2023 INDUCTEES NAMED TO WISCONSIN HOCKEY HALL OF FAME

The board of directors of the Wisconsin Hockey Hall of Fame has selected three candidates for induction into the Wisconsin Hockey Hall of Fame in September 2023. Karyn Bye, from Hudson; Sis Paulsen from Stoughton; and Terry Watkins from Menomonie, will be inducted into the Wisconsin Hockey Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Eagle River on Saturday, September 9, 2023. Karyn Bye was born and raised in River Falls where she played youth hockey in a generation where she needed to hide her gender to play, and, in fact, used her initials K.L. Bye as an identity, rather then her first name. She continued playing with the boys in high school from her sophomore year to her senior year, when she was the team captain and second-team allconference. She also played varsity softball for all four years and was all-conference for three years and first team all-state her senior year. She also played singles and doubles in tennis and advanced to the state tournament three times. Collegiately, Bye was the leading scorer for the University of New Hampshire all four years, scoring 164 points in 87 games. She also played tennis for the Wildcats. She was named to the UNH Hall of Fame in 1998. In graduate school, she played for two years at Concordia University in Montreal and was named to the Concordia Hall of Fame in 2004. Bye graduated with a graduate degree in Sports Administration. Bye’s hockey career would continue to grow even before she finished her graduate degree. Her play on the National Women’s Team and the Olympic team would find her scoring 110 goals and 119 assists for 229 points to rank fifth on the all-time scoring list. She joined the U.S. National Women’s Team in 1992 that led to a Silver Medal in the World Championships. Bye would repeat this in 1994 and was named USA Hockey Women’s Player of the Year in 1995. There would be another Silver in 1997 followed by the Gold Medal at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, where she would be the leading scorer with five goals and three assists and would serve as the alternate captain. Bye was again named the Women’s Player of the Year in 1998 and was featured on the now famous Wheaties Box. She won Silver again in 1999 and 2000 at the World Championships and took home the Silver Medal in 2001 at the Salt Lake City Olympics. In 2009, Bye and her teammates were inducted into the USA Hockey Hall of Fame. As an individual, she has been inducted into the respective specific Hall of Fame of several other organizations: the IIHF Hall of Fame (2011); the USA Hockey Hall of Fame (2014); the National Federation of High Schools Hall of Fame (2020); and the WIAA Hall of Fame (2021). In other activities, Bye has worked for the Minnesota Wild in its grassroots program and served as a color commentator for the Minnesota State Girls High School Hockey Tournament. She is a former Hudson Youth Hockey board member and has coach or assistant at several different levels. Bye owns and runs a summer hockey camp in Hudson and is a Motivational Speaker. She teaches at the Riverside Athletic Club and serves as an assistant hockey coach for the Hudson Girls hockey team. Bye and her two children Brody and Tatum live in Hudson. Sis Paulsen was born and raised in Eau Claire. She played youth hockey for the Eau Claire Youth Hockey Association, and high school hockey for Eau Claire North High School. Paulsen went on to play for the inaugural University of Wisconsin Badger Women’s Hockey team, where she is still the only Badger player to be named captain of the team three years in a row. While playing in Madison, Paulsen was named to the WCHA All-Rookie team in 2000, and was an All-WCHA selection in 2003. Her career as a Badger had her scoring 130 points on 42 goals and 88 assists, a program best by a defenseman. Following her college career, Paulsen went on to serve as an Assistant Coach at Minnesota State and Bemidji State. She served as the Head Coach at New England College from 2009-2013, and as Assistant Coach with the New York Riveters in New Jersey from 2017-2017. Paulsen the became the Director of Girls Hockey for the New Jersey Colonials and as a USA Hockey Girls/Women’s Representative for the USA Hockey Atlantic District. In the fall of 2017, Paulsen returned to Madison and became the Badger’s Director of Hockey Operations and Equipment Manager, a position she holds currently. Paulsen worked with USA Hockey and was an equipment manager at the 2022 Winter Olympics for Team USA. She also worked the 2021, 2022 and 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championships with the United States, and the 2020 Rivalry Series against Canada. Paulsen is considered a teacher of the sport and a mentor to young women as they enter the college recruiting process and how to navigate the opportunities available to them. Paulsen returned to Madison in 2017, where she would become the Director of Hockey Operations and Equipment Manager for the Wisconsin Badgers Women’s Hockey Team. Paulsen now calls Stoughton her home. Terry Watkins was born and raised in St. Paul, Minn., where he played youth hockey followed by high school hockey at Cretin High School. He played in the USHL for the Stevens Buick team in Minneapolis and then one semester of JV hockey for the Minnesota Gophers. He then enrolled at UW-Stout where he played hockey and was team captain for four years, graduating with a degree in Manufacturing Engineering. Though a player of legendary proportion for the Blue Devils, Watkins is most notable for his role as a coach, and that goes back to his days in the Twin Cities, where he coached a Bantam team at the age of 19. Fast forward to 2020 and his retirement from coaching at UWStout, and you have a man who has spent more than six decades behind the bench. Even after the Blue Devil hockey program was discontinued in 1982, Watkins formed a club team at UWStout in 1988 and coached that until ice hockey once again became a varsity sport in 1996. Over the course of the next 24 years, Watkins would three times be named a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Coach of the year. Watkins was named NCHA Coach of the Year following the 2006-2007 season and was also the national runner-up for Coach of the Year. His 2007-2008 Blue Devils team advanced to the NCAA Division III tournament. The 2008-2009 team finished with a 23-6-2 overall record and was second in the NCHA regular season, but won the NCHA tournament title, earning the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and then advanced to the NCAA Division III semi-finals in Lake Placid. Watkins coached numerous All-American players, All-NCHA players and WIAC Scholar Athletes at UW-Stout. Watkins was a founding member of Menomonie Youth Hockey in 1988 and continued years of service past that. He was inducted to the Menomonie Youth Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988 and was given the Menomonie Youth Hockey Coaching Director of the Year Award in 2023. Watkins was the first player named to the UW-Stout Hockey Hall of Fame in 1992. He was instrumental in fundraising for the renewal of the Facetti Community Center. Watkins also officiated youth, high school and college games for 10 years. Watkins also coached college Selects teams that completed in Russia in 1991 and in Sweden in 1998. Watkins not only coached UW-Stout in hockey, but he also served as the UW-Stout’s men’s golf coach from 2006-2015, three times taking his teams to the NCAA Division III Championships. Watkins built the men’s golf team scratch, and it became a regional power in the late 1980s. Watkins is one of only two coaches in NCAA Division III history to take two different sports programs (hockey and golf) to the NCAA national tournament in the same academic school year. Watkins and his wife Doreen are retired and live in Menomonie. Their sons Jeff and Todd, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, have all played hockey. The ceremonies in Eagle River include a golf tournament, banquet and the induction ceremony. The banquet and induction are by advance reservation only. Questions about tickets can be directed to Joe Boxrucker at (715) 479-9772 or to Pat Weber at (715) 479-8912. To obtain a brochure, contact John Hack by e-mail at john.hack1967@gmail.com, or by phone at (218) 391-2301.