DULUTH — The Minnesota Duluth women’s hockey program has embraced the transfer portal over the previous four offseasons, and transfers — nine, to be exact — from across NCAA Division I hockey have embraced the Bulldogs.
So what is it that attracts a player in the portal to UMD?
This week on
we speak with a pair of UMD senior transfers in goaltender Tindra Holm and fifth-year forward Olivia Mobley.
Holm came to Duluth in the offseason
after playing three seasons at Long Island University, where she won back-to-back NEWHA Goaltender of the Year honors in 2022-23 and 2023-24.
Mobley — in her own words — is a transfer portal frequent flyer having played three years at Quinnipiac before transferring to Ohio State.
She then left the Buckeyes after winning a national championship
to come to Duluth.
is hosted by News Tribune college hockey reporter Matt Wellens and Zach Schneider, the voice of UMD hockey on My 9 Sports. Below are select, edited snippets of this week’s episode.
Bulldog Insider: Tindra, take us through your path to UMD. Why leave Long Island, and why did you want to be a Bulldog?
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group
Tindra Holm: It was honestly kind of a tough decision for me to make because I really like being on Long Island. I have some of my best friends there. Ultimately, I felt after the season that I needed another challenge because I feel like I’m nowhere from being done developing.
I figured that Duluth would be a great spot to develop, and I know (Emma Soderberg), who played here before. She had only great things to say about it. And then Paula (Bergstrom), who was here last year. She is one of my best friends, too. She definitely helped.
BI: UMD has a really good reputation with with Swedish hockey players, specifically anyone that’s associated with the national team, doesn’t it?
Holm: Yeah, we like UMD. We have a little alumni group now back in Sweden. Pretty much everyone played here at some point. Also, I came here and played with LIU last season. I really got a feel of the place, too, and I figured I’d like it.
BI: Olivia, how did you go from playing at Breck School to Quinnipiac in the ECAC?
Olivia Mobley: I started talking to them when I was in eighth grade, maybe, or freshman year of high school. I built a pretty good relationship with the head coach over there and the assistant coaches.
I chatted with them probably once a week. After, I don’t know, like a year of that, it just it felt like a good fit. My parents were dialed in. They were chatting with them, too. It seemed like the right decision at the time and I don’t regret it at all. It was a great three years, a lot of great gals out there.
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group
BI: Why leave Quinnipiac and why go to Ohio State?
Mobley: Honestly it’s kind of what Tindra said. I love that place (Quinnipiac). I love the school, I love the gals, but I think I wanted more for myself. I fell into this routine that I was less than my best and I knew that was happening. I didn’t know how to really change it or snap out of it.
I needed an environment where that wasn’t acceptable. That’s on me, too. That’s immaturity, it’s definitely part of it. I just wanted an environment where I was going to be pushed, where I had to work and earn every spot, every minute. I definitely got that at Ohio. It was definitely hard to leave, for sure.
BI: You leave Ohio after one year, win a national championship, are super successful. I don’t think anybody could have blamed you if you wanted to go back and make another run with that team, but you end up in Duluth.
What was that process like leaving a championship team to come to Duluth to try to win one back-to-back individually, but with a new program?
Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group
Mobley: That was tricky because — like you said — you could stick it out and try to make another run. You have a good great group of gals again, a lot of talent. I don’t think it was a good fit for me personally, just off-ice. I want an environment where the team is close and where it takes all the gals. I want to be part of the fight, for sure, and I think I missed out on some of that at Ohio. I don’t regret going there, for sure, because I learned a lot about myself as a person and as a player, which I think is really cool. But I wanted a different environment off-ice.
This whole thing, I’m trying to still figure it out. Like I said before, I’m really glad that I ended up here because this has all of that. It has the gals off the ice, which is they’re great. On-ice is just the same thing. You got to work and earn everything. It was just more that culture piece, where I wanted something different that way.
Check out the full episode for more from Holm and Mobley. You can find the Bulldog Insider Podcast at
DuluthNewsTribune.com/BulldogInsider
, and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop Thursdays throughout the UMD men’s and women’s hockey seasons.