	Heather Mannix Manager, Education and Player Development
Heather Mannix currently oversees and works heavily with both the Coaching and Officiating Education Programs, helping to develop new curriculum content as well as training curriculum for Coach and Officiating Developers nationwide. Heather also works with local hockey associations and programs across the country to support age-appropriate training, competition, and long-term athlete development. Growing up playing hockey in the Detroit metro area, Heather comes to USA Hockey with a background in sport and exercise psychology, and exercise physiology. After earning her Masters in Exercise Science from the George Washington University, Heather utilized her physiology background while managing the Exercise Physiology and Body Composition Laboratories. She spent several years working on federally funded research focused on operationally defining what makes playing sports fun for children, in an effort to sustain youth sports participation. The research included both establishing evidence-based program guidelines for creating the most fun and positive sport experiences for children, as well as providing consultation on physical literacy programming and education.

	Job Fransen PhD at Charles Sturt University in Australia
Job Fransen is a skill acquisition researcher at Charles Sturt University in Australia, where he studies how team sports athletes develop, acquire and perform complex motor skills. He specialises in understanding how practice can be designed to optimise skill learning in team sports. Job is also the founder and director of Skillacq, an advisory company that supports skill acquisition and coach education for sporting organisations in professional sporting leagues across the globe.

	Ken Martel Senior Director, Player & Coach Development
With over 30 years of experience in player development and a long history as a coach with USA Hockey, Ken Martel was named senior director of player and coach development in November 2022. He is charged with helping provide a framework for associations nationwide to follow for optimal athlete development. From 2009-22 Martel served as the technical director of USA Hockey’s American Development Model after spending two years (2006-08) at USA Hockey’s national office in Colorado Springs, Colo., working on coaching education and player development initiatives. For his efforts using science to advance sport, Martel received the USOPC "Doc" Councilman Award for Ice Hockey in 2004. In 2019, the USOPC’s also recognize him as their National Coach Educator of the Year. Prior to arriving in Colorado Springs, Martel was a part of USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program staff as an assistant coach for eight years (1998-2006), including a dual role with responsibilities for player personnel his final five seasons. Martel has made appearances behind the bench of nine U.S. teams that have competed in International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships, including four times with the U.S. National Under-18 Team (2000-04), four times with the U.S. National Junior Team (2004, 2006, 2008-09) and once with the U.S. Women’s National Team (2007). He has been part of two gold medal-winning teams, including the first-ever U.S. gold medals in the IIHF Men’s World Under-18 Championship (2002) and the IIHF World Junior Championship (2004).

	Hannu Nykvist One of Finland’s most experienced goalie coaches
With 35 years of experience in coaching goalies in Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and North America and implementing programs for goalie coach development as well as numerous appearances as speaker at international symposiums Hannu Nykvist is still at the forefront of goalie development on the international scene. Nykvist’s Resume includes not only medals and developing goaltenders around the world, but also involves building entire programs for several clubs and organizations including the Finnish Ice Hockey Association in his role as Director of goalie development, where he also organized the first goalie pathway at an IIHF coach symposium. He was also a founding member of an international network for exchange of knowledge and experience between goalie coaches. More recently Hannu is best known in the goalie world for his work developing optimal combinations of on-ice and off-ice training for top performance goalies, including mentoring Stanley Cup winning Sergei Bobrovsky.

	Mikael Vernblom Goalie Coach/Video Coach Linköping HC, SHL
With over 20 years of experience as a full-time professional goalie coach, Mikael Vernblom has worked in a variety of capacities at the highest levels of hockey, including the SHL, international competition, and elite development programs. Currently, he serves as the SHL Goalie Coach and Video Coach for Linköping HC. Mikael´s journey started with earning his coaching license from the Swedish Ice Hockey Association in 2005. Since then, he has worked in the Swedish club system and has also served as goalie coach and video coach with several Swedish National Teams (Team17, Team18, Team19/20) as well as within the National Player Development Program. He has combined traditional coaching with cutting-edge video analysis to help goaltenders refine their skills and decision-making at the highest level. Beyond coaching, Vernblom has taken on leadership roles, including Assistant General Manager for Linköping HC (2020–2022) and co-chair of the LINHAC Hockey Analytics Conference and also lectures at Linköping University’s Department of Computer Science, bridging the gap between data and performance in sports analytics.

	Rikard Grönborg Head Coach, Tappara
With a long career in international hockey, Grönborg has experience from both North America and Europe, working in various coaching roles since 1994. He spent several years in the Swedish national team organization, serving as head coach for Tre Kronor, where he led the team to IIHF World Championship gold medals in 2017 and 2018. After his time with the national team, he coached ZSC Lions in Switzerland’s National League before taking over as head coach of Tappara Tampere in Finland’s Liiga.