Florence Schelling

Florence Schelling: High-Performance-Teams & leadership.

Florence Schelling, former national ice hockey player and world’s best ice hockey goalkeeper, former head of sports at SC Bern and ice hockey expert for Swiss television SRF.

Florence Schelling grew up in Oberengstringen and came to ice hockey through her two brothers. They needed a goalkeeper for their shooting practice and put her four-year-old sister in goal. This experience led to Schelling’s desire to become an ice hockey goalie.

Florence Schelling Lecture Topics

- High-performance teams: composition, roles, leadership
- Failure: The springboard to success
- Decision Making: Making decisions. Achieving goals together. Error culture.
- Sport vs. Business: Focus. Mindset. Motivation.
- Routine and superstitious madness – The power of habits and when new things have to emerge.

At the age of 13, Florence Schelling was nominated for a junior national team for the first time and has been in the national team squads without interruption ever since. From 2005, she was part of the Swiss women’s national team squad. Since then, she has participated as a regular goalkeeper at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and three World Championships. At the 2008 World Championships, she led her team all the way to the bronze medal game. The game was lost, but the Swiss team finished fourth, the best placing in its history. Florence Schelling was the second best goalkeeper in the tournament according to statistics and was the only goalie to be on the ice in every minute of the game, including overtime and penalty shootout.

In 2010, Florence Schelling participated in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. At the 2012 World Championships, she surprisingly won the bronze medal with the national team. Two years later, at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, she won the bronze medal with the national team and received several awards for her performances – as Most Valuable Player and Best Goalkeeper – as well as being selected for the tournament’s All-Star Team. Florence Schelling played a total of 190 international matches, she was a participant of four Winter Olympics as well as eleven World Cup tournaments.

From November 2019, Florence Schelling appeared regularly on SRF as an ice hockey expert. In April 2020, it was announced that Florence Schelling was elected head of sports at SC Bern. She succeeded Alex Chatelain and took office after Easter 2020. She stopped her expert activities at SRF after the announcement of her move to SC Bern. On April 28, 2021, the club announced its separation from Florence Schelling after one year.

Young, inexperienced & female: maximum penalty. But her strength is: being a woman.

Florence Schelling started her career with the GCK Lions and played for their Elite A Juniors between 2003 and 2005. She also skated in a test game for the Lions’ National League B team, becoming the first woman ever to step onto the National League B ice. At the same time, she played for the ZSC Lions women’s ice hockey team. In 2007, she was selected by the Swiss

Inclusion: Outside/in. A Strong Woman in Management.

During the 2008 World Championship, the coach of Boston Northeastern University became aware of Florence Schelling and convinced her to study in Boston. Florence Schelling went on to study economics at Northeastern University while playing for the Huskies, the university’s ice hockey team.

In her first year of college, she made 19 appearances for the Huskies and had very good statistics, with 93.3% shots saved and a 2.24 goals against average, earning several Hockey East awards and being selected to the league’s All-Rookie Team. During the 2009-10 season, she earned Defensive Player of the Week honors for three consecutive weeks, as well as Bauer Goaltender of the Month in October and November. She participated with the Huskies in the first outdoor game in the history of college women’s ice hockey, held at Fenway Park as part of the 2010 NHL Winter Classic and won by the University of New Hampshire. At the end of the 2010-11 season, Florence Schelling and the Huskies reached the Hockey East playoff finals for the first time in their history.

A player’s rocky road in field hockey: goalie vs. outfielder.

In the 2012/13 season, Florence Schelling played for Brampton Thunder in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. In 2013, she graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Starting in June 2013, she worked for the IIHF as an EDP coordinator and executive assistant. At the same time, she played for EHC Bülach in the 1st league and continued to develop there. After the 2014/15 season she decided to move to Sweden to Linköpings HC and meanwhile to do her Master of Business Administration at the university there. A year later, she extended her contract by one year. She ended her career in May 2018.

Florence Schelling studied sports management at the University of Sankt Gallen, sits on boards of directors and coaches young talents in sports. She gives top lectures on various topics, as she has a wealth of exciting experience in sports, management and through her international stations.