St. Thomas’ Bethany Brausen on Coaching, Mental Wellbeing, and the Rise of the Tommies.

Bethany Brausen didn’t have coaching in her career plans.

The former Minnesota Ms. Hockey winner and back-to-back National Champion with the Minnesota Golden Gophers forward, was juggling a coaching job at Breck High School and starting her master’s program at Minnesota in 2016. When Gophers’ head coach Brad Frost called Brausen to join Minnesota’s coaching staff, she said no.

Then she changed her mind.

“Eventually we ended up having a follow-up conversation because I got good counsel that maybe I didn't have enough information to say no right out the gates like that. So we talked about it,” Brausen told The Ice Garden. “My first year at Minnesota, I was actually a graduate assistant. I thought I would do it as I was going through grad school and all that and it would be a fun job for a couple of years, see if I liked it. I absolutely fell in love with it.”

Now almost 10 years later, Brausen is leading the University of St. Thomas as the head coach of a program fresh out of a five year ban from the NCAA tournament after making the move from Division III to Division I in 2021. Though she came into her head coaching position suddenly, Brausen was always ready for the opportunity and ready to take charge of a rising Tommies team.

Brausen said coaching is a very special and personal job in many ways. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2014 with a degree in sports psychology. She then earned her Master’s degree in Counseling Student Personnel Psychology specializing in career development with the higher education population in 2017. She most recently earned her PhD in Organizational Leadership.

Aside from her degrees, Brausen also gained experience within the Minnesota hockey community. She was a co-head coach in the Minnesota Elite League where she taught game skill and strategy and helped with recruitment, college hockey, and scholarship opportunities. She also worked for eight years as a hockey mentor and instructor with OS Hockey, where she designed and led practices intended to help with individual and team development.

“I truly believe in what it means every day to be able to get up and come do what I do.”

“It's a very, very special job in so many ways. It wasn't something that was originally on my radar, but it kind of blended everything that I loved,” Brausen said. “For me, it's a little bit of this hybrid of all of those things, of the leadership, of the teaching, of the psychology world. I feel hockey coaching at the collegiate level feels like the kind of epitome of those things, like where they all are centered together.”

When St. Thomas made the jump to Division I, Brausen was tapped as a potential assistant coach. This time around, instead of giving an outright no, she visited the campus in St. Paul. Once there, there was an instant connection between Brausen and the campus. She said it felt like a place she would have wanted to attend. She loved the location, the academics, and the reputation St. Thomas had with its students. It was something Brausen said she strongly believed in. 

Joining the Tommies staff also provided her with a new challenge. Brausen thought if she stayed with Minnesota, a program she loved and enjoyed being part of, then she would be staying in her comfort zone. Joining St. Thomas meant building the program and understanding that that process would take a few years. Still, she decided to join the brand new program. “I remember thinking… I don't want to recruit against St. Thomas because they are so uniquely different,” Brausen said. “That was a big part of it too, was seeing more of a visionary lens of where they would be one day. I wasn't sure if that would be in year four [or] year six or seven, but it was something I knew I wanted to be a part of.”

The Tommies joined NCAA Division I hockey in the 2021-22 season where they finished with a 5-27-1 record overall under former head coach Joel Johnson. St. Thomas steadily improved every year since, winning eight games in the 22-23 season and 10 the next year. This season, they have seven wins so far with more than three months left in the regular season. One of the reasons for the improvement by the team is the commitment every player made when choosing to play for St. Thomas – especially the now-juniors who signed on to a program during a transitional period. 

“They also knew their first couple years were going to be rocky and we knew that as coaches too, because when you transition from D3 to D1, especially in the best league in the country… we all knew at the staff level and at the recruit level that these first couple of years would be a challenge and something we'd have to work for,” Brausen said. “By the time that players got three years into the equation, they wanted that opportunity to say, No, we're able and eligible to play for a national tournament at the end of the year, because...our players know that they're truly playing for something at the end of the season.”

There is a lot of patience needed for everyone involved at St. Thomas. Seasons with 25 or more losses have been the norm since the beginning of the program’s DI tenure. Playing close games only to lose or losing by a multitude of goals isn’t easy for anyone to experience. That’s why Brausen’s sports psychology background and the positive changing landscape surrounding mental wellbeing have been two helpful assets for the Tommies. Where in the past athletes didn’t talk about the mental side of the game or its importance, now they can seek out a sports psychologist to gain skills Brausen knows will help them on and off the ice.

