Hayley Williams (ice hockey)

Williams spent most of her youth career with Team Illinois, before finishing with the Chicago Mission as a 19U player. At the 2008 USA Hockey Girls 19U National Championships in West Chester, Pennsylvania, she scored the winning goal in triple overtime to help the Mission – a team also featuring future Olympians Megan Bozek and Kendall Coyne – down Little Caesars for the national title.[3][4]

Williams signed to play NCAA Division I hockey for Bemidji State, and immediately contributed to a successful 2009–10 season. Despite going 3–22–3 overall in 2008–09 and being a unanimous WCHA last-place pick for 2009–10, the Beavers made history during the league playoffs. With Williams in the lineup for both wins, BSU rallied to defeat St. Cloud State in the best-of-three opening round of the WCHA tournament, snapping a 14-game playoff losing streak and advancing to the WCHA Final Face-Off for the first time in program history.[5][6]

However, her time with the Beavers was derailed by academic issues,[4][7] and Williams would ultimately only play 16 games at BSU.

Despite leaving the hockey team after 2009–10, Williams remained enrolled at Bemidji through the summer of 2012, including playing outfield for the Beavers softball team during the 2011 season.[8]

By the fall of 2012, Williams had moved home to the Chicago area, and began volunteering for the USHL's Chicago Steel which, at the time, played its home games at Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville, Illinois. Through a chance meeting with a former teammate who went on to play for Robert Morris Illinois (which shared Edge with the Steel), Williams wound up enrolling at RMU and practicing with the team during the 2012–13 season.[7] She then joined the Eagles' full roster for 2013–14, marking an official return to college hockey after a three-and-a-half year absence.

Williams immediately found chemistry with one of the Eagles' established stars, Ramey Weaver. The pair would go on to form two-thirds of the ACHA's best line, as each earned a spot on the ACHA's first All-American team and the duo finished 1-2 among the national scoring leaders. Williams scored 34 goals and 73 points that season in route to winning the Zoë M. Harris Award as the ACHA's player of the year. Weaver, who wound up her career after 2013–14 as Robert Morris' all-time leading scorer, added 32 goals and 55 points.

The Eagles largely breezed through their regular season schedule. With Williams putting up nine games with four points or more (including one late-season stretch where she accomplished the feat four times in five games),[9] and delivering late winning goals against Colorado State and Adrian on two of the few occasions RMU was seriously challenged.[10][11] The Eagles were 22–5–4 during the regular season, good for second in the Central Collegiate Women's Hockey Association to Miami, and were ranked third or fourth in the ACHA throughout the entire year.

Things abruptly turned south at playoff time however, as RMU was eliminated in the pool round at both the CCWHA playoffs and the ACHA National Tournament. Williams, for her part, was named first team all-tournament at both events after posting 12 points in six games between the two.[12][13]

Williams transferred to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for the 2014–15 season, adding even more firepower to a RedHawks team that had quickly risen to prominence to win both the CCWHA and ACHA titles in 2013–14.

With Miami, Williams largely picked up where she left off the year before, putting up 15 points in her first four games of the season as the RedHawks routed Lindenwood–Belleville and Midland. She got even better in November as the games got tougher, taking home the ACHA's Harrow Player of the Month award by scoring seven goals as Miami defeated a string of top teams including UMass (in a rematch of the 2014 national championship game), Adrian, Minnesota, and Liberty.[14] Williams then burned her old RMU team for a goal in each game of a sweep in December,[15][16] and delivered a two-goal, two assist effort in a 7–4 win over Rhode Island.

The RedHawks were the wire-to-wire number one team and only lost twice during the regular season, a January defeat at home to Penn State (Miami's first loss in more than one calendar year) and another the next month against Michigan State, although Williams and four other key RedHawks missed the latter contest while at the 2015 Winter Universiade tournament in Spain. The quintet then returned for the CCWHA playoffs, in time to help the team win a second consecutive league title with a 4–2 win over Michigan,[17] with Williams contributing a goal and an assist in the championship game.

