Liz Knox


Liz Knox is a retired professional women's ice hockey goaltender. She was a member of the Canadian national women's ice hockey team that captured the gold medal at the 2011 Winter Universiade. Knox was selected 18th overall in the 2011 CWHL Draft, and won the Clarkson Cup with the Markham Thunder in 2017-2018. Knox currently sits on the board of the Professional Women's Hockey Player Association which formed from the fallout after the CWHL folded in the spring of 2019.

Playing career

Ontario University athletics

Knox attended Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario and went on to become one of the most decorated players in Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks women's ice hockey program history.

2006–07

Heading into the 2006–07 season, she joined a squad that featured established goalie Morgan Wielgosz and had won three consecutive Ontario University Athletics championships, as well as the 2004–05 Canadian Interuniversity Sport national championship. Knox generally split Laurier's goaltending minutes with Wielgosz as a collegiate rookie, featuring in 12 regular season games. She made her unofficial debut with 38 saves in a 2–1 exhibition win over NCAA Division I team Ohio State on September 30, 2006, and her official one two weeks later in a 5–2 victory against Windsor. Other highlights included a 2–1 win over Queen's in a battle of teams ranked in the national top five on November 4, 2006. In that contest, Knox stopped a Golden Gaels penalty shot in overtime before Laurier's Laurissa Kenworthy grabbed the winning goal 13 seconds later. Knox went on to pick up her first career shutout against Windsor three weeks later. Wielgosz, however, received most of the work through the OUA and CIS playoffs, though Knox did see action three times in the postseason – very briefly in an OUA championship win over Queen's while Wielgosz addressed an equipment issue, then more significantly in relief during a loss to the University of Alberta that eliminated the Golden Hawks from CIS national championship contention, and finally during a CIS third-place game loss to the University of Manitoba.

2007–08

By her second year, Knox emerged as the regular starter, a status she would retain for the rest of her time at Laurier. After taking an uncharacteristic loss early in the season to Guelph, Knox rebounded with a run of shutouts – five by the end of November – including one against a nationally-ranked University of Toronto team. Those shutouts were part of a 14-game Laurier unbeaten streak that didn't end until December 29, 2007 against, in a bit of foreshadowing, powerhouse McGill University. Knox and WLU picked right back up from there however, with the team plowing through CIS competition to the tune of a 25–3–2 regular season record and the goalie posting a 17–2–1 mark with a 0.945 save percentage and an 0.97 goals against average.
As good as Knox was during the regular season, she was even better during the OUA and CIS playoffs. While the Golden Hawks won their first six post-season games, the results were generally hard-earned. Knox, in fact, had to be perfect in the clinching games of both OUA series with 16 and 20 saves, respectively, as both ended with 1–0 scorelines.
On March 10, 2010, Knox became the first Golden Hawks player in the history of the women's program to win the CIS Player of the Year award.
On September 23, 2016, Knox was inducted into WLU's Golden Hawk Hall of Fame.

International

Winter Universiade

During her final season at Laurier, Knox was selected to compete for Team Canada at the 2011 Winter Universiade in Erzurum, Turkey, along with three of her Golden Hawks teammates. The 2011 tournament was just the second time that the biennial Universiade included women's hockey, and Knox helped Canada successfully defend its gold medal from 2009.
She appeared in four of Canada's seven games, winning all four, and was among the tournament leaders in most statistical categories including goals against average and save percentage. Two of Knox's four games were routs, as she saw just four shots in a 14–0 win against Great Britain and played the first two periods of an 8–1 victory over the United States in the semifinals. Her defining outings were her first and last of the tournament, both against a Finland squad packed with stars from the senior Finland women's national ice hockey team like Anne Helin, Saara Tuominen, Anniina Rajahuhta, Venla Hovi and Anna Vanhatalo, each of whom had been a part of the bronze medal team at the 2010 Winter Olympics prior to the 2011 Universiade.
During the round robin stage of the tournament, on January 27, 2011, Knox and Vanhatalo engaged in a classic goaltending duel. Hovi gave the Finns a 1–0 lead midway through the contest before Mariève Provost answered on the power play with 1:29 left in regulation to force overtime. After a scoreless five-minute extra period, things proceeded to a shootout. There, Knox denied all five shooters she faced, including Helin and Sari Kärnä twice each, and Tuominen once. Vanhatalo matched her save for save until Canada's fifth shooter, Ellie Seedhouse, gave her side the victory. The teams met once again in the gold medal match, although things were a bit less dramatic there, as Canada jumped out to a 3–0 lead early in the second period and cruised to a 4–1 win, helped in part by 20 Knox saves.

IIHF 12 Nations Tournament

Knox received a second call from Hockey Canada six months after the gold medal at the 2011 Winter Universiade and competed at the one-off 2011 IIHF 12 Nations Tournament, sharing the Canadian crease with fellow eventual CWHL netminders Geneviève Lacasse and Christina Kessler. The stated goal of the 12 Nations Tournament was to enhance the competitive level of developing women's hockey countries ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics and accordingly, no medals were awarded. Canada went 4–2–0 in the round-robin-style showcase, with Knox playing twice and winning both of her games. On August 25, 2011, she had an easy outing against Russia, making 15 saves in a 16–1 blowout. Five days later, Knox made 16 stops as Canada pulled off yet another dramatic win over Finland by a 3–2 score. In that contest, Finland carried a 2–1 lead past the halfway point of the third period before goals by Meghan Agosta and Jennifer Wakefield, the latter with 2:00 remaining, flipped the result.

Professional

CWHL

Following graduation, Knox was selected 18th overall in the 2011 CWHL Draft by the Brampton Thunder, part of a fruitful class for the team that also included Courtney Birchard, Tara Gray and Vicki Bendus.
Almost immediately, she became the workhorse goalie for the Thunder, playing in 20 of 27 regular season games and helping Brampton to an 18–7–2 and a robust third-place finish in the standings. For Knox, notable milestones included her first professional win on October 29, 2011 against Team Alberta and her first shutout, on March 4, 2012 against a loaded Boston Blades team that included several United States national team regulars like Kelli Stack, Gigi Marvin and Kacey Bellamy.
Knox won the Clarkson Cup on March 25, 2018 with the Markham Thunder. The team had relocated from Brampton that season, and the CWHL had also expanded to seven teams with the addition of two teams based in Shenzhen, China.
In 2019, Knox ranked second among all CWHL players in an online vote, gaining the opportunity to serve as a captain at the 4th Canadian Women's Hockey League All-Star Game.

AWIHL

For the 2013-14 season, Knox joined the Melbourne Ice women's hockey club of the Australian Women's Ice Hockey League and became half of a formidable tandem with Australian national team goaltender Jodie Walker. During the AWIHL's short regular season, Knox played in eight of 12 games, and posted a dominant 1.00 goals against average with a 0.964 save percentage to help the Ice to a first-place finish in the standings, with 38 of a possible 42 points. She was even better in the league final against the Adelaide Adrenaline, posting consecutive 32-save shutouts in 2–0 victories to help the Ice to their third AWIHL title. Including the pair of contests in the final, Knox ended the year with a shutout streak of 207:17 – all against the Adrenaline, as her last three regular-season appearances were also against Melbourne's eventual championship opponent – and led the league in most major statistical categories including wins, goals against average and save percentage.

Career statistics

College and professional

International

Awards and honours

CIS