Hayley Williams (born June 3, 1990) is a Hungarian-American professional ice hockey player and member of the Hungarian national team, currently playing in the European Women's Hockey League (EWHL) with HK Budapest. She previously played in the Zhenskaya Hockey League (ZhHL), the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), and the Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), and is a three-time professional all-star, having been selected to the 2016 NWHL All-Star Game as well as the 2019 and 2020 ZhHL All-Star Games.
Williams represented Hungary at the IIHF Women's World Championship in 2022 and 2023. She represented the United States in the women's ice hockey tournaments at the 2013 Winter Universiade and the 2015 Winter Universiade, winning a bronze medal in 2013.
Contents
Playing career
Youth hockey
Williams spent most of her youth career with Team Illinois, before finishing with the Chicago Mission as an under-19 (19U) player. At the 2008 USA Hockey Girls 19U National Championships in West Chester, Pennsylvania, she scored the winning goal in triple overtime to help the Mission – a team also featuring future Olympians Megan Bozek and Kendall Coyne – down Little Caesars for the national title.
College
Williams committed to play NCAA Division I hockey with the Bemidji State Beavers women's ice hockey program and immediately contributed to a successful 2009–10 season. Despite going 3–22–3 overall in 2008–09 and being a unanimous WCHA last-place pick for 2009–10, the Beavers made history during the league playoffs. With Williams in the lineup for both wins, Bemidji State University (BSU) rallied to defeat St. Cloud State in the best-of-three opening round of the WCHA tournament, snapping a 14-game playoff losing streak and advancing to the WCHA Final Face-Off for the first time in program history.
However, her time with the Beavers was derailed by academic issues, and Williams ultimately played only 16 games with BSU.
Despite leaving the hockey team after 2009–10, Williams remained enrolled at Bemidji through the summer of 2012, including playing outfield for the Beavers softball team during the 2011 season.
By the fall of 2012, Williams had moved home to the Chicago area, and began volunteering for the USHL's Chicago Steel which, at the time, played its home games at Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville, Illinois. Through a chance meeting with a former teammate who went on to play for Robert Morris University Illinois (RMU; which shared Edge Ice Arena with the Steel), Williams wound up enrolling at RMU and practicing with the Robert Morris Eagles women's ice hockey team during the 2012–13 season. She then joined the Eagles' full roster for 2013–14, marking an official return to college hockey after a three-and-a-half-year absence.
Williams immediately found chemistry with one of the Eagles' established stars, Ramey Weaver. The pair would go on to form two-thirds of the ACHA's best line, as each earned a spot on the ACHA's first All-American team and the duo finished 1-2 among the national scoring leaders. Williams scored 34 goals and 73 points that season in route to winning the Zoë M. Harris Award as the ACHA's Player of the Year. Weaver, who wound up her career after 2013–14 as Robert Morris' all-time leading scorer, added 32 goals and 55 points.
The Eagles largely breezed through their regular season schedule. With Williams putting up nine games with four points or more (including one late-season stretch where she accomplished the feat four times in five games), and delivering late winning goals against Colorado State and Adrian on two of the few occasions RMU was seriously challenged. The Eagles were 22–5–4 during the regular season, good for second in the Central Collegiate Women's Hockey Association (CCWHA) behind Miami, and were ranked third or fourth in the ACHA throughout the entire year.
Professional
After learning of the launch of a new North American women's professional league, the National Women's Hockey League (rebranded as the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) in 2021), Williams attended free agent camps during the summer of 2015 ahead of the NWHL's inaugural season, eventually earning a contract with the Buffalo Beauts. With their signings announced by the Beauts at the same time, she and UMass Minutemen alumna Paige Harrington became the first former ACHA players to sign in the league and the first in any North American women's professional league since the 2002–03 season.
Williams scored her first NWHL goal on November 22, 2015, burying to tie a game against the Connecticut Whale at 6–6 with 3:23 remaining in the second period, although the Whale would go on to win in a shootout. She added four assists while playing in 17 of the Beauts' 18 regular season games.