“At the individual level, a student athlete who has a really high level of well-being and who has belief in themselves and who has confidence and is able to practice mindfulness and be present in the moment, are the athletes that I have consistently over the years seen to be the most successful,” Brausen said. “I truly believe that your physical performance is absolutely fueled by your mental ability and your mental capacity to be well-rounded in that way.”

She added St. Thomas’ approach to providing information about the psychological side of the sport isn’t grand, because even small ways can make a difference. The program informs players of services and even hosts presentations specifically on sports psychology for them as well. Brausen said that when a player gives themself the mental edge, it also helps their physical performance. 

“I've never seen a super elite athlete who hasn't put time into the psychological aspect of their sport as well.”

Sudden Change Leads to Sudden Growth

Brausen spoke about resilience also being a key factor for the Tommies. She began with a quote she shared with the team: “The most important key to success that we ever had is that we never gave up.” 

The quote encapsulates the program according to Brausen because she said a team like St. Thomas needs to be dire and to not give up. She said for a team playing in the WCHA, an incredible amount of resilience is needed to show up every game with a fresh mindset and a fresh sheet of ice with the belief that winning is going to happen.

“When you have a team that's fully bought into that mentality of rising to the occasion and having resilience and showing up every day, you give yourself a fighting chance regardless of who your opponent is,” Brausen said. “How much you can close that gap when you have belief and you have players committed to their task of getting  one percent better every day and who are just willing to outwork other opponents in foot races and battles and compete.”

The resilience, positive mentality, and staying together has helped the Tommies navigate the waters of playing hockey in a top college conference, but it also helped the players during a sudden coaching change. 

In November of 2024, head coach Joel Johnson abruptly resigned from his position. The university gave no reasoning for the departure and while information about an investigation was relayed by the school, no further information was made available.

The Tommies faced an unprecedented situation; Johnson coached them in their Friday game against Bemidji State then was nowhere near the team the following night before resigning days later. Brausen was then tasked with interim head coach duties and jumped in with no problem.

“As an assistant coach, I think most people, whether they aspire to be a head coach or not, ultimately are always thinking, ‘How would I do things if I ever was to be a head coach?’ So that was a natural thought for me over the years,” Brausen said.

She had head coaching experience taking over for Johnson when he was at the Olympics, so the duties with the Tommies weren’t foreign to her. This time, though, Brausen stepped in midseason. The staff’s focus then was on staying consistent with the parts that were working for the program, identifying changes needed, and what could be done to help the team be successful as they entered the second half of the season. 

The biggest focus from the transitional period became that the players needed to continue to believe in themselves and the team. “We wanted our players to show up every single day to the arena and believe in themselves and believe in the direction of where we were going,” Brausen said. “A lot of the conversation was having belief as you're facing all these top teams in the country every single weekend and enjoying the game, coming to the rink and having trust with one another, loving the process of it, showing up for each other and not for anything else.”

She emphasized she also wanted to set a foundation of success for who the Tommies are as a program and how they want to do things because when the staff can give its players the right tactics and the right teaching to push them during practice, everything else will fall into place.

For Brausen, teaching her players that hockey is important but not everything was another focus during her transition as interim head coach. The ability to stay connected and to have trust in belonging as a team is something she deeply believes in. 

“I believe when those things are at the foundation of what you're doing, it's amazing how sometimes the sport and the hockey starts to take care of itself.”

The hockey did take care of itself with Brausen at the helm. In January of 2025, the Tommies pulled off an incredible upset when they swept then number-four ranked Minnesota Duluth, the first wins against a top-five ranked opponent in program history.

The sudden rise of the Tommies in the first month of the new year culminated with Brausen’s interim tag being removed days later and with her officially becoming the second head coach in St. Thomas’ DI era.

“I am thrilled to introduce Bethany as our new women's hockey head coach as she has established herself as one of the best emerging coaches in women's college hockey,” University of St. Thomas Vice President and Director of Athletics Dr. Phil Esten said during the introductory press conference in January. “Coach Brausen's leadership over the last four years has made me confident that she is the right person for the job. I am confident she will lead St. Thomas women's hockey with poise and uphold the core values of Tommie athletics at the highest level.”

