CWHL Website

TROY, N.Y. – Sonja van der Bliek and Whitney Naslund, both of whom played ice hockey at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), were taken in the recently held Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL) Draft. van der Bliek, a goaltender who graduated in May, was chosen 24th overall by Brampton. Naslund, a forward who earned her degree in 2010, was selected with the 63rd choice by Boston.

The CWHL is a six-team league that began in May 2007 with the purpose to allow elite level players the opportunity to play after college and continue to work toward Olympic and National Team goals. With teams in Alberta, Burlington (Ontario), Montreal and Toronto, in addition to Brampton (Ontario) and Boston, it is North America's largest professionally run elite women's hockey league.

van der Bliek, a native of Toronto, Ont., established 14 school records in her four years at Rensselaer, finishing with a 52-50-15 record, a 2.12 goals against average and a .915 save percentage. Among the standards she set were career marks in games played (117) and started (115) by a goalie, wins, saves (2662), minutes (7033:28) and shutouts (17). Among her single season records are games played (35) and started (35), wins (18), saves (820), minutes (2173:20) and shutouts (7).

Throughout her career van der Bliek was the team's Most Valuable Player twice, including after the 2008-09 season when the Engineers advanced to the ECAC Hockey Tournament Championship Game. She was an All-Tournament Team honoree that season. She also earned the league's Goalie of the Week award five times, garnered Weekly Honor Roll recognition 14 times and was ECAC Hockey All-Academic twice.

Naslund, the school's all-time leader in career games played with 142, was the ECAC Hockey Rookie of the Week twice and Player of the Week once. She earned Weekly Honor Roll accolades eight times and was once an All-League honoree. She was also on the 2009 ECAC Hockey All-Tournament Team and was All-Academic four times.

The Bloomington, Minn., native concluded her career with 105 points on 50 goals and 55 assists. She had 14 power play goals, nine game-winning goals and 80 penalty minutes. Naslund led the Engineers in goals, assists and points in two seasons each, and ranked second on the team in goals once, assists once and points twice.