A fan vote determined the last four participants in the 1st NWHL All-Star Game on January 24, 2016, and, after receiving 6,384 votes, Williams was added to Team Knight, an All-Star team captained by Team USA and then-Boston Pride player Hilary Knight. She went on to score Team Knight's only goal of the game in a blowout loss to Team Pfalzer, captained by then-Buffalo Beauts players Emily Pfalzer.
The 2015–16 Buffalo Beauts season, saw a third-place finish in the standings with a 5–9–4 record, and an appearance in the first-ever Isobel Cup Final after rallying to upset Connecticut in a best-of-three semifinal. However, the Beauts were defeated in the championship series by the Boston Pride.
After the Beauts only offered Williams a spot as a "practice player" for the 2016–17 season (practice players are members of the team, but not permitted to play in games unless the team is otherwise shorthanded), Williams looked for opportunities in the Canadian Women's Hockey League and earned a roster spot for the 2016–17 CWHL season with the Brampton Thunder via tryout. She played in 14 games with Brampton, helping the team to a 12–10–1–1 (W–L–OTL–SOL) record and a third-place finish in the regular season, although they were quickly eliminated in the best-of-three semifinals by Les Canadiennes de Montréal.
The following season, the Thunder relocated to Markham, Ontario, which is located on the opposite side of Toronto from Brampton. Williams, who still lived in Buffalo dating to her time with the Beauts, negotiated a trade to the Toronto Furies (which played at the Mastercard Centre For Hockey Excellence in Toronto's western neighborhoods, a bit closer to Buffalo than Markham) and spent 2017–18 with the Thunder's archrival. Playing frequently with Jenna Dingeldein, Jessica Vella, and Carolyne Prévost, Williams rediscovered her offensive touch with the Furies, finishing the year fourth on the team in scoring with 14 points. She scored her first CWHL goal on November 11, 2017, to help Toronto beat the Calgary Inferno in a shootout. The next month, she assisted on Jessica Platt's first career goal on December 7, then was named the Furies' player for the game for a two-assist effort in a loss to Calgary ten days later. Late-season highlights included a Furies sweep of the perennially-contending Inferno on January 27 and 28 by 3–2 and 5–2 scores, with Williams scoring the winning goal in the first game on a 5-on-3 advantage with 3:21 remaining. She also capped off the weekend by scoring an empty-net goal to seal victory in the second game, in front of a national television audience on Sportsnet.
International play
Winter Universiade
Williams was selected as a member of the United States National University Team, which competes at the Winter Universiade, during both of her ACHA seasons, and also named an alternate captain each time.
The 2013 edition of the tournament, played in Trentino, Italy resulted in a bronze medal for Williams and Team USA after a third-place game win over Japan - the first-ever podium finish for an American women's team at the event and the first for the U.S. men or women in USA Hockey's modern era of participation (since 2001). Williams' contributions to the success were significant – she assisted on a late clinching goal by Katie Augustine in the team's biggest win, a 4–2 victory over a Russia team featuring several Russia women's national ice hockey team members to open the tournament. In the bronze medal match against Japan, Williams again assisted Augustine for the go-ahead goal early in the third period, then scored in the waning moments of the 3–1 victory.
Although the 2015 version of the team was unable to follow up that success and was quickly knocked out of contention at the 2015 tournament in Granada, Spain, Williams did provide one of the squad's signature moments. During a match against Kazakhstan in the 5th through 7th place consolation round robin, Team USA found itself trailing 2–1 in the last three minutes of the game. Williams then scooped up a loose puck near center ice, carried in herself and scored from the bottom of the left circle with 2:37 remaining. The U.S. went on to win in overtime, a result that eventually allowed the team to finish fifth. Williams scored a pair of goals and added four assists to tie for the team scoring lead.
Personal life
Williams was born in Crete, Illinois, United States, a village situated about 30 miles (48 km) south of Chicago in the Chicago metropolitan area. A citizen of the United States by birth, she gained multiple citizenship after becoming a naturalized Hungarian citizen in 2021.
When she began playing in the ZhHL in 2018, she "fell in love with the country of Russia" and learned the Russian language.
Williams is the founder of Hockey Worldwide, an ice hockey training and coaching organization based in Crete, Illinois that produces on-ice camps and off-ice training programs.
Career statistics
Regular season and playoffs
Sources: