating in 2007, that’s a little beyond pretty impressive.

Hamilton’s director of athletics Jon Hind is quoted as very “excited about the level of energy, enthusiasm and knowledge” McNamara will bring to the women’s hockey program as is the rest of the Hamilton community and athletic department.

Kudos to Middlebury for being such a great stepping stone for McNamara’s coaching career! No hard feelings. At least she stayed in the ‘Cac.