Jackie Crum, UW-Madison assistant women’s hockey coach
By Jane Burns | Photography by Hillary Schave
Jackie Crum’s hockey experience at UW-Madison includes far more than than the eight total NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Championships the team has won since its inception — including the thriller the Badgers just won in March 2025. (Crum has helped the team win five of those championships as a coach.) She’s been a part of the UW’s women’s hockey program most of its entire tenure.
Crum just finished her 16th season as an assistant women’s hockey coach on Mark Johnson’s staff. Before that, she was a Badger herself. Her 2001-05 playing career began in the third season of women’s hockey at Wisconsin. (The inaugural season was 1999-2000.)
“When you have time to reflect, it’s really incredible where the program has gone,” Crum says.
Growing up in Saskatchewan playing hockey against boys, coaching was not a career that Crum thought she would have. Just getting to play college hockey was amazing enough, but a career in coaching? Get outta here.
“I loved teaching and was going to be a [physical education] teacher,” Crum says. “Now you ask my players, ‘What do you want to do someday?’ They say, ‘Be a coach.’ And at a Division I school, they can.”
Crum has held fast to the teacher she wanted to be. Her approach, like the entire Badgers’ staff, is more about teaching the game and less about following a system.
“We want them to have the ability to make decisions themselves,” she says. “We call it hockey sense.”
Crum juggles coaching with family; she and her husband, Tim, have two daughters, ages 6 and 4.
“It’s not for the faint of heart,” she says. “But it’s so rewarding. Times like after the championship game when my kids are skating around with the players — they just think that it’s normal. It’s just the coolest.”
What are some of the most valuable lessons girls and young women can take from sports?
Confidence is No. 1 … And you learn about being part of a team. That’s what I want for my girls. I couldn’t care less if they become college players, but if they’re part of a team sport, they’ll learn how to persevere and gain confidence in themselves.
