Patty Kazmaier Award

When Casey O’Brien was younger, she put pictures of her hockey goals up on the wall of her childhood closet. The pictures helped motivate her and remind her of what she was working towards. 

As of Saturday morning, there were only two pictures left up on that wall — an Olympic gold medal and the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award. When she next heads home to Milton, Massachusetts, she’ll be able to pull one picture down.

O’Brien won the 2025 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award on Saturday afternoon at a ceremony that took place on the campus of the University of Minnesota, as part of the women’s Frozen Four weekend. 

“It's emotional. You dream of all these things, but you never know if it's really going to happen, if it's realistic,” O’Brien said. “I put in so many hours of work with my teammates, with coaches at home. For it to pay off and to see the results, it's a pretty special thing.”

O’Brien is the 28th winner of the award and the sixth winner from the University of Wisconsin, joining Sara Bauer (2006), Jessie Vetter (2009), Meghan Duggan (2011), Brianna Decker (2012) and Ann-Renée Desbiens (2017).

The Patty Kazmaier Award is annually presented to the top player in NCAA Division I women’s ice hockey. Selection criteria include outstanding individual and team skills, sportsmanship, performance in the clutch, personal character, competitiveness and a love of hockey. Consideration is also given to academic achievement and civic involvement.

O’Brien’s teammates Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards were the two other finalists for the award, making this the second time in history that the finalists were all from the same team. 

Though there could have been competition or resentment among the three, O’Brien said she and her teammates were joking and laughing throughout the ceremony and there would have been no hard feelings no matter who had won. 

“I think every one of us wanted the other two to win,” O’Brien said. “It was this cool thing where everyone was just going to be happy no matter who it was. We really didn’t care who it was, we were all just happy that it was coming back to Wisconsin.”

A co-captain on this year’s Badgers team, O’Brien has focused on winning the national championship since the first day of the season and has mostly ignored the various records she broke along the way, often using the phrase “we before me.” 

Even in the immediate aftermath of the announcement that she won the Patty Kazmaier, she deflected attention from herself and focused on Sunday’s game. 

“I'm playing with some of the best players in the country, so it can't be a bad season when you're playing with them,” she said. “I went into this year with the mindset that this is the last time I’m going to be in the Badgers jersey, so I can't take a single game for granted. The numbers came about from being consistent. I wasn't really focused on the records or anything individual. I was just doing what I could to help the team win. I've tried not to focus too much on any of that individual stuff.”

She capped off a dream weekend by winning the national championship with the Badgers on Sunday, completing the best season in Wisconsin history with a 38-1-2 record. 

In her acceptance speech, O’Brien thanked head coach Mark Johnson and Wisconsin assistants Jackie Crum, Dan Koch and Mark Greenhalgh, saying, “Thank you for assembling this ridiculous roster and for including me on it.”

Now a three-time national champion, O’Brien earned WCHA Forward of the Year and Player of the Year honors in 2025. She was a first-team All-American selection in 2024 and 2025. 

O’Brien led the country with 88 points and 62 assists. Those numbers are among the best in NCAA women’s hockey history. Her 88 points tied Jenny Potter (2003) and Alex Carpenter (2016) for seventh most in NCAA history. Her 62 assists are the third-most ever, trailing only Natalie Darwitz (2005) and Jennifer Botterill (2003).

She set a new Wisconsin record for points in a season with her goal in the national semifinal on Friday, surpassing Meghan Duggan’s 87 points in 2011. She also set her program’s record for both career points (274) and career assists (177) this season. 

The 62 assists broke her previous school record of 50, which she set last season. O’Brien also passed Mike Eaves to become the highest point scorer in the history of Badger hockey. 

Offseason wrist surgery put this season in jeopardy for O’Brien, but hard work in the offseason rehabbing that injury had her ready when the first puck dropped and she did not look back. In an era where so many NCAA scoring records seem untouchable, O’Brien clawed her way into the records books and in doing so, led the Badgers to their eighth national championship. 

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.