Brausen called the moment “humbling” and said she remembered the conversation she had with Dr. Esten and how much she appreciated his belief in her and the future staff. She said it was one of the most prominent and special moments of her career, and for her personally, as well.

“I love St. Thomas. It's a special place to be a part of,” she said. “It was a[n] overwhelming moment filled with gratitude and something that I felt I was prepared for over time and kind of thinking about and planning over the years.”

The Tommies continued their impressive ways that season. In the following weeks they split their series with then 11th-ranked St. Cloud State. Then took a ranked opponent into overtime for the sixth time that season when they stuck it out against a then second-ranked Ohio State team, losing by one goal. Though the season ended in the first round of the WCHA playoffs against the Buckeyes, there were plenty of positives, including Brausen being named a WCHA Coach of the Year finalist.

By the fall, Brausen was ready for her first full season as a head coach.

A New Era Begins

Before the season kicked off, Brausen went through another change in her life. Her daughter Hadley was born over the summer. The new mom is sharing motherly duties with her wife Whitney Colbert and said in three short months with Hadley around, her baby girl has helped her see things through a big picture perspective. 

“Previous to having a baby you don't always see through the lens of the bigger picture in a way that just organically happens when you become a mother,” Brausen said. “It's a great reminder, though, perspective of what it really is all about, and we're all here to get better as people and holistically develop our athletes.”

Motherhood has been a great reminder for Brausen that while the team is measured on wins and losses and the sport means everything to the players on the ice, she knows part of her job is to also help raise her players, like her daughter, to be the best people they could ever become. She said her daughter is a constant reminder of that other part of her job as a coach.

St. Thomas currently has a 8-6-0 record and entered the USCHO rankings for the first time in program history on Oct. 20 when they were ranked 13th after a 6-2-0 record in the first month of the season. Brausen notified the team after practice and relished in the delight it brought the players, who she said went nuts when they found out where they were ranked. Brausen gave all the credit for the ranking to her own players.

“It ultimately comes down to the athletes and their level of devotion and commitment,” she said. “For them, it was exciting to be able to celebrate all the time, all the effort that they've put in these first few years; to finally get rewarded for it from a national perspective is a big moment for our program.”

The same week the team was ranked for the first time they had the honor of opening the university’s new arena days later. The Lee and Penny Anderson Arena opened on Oct. 24 with the Tommies facing off against the Providence Friars. Brausen described the game as “madness” when St. Thomas came back down by three to score four unanswered goals ultimately losing 7-6. Still, Brausen said the moment of breaking the ice and giving the crowd a show in the arena’s first game was a performance she was happy with. St. Thomas did bounce back in game two and split the series for their first win on home ice.

There are high hopes that the team can keep moving up in the rankings nationally, move up the standings in the WCHA, and that in the future the team can become a nationally prominent team. 

For this season, Brausen said they talked about the possibility of making it to the conference’s Final Faceoff which is being hosted at the brand new Lee and Penny Anderson Arena on campus. She said it would be a special moment if the Tommies could be there at home but it would also signal to them that they’re close to becoming a nationally caliber team and an indicator of the progress they are making. Aiming to make an appearance at the Final Faceoff is another way for the program to shoot for the highest outcome imaginable. Brausen believes that for the first time in the program’s history, St. Thomas has a team with the right mindset that demands and expects those types of successes out of themselves.

Brausen’s aim isn’t to be at the top of the conference in a few years. She’s fine with reaching only the top half, because reaching that point means her team will be in the national tournament, and Brausen believes they are close to being there.

The Tommies have been on the rise since last season and continue to be, but Brausen emphasized she wants the team to keep the mentality that they can’t be satisfied yet. When the team reaches the mentality that they are good enough, they can become complacent and she doesn’t want the Tommies falling into that.

“We need to continue to climb the ladder and prove ourselves every day… and push that competitive environment,” Brausen said. “We're well on our way to having a great start, but still acknowledge that it's just that; a great start, and we hope to prove a lot more this season.”

When asked about her hopes for the program in five years, Brausen didn’t hesitate. She said you can call her a little too brave or a little too courageous, but a Frozen Four appearance is what she hopes is in the cards for the Tommies.

“Why not dream big?”