Former University of Minnesota Duluth women's alum and assistant coach Michelle McAteer has been named the Western Collegiate Hockey Association's new commissioner, the league announced Thursday.

McAteer moves to the helm of the WCHA after having been the head coach at Augsburg University for the past 14 seasons where she turned in a record of 166-142-36 in her tenure there. Before taking over at Augsburg, McAteer was an assistant coach for the Bulldogs from 2008-2010, where she helped UMD to three-straight NCAA Frozen Fours and capped off her Bulldog coaching career with an NCAA title in 2010.

As a UMD player from 1999-2003, McAteer, a native of Scarborough, Ontario, was a part of three Bulldog teams that remain the only NCAA title three-peat squads in NCAA Division I history in 2001, 2002, 2003. UMD also won regular-season titles in 2000 and 2003, and WCHA playoff titles in 2000, 2001 and 2003. A two-year alternate captain for the Bulldogs over the 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons, McAteer finished her 136 game career with 35 goals and 32 assists for 67 points. 

McAteer was named the team's Most Valuable Player after the 2001-02 season, and was a three time WCHA All-Academic Team and AWHCA All-American Scholar selection (2001, 2002, 2003). McAteer was the first Bulldog to earn a WCHA Postgraduate Scholarship, securing the award in 2003.  McAteer obtained a bachelor's degree in communications from UMD in 2003, and then earned her masters degree in speech communication from the University of Wisconsin-Superior while assisting the Bulldogs as a graduate assistant during the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons.