APX News / FROM 12B TO DIVISION I
If you took a poll that asked Division I hockey players when they first started skating, the most common answer would likely be between the ages of two to six.
That doesn’t mean that that’s an accurate statistic for everyone though. There will always be a small handful of athletes who don’t find their passion for the game until much later and through hard work and dedication they are still able to compete at a very high level.
That is the case for St. Michael native Nicole Schumm, who didn’t start playing hockey until around age 12 when her sister’s team had a need for a goaltender and she made the decision to step up and try things out in net.
Nicole’s younger sister, Lexi, was playing in a hockey tournament up in Breezy Point when the coach realized that they would be in need of a goaltender for the next season. Nicole thought she would try it out and it eventually became the perfect fit.
JULY 14, 2025
Author SYDNEY WOLF
“Obviously, I had never played hockey before, but I was like well this seems super cool,” said Schumm in a phone call interview with APX Hockey’s Sydney Wolf on how she wound up playing the sport. “I played softball and was catcher a couple of times but I thought goalie was going to be super fun and different.”
Schumm joined the 12B2 team for North Wright County (the co-op between St. Michael-Albertville and Monticello) halfway through the season that year and then eventually made the 12B2 team again the year after that. Despite very limited experience, she put in lots of hard work on and off the ice and eventually made the 15A team in middle school before making the junior varsity and varsity rosters in high school.
Now, she’s on her way to play Division I hockey at Stonehill College in the fall of 2025.
Despite such a late start in the sport, Schumm dedicated herself to the game and kept on refining her skills until she became one of just a handful of Division I committed girls hockey players in the state.
It wasn’t an easy rise to success though for the netminder. She had to be patient in order to eventually become a varsity netminder for the North Wright County RiverHawks. During her freshman and sophomore seasons, she primarily played junior varsity and was a backup to varsity starter Jadyn Weiser - who is now playing Division I hockey at Assumption University in Massachusetts.
“She has been such a mentor my entire career,” said Schumm about her relationship with Weiser. “She’s the person who came out right away when I first started and taught me all the basics.”
As a junior, Schumm then started to see varsity minutes in net. She knew that she would have to earn those precious minutes out on the ice and that they wouldn’t come easily in the ultra-competitive Minnesota high school hockey scene so she had a strong ‘earn your spot’ kind of mentality. She didn’t become a true starter until her senior season, where she split time in goal with fellow senior Katie Lemke.
During her final year of high school competition, Schumm posted an .893 save percentage, and a 2.80 goals-against average against some of the toughest girls hockey competition in the state in the Lake Conference (which includes teams like Minnetonka and Edina) and in Section 5AA (Centennial/Spring Lake Park, Maple Grove, etc.).
“This past season (in 2024-25) was one of the best seasons I’ve had over the four years (of high school),” said Schumm about the River Hawks, who posted an 11-16 record. “I feel like with the amount of seniors that we had, and we’ve all played together forever, like U10s, U12s and up, we had a really good bond. I feel like we had a really good run.”
So how did Schumm wind up committing to play college hockey? Well, she originally toured some Division III schools in Minnesota such as Gustavus Adolphus College, Hamline, and St. Olaf, while pondering the decision of whether or not she wanted to stay close to home in the future. Eventually, one of her goaltending coaches, Alli Altman, who currently works with Team USA and at Minnesota State University, gave Stonehill assistant coach Kendall Wagner her contact information after finding out that the Skyhawks had some interest in Schumm as a netminder.
The St. Michael native then had a Zoom call with Wagner and with head coach Lee-J Mirasolo. She explained to them her journey throughout hockey so far and brought as much enthusiasm to the meeting that she could. The two parties kept in contact after that call and they stayed in touch for a while before she got an official offer from the school. Schumm then took a visit out to the campus in Easton, Massachusetts, (just south of the Boston area), over MEA break during her senior year and made the choice to accept the offer and make a verbal commitment to the program.
“I am very honored, grateful, and extremely excited to announce my commitment to play NCAA Division I hockey and to further my education at Stonehill College,” she posted to Instagram in October of 2024. “I would like to thank my family, coaches, friends, and most importantly God who all helped guide me to be where I am today. Proud to be a future Skyhawk!”
“That was pretty much it. I was like ‘this is where I want to go’,” Schumm thought after taking her visit to the private, Catholic college. “This is where I feel at home. The team was so encouraging and so supportive and they were excited for me to be there.”
On top of the campus and the community just feeling like the right fit, there is a lot of excitement in the air for all of Stonehill’s recruits at the moment since the school just recently announced the plans for a brand new facility that will be the home of the ice hockey and basketball teams after a historic 15-million dollar donation was given to the college by an alum.
Even though many things will be new for Schumm when she eventually gets out to Stonehill this fall to start her freshman season, there will be some familiar faces around to help make the transition easier. Fellow Minnesota high school hockey player Masyn Mullin will also be a freshman for the Skyhawks this fall and Schumm also just recently met incoming freshman Kyana Mitchell (who is from Ontario) at summer orientation.
There will be some familiar faces on the other side of the ice too as Schumm’s former mentor Jadyn Weiser currently plays at Assumption University, which is also located in Massachusetts and they compete in the same conference as Stonehill (the New England Women’s Hockey Alliance). Schumm and Weiser are excited about the possibility of getting to play each other in the future with their respective squads.
“We’ve already been talking about it, we train together in the summer and we’re just like ‘oh my gosh, it would just be funny to drop the gloves as a joke at the end of a game’ but it’ll be super cool to go against her since we’ve been teammates in the past,” said Schumm about her possible new rivalry with her old teammate.
If the recent North Wright County graduate follows in the footsteps of Weiser even just a little bit then Skyhawk fans have a bright future to look forward to as Weiser went from playing for the River Hawks to posting a .939 save percentage as the starting netminder for the Greyhounds as a sophomore in 2024-25.
For any Stonehill fans who may not have been able to see Schumm play much over the past few years, she says that some of her strengths include rebound control and reading plays before they develop.
“Controlling rebounds is one of my top things - I feel like I control the puck really well, whether it’s into my chest or into the corners, and just reading plays, since I have that experience playing in the Lake Conference and playing against some of the top girls in Minnesota,” she said.
For now, Schumm is back home in St. Michael after participating in summer orientation out east. She’ll join the Skyhawks this fall and is currently planning on studying exercise science in college. In her free time, she enjoys staying active by playing pickleball, biking, and swimming in her backyard pool.
About APX Hockey
Formerly known as Map South Hockey, APX Hockey has been a staple in the hockey community, offering high-caliber training programs for aspiring players. With a focus on player-centered development and cutting-edge performance training methods, APX Hockey is committed to helping athletes of all ages refine their skills, build resilience, and achieve excellence on-and-off the ice.