During most of the ACHA National Tournament at York City Ice Arena in York, Pennsylvania, Miami looked like a safe bet to repeat its 2014 title. Despite a tie with Adrian, the RedHawks won Group B with wins over Minnesota and Michigan, then had little issue with Grand Valley State in a crossover semifinal. In the final however, Liberty scored three goals during one 64-second first-period stretch, outweighing Williams' second-period goal as the Flames won their first national championship by a 4–1 count.[18]

Despite the setback, and for the second straight year, Williams conducted a clean sweep of the major national honors. She was once again voted as the Zoë M. Harris Award winner after a combined total of 59 points, becoming just the second player at the Division 1 level to earn the award twice (another player has accomplished the feat since), while also winning first team all-season and all-tournament honors for both the ACHA and CCWHA.

Williams went on to complete her Bachelor of Science degree from Miami in Kinesiology, through the Sport Leadership and Management program with a Coaching concentration, in 2016 while playing professional hockey.[4]

Williams was selected as a member of the United States National University Team, which competes at the Winter Universiade, during both of her ACHA seasons, and also named an alternate captain each time.[19][20]

The 2013 edition of the tournament, played in Trentino, Italy resulted in a bronze medal for Williams and Team USA after a third-place game win over Japan - the first-ever podium finish for an American women's team at the event and the first for the U.S. men or women in USA Hockey's modern era of participation (since 2001). Williams' contributions to the success were significant – she assisted on a late clinching goal by Katie Augustine in the team's biggest win, a 4–2 victory over a Russia team featuring several Russia women's national ice hockey team members to open the tournament. In the bronze medal match against Japan, Williams again assisted Augustine for the go-ahead goal early in the third period, then scored in the waning moments of the 3–1 victory.

Although the 2015 version of the team was unable to follow up that success and was quickly knocked out of contention at the 2015 tournament in Granada, Spain, Williams did provide one of the squad's signature moments. During a match against Kazakhstan in the 5th through 7th place consolation round robin, Team USA found itself trailing 2–1 in the last three minutes of the game. Williams then scooped up a loose puck near center ice, carried in herself and scored from the bottom of the left circle with 2:37 remaining.[21] The U.S. went on to win in overtime, a result that eventually allowed the team to finish fifth. Williams scored a pair of goals and added four assists to tie for the team scoring lead.

After learning of the launch of the National Women's Hockey League, a new women's professional circuit, Williams attended free agent camps during the summer of 2015 ahead of the NWHL's inaugural season, eventually earning a contract with the Buffalo Beauts.[22][23] By signing, she became the first former ACHA player to sign in the league (along with UMass alumna Paige Harrington, whose signing with the Beauts was announced at the same time), and the first in any North American women's professional league since the 2002–03 season.

Williams scored her first NWHL goal on November 22, 2015, burying to tie a game against the Connecticut Whale at 6–6 with 3:23 remaining in the second period, although the Whale would go on to win in a shootout.[24][25] She added four assists while playing in 17 of the Beauts' 18 regular season games.

A fan vote determined the last four participants in the 1st NWHL All-Star Game on January 24, 2016, and Williams was added to Team Knight (captained by United States women's national ice hockey team and then-Boston Pride player Hilary Knight) after receiving 6,384 votes. She went on to score Team Knight's only goal of the game in a blowout loss to Emily Pfalzer's Team Pfalzer.[26][27]

The 2015–16 Buffalo Beauts season, saw a third-place finish in the standings with a 5–9–4 record, and an appearance in the first-ever Isobel Cup Final after rallying to upset Connecticut in a best-of-three semifinal. However, the Beauts dropped the championship series to Boston.[28]

After only being offered a "practice player" spot by the Beauts for the 2016–17 season (practice players are members of the team, but not permitted to play in games unless the team is otherwise shorthanded),[29] Williams crossed over to the Canadian Women's Hockey League and earned a roster spot with the Brampton Thunder through a tryout.[30][31] She played in 14 games for Brampton, helping the team to a 12–10–1–1 (W–L–OTL–SOL) record and a third-place finish, although they were quickly eliminated in the best-of-three semifinals by Les Canadiennes de Montréal.

The following season, the Thunder relocated to Markham, Ontario, which is located on the opposite side of Toronto from Brampton. Williams, who still lived in Buffalo dating to her time with the Beauts, negotiated a trade to the Toronto Furies (which played at the Mastercard Centre For Hockey Excellence in Toronto's western neighborhoods, a bit closer to Buffalo than Markham) and spent 2017–18 with the Thunder's archrival. Playing frequently with Jenna Dingeldein, Jess Vella, and Carolyne Prevost, Williams rediscovered her offensive touch with the Furies, finishing the year fourth on the team in scoring with 14 points. She scored her first CWHL goal on November 11, 2017 to help Toronto beat the Calgary Inferno in a shootout.[32] The next month, she assisted on Jessica Platt's first career goal on December 7,[33] then was named the Furies' player for the game for a two-assist effort in a loss to Calgary ten days later.[34] Late-season highlights included a Furies sweep of the perennially-contending Inferno on January 27 and 28 by 3–2 and 5–2 scores, with Williams scoring the winning goal in the first game on a 5-on-3 advantage with 3:21 remaining.[35] She also capped off the weekend by scoring an empty-net goal to seal victory in the second game, in front of a national television audience on Sportsnet.[36]

Despite those individual successes, the Furies uncharacteristically struggled throughout most of the season, missing the playoffs with a 9–17–1–1 record and a sixth-place finish.[37]

Along with former Beauts teammate Tatiana Rafter, Williams jumped to the other side of the globe for the 2018–19 season as an import player in the Russian Women's Hockey League (abbreviated as "ZhHL" due to the romanized Russian name Zhenskaya Hokkeynaya Liga) for SK Gorny, announcing the transaction on Instagram.[38]

Williams arrived to find a team in something of a chaotic state. Originally known as Arktik-Universitet and operated in conjunction with Ukhta State Technical University, the organization was in the middle of a complete overhaul that would see it rebrand as SK Gorny for the start of the 2018–19 season, then relocate from the small industrial city of Ukhta to the major metropolis of Saint Petersburg midway through the campaign.[39] Furthermore, Arktik-Universitet had not been successful on the ice, winning just four times in 24 games during 2017–18.

Thanks to the arrivals of Williams and Rafter, along with a nucleus that included Russia women's national ice hockey team players Fanuza Kadirova and Liana Ganeyeva, Gorny slowly became increasingly competitive within the league, improving to 12 wins in 2018–19.[40] Williams, for her part, scored her first two Russian goals in a win over Biryusa Krasnoyarsk on October 18, 2018, then added key goals to help the squad defeat perennially-strong HC Tornado and Dinamo Saint Petersburg over the following two weekends.[41] In all, she finished her rookie year in Russia with ten goals, tied for second-most on SK Gorny, while her 19 points ranked 38th across the entire league. Williams' exploits merited a spot in the ZhHL's All-Star Game, played on January 13, 2019 in Nizhnekamsk. With the SK Gorny trio of Williams, Rafter, and Kadirova each scoring a goal in the contest, the West downed the East 4–2.[42][43]

The following season, both Williams and SK Gorny improved. The team contended for a playoff berth until the end of the year, thanks in part to the addition of Russian national teamer Alexandra Vafina from SKIF Nizhny Novgorod (ultimately finishing fifth, three points behind Biryusa for the final spot), and the player bumped up her stats production to 11 goals (14th in the league) and 22 points (16th). She picked up an assist in arguably SK Gorny's biggest win, a 2–1 overtime victory against eventual league champion Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays late in the season,[44] and notched a professional-career-best four points (on two goals and two assists) in a season-opening rout of SKSO Yekaterinburg.

Williams participated in her second straight ZhHL All-Star Game on January 12, 2020 in Moscow, although her Team West dropped a 4–1 decision to Team East.[45]

SK Gorny ran into financial difficulties late in the 2020 offseason,[46] leading to Williams' departure and signing with KMH Budapest of the European Women's Hockey League (EWHL).[47]

• 2013–14 Zoë M. Harris Award
• 2013–14 First Team All-American[53]
• 2013–14 First Team All-Tournament[13]
• 2013–14 First Team All-CCWHA[54]
• 2013–14 First Team All-CCWHA Tournament[12]
• 2014–15 Zoë M. Harris Award
• 2014–15 First Team All-American[55]
• 2014–15 First Team All-Tournament
• 2014–15 First Team All-CCWHA[56]
• 2014–15 First Team All-CCWHA Tournament[57]
• Harrow Player of the Month – November 2014

• 2016 All-Star Game selection

• 2019 All-Star Game selection
• 2020 All-Star Game selection