St. Cloud State Introduces New Women’s Hockey Coach Eric Rud [VIDEO]

ST. CLOUD - St. Cloud State University officially introduced Eric Rud as the University's new women's hockey coach at a press conference on Thursday night.

Rud was a former assistant coach with the St. Cloud State University men's hockey team from 2005 to 2010, he also served as an assistant men's hockey coach at Colorado College since 2011. Rud says he's excited for the chance to return to St. Cloud to coach the Huskies.

"I just want to say how fortunate I feel to be able to come back and coach and teach at a university I really enjoyed working at," Rud says.

During his previous time at SCSU, Rud recruited several Husky standouts including Ryan Lasch, Garrett Roe, Drew LeBlanc, Nick Jensen and Nic Dowd. Rud says the newly renovated Herb Brooks National Hockey Center will give him more opportunities to recruit players for the women's team.

"Obviously a beautiful facility to recruit to and play in-and to play in the best conference in the country," Rud says.

Rud has also worked with the USA Hockey program in his career and served as the head coach of the 2008 USA U-17 boys team in the Slovakia Four Nations Cup and the 2009 USA U-18 boys team at the Czech Republic Ivan Hlinka Cup.

As a player, Rud was a two-time team captain and two-time WCHA Defensive Player of the Year at Colorado College.

Rud is now the fourth coach in the history of the SCSU women's hockey program. The first year of women's hockey was in 1998 and they joined the Western Collegiate Hockey Association in 1999.

Last season, the Huskies were 4-27-5 overall and 3-21-4 in WCHA play.