Career-best outing for Gabriele propels Dutch through Olympic qualification

Eline Gabriele has been the Netherlands’ starting goaltender for a few seasons now. However, her performance in Sheffield this December at the 2025 Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Qualification Round 3 Group E tournament was a career-best showing.

Allowing just one goal against all tournament (a power play goal), Gabriele posted two shutouts, including a 1-0 overtime win against Great Britain in the final game. She also had a sparkling 98.3 save percentage and 0.33 GAA. The 22-year-old from Zoetermeer, a small city just outside The Hague, was a key component as the Netherlands moved forward in the Olympic qualification process.

“Getting to the next stage here is a chance to put myself before a bigger audience,” said Gabriele. “I’ll have to do my preparations for that tournament. Then I just want to be at my best for the team, like I tried to do this time.”

A young yet experienced goaltender, Gabriele’s journey so far has seen her refine her skills both at home in the Netherlands and in Scandinavia. Just four years ago, she achieved one of her first major goals: playing for the senior Dutch women’s national team. It’s a goal she set while playing with U18 boys’ teams in the Netherlands.“I thought about what I could do when I was too old for [my U18 team], and my goal when I turned 18 was that I really wanted to play for the women’s team,” said Gabriele. “I achieved that goal in the previous Olympic qualification tournament. It was really nice to achieve that. I worked hard for it.”

After two stints U18 women's national team, Gabriele was named to her first senior national team roster in October 2021 for the Round 2 Group H Olympic qualification tournament. It was a vastly different experience from the one she had this time around in Sheffield. She deubted in a 23-0 win over Turkey, in which she faced just two shots, before taking on eventual tournament winners Poland in a tight 3-2 loss for the Dutch.

Just six months later, she was the starting goaltender for the Netherlands at the 2022 IIHF Women’s World Championship Division I Group A. She has played every World Championship game for her country since then.

As her international career took shape, Gabriele looked for opportunities to grow, leaving Hijs Hokij Den Haag II at the age of 20 to play in Sweden in 2022-23, spending time with Almtuna IS and IF Bjorkloven.

“My career was going well in the Netherlands, but in the Netherlands hockey is small,” Gabriele explained. “You’re not on the ice every day and I just missed goaltending. It’s my life. So I decided to go to Sweden and had an amazing time.”

Gabriele helped the Naisten Liiga’s HPK to make the bronze medal game in Finland in 2023-24. She led the team’s goaltending trio (including Finland’s Janika Jarvikari and Canada’s Kassidy Sauve) in games played (16), GAA (1.94) and save percentage (91.3). This season, however, she’s back in the Netherlands after signing with IJCU Dragons Utrecht.

“I learned so much from goalie trainers [in Sweden and Finland], but in the end I decided that I wanted to go back to the Netherlands,” Gabriele said. “I still think I’m getting better, but it’s super hard for a non-hockey country to get scouted.”

The women’s goaltending future is looking bright for the Netherlands with Gabriele at the helm, backed up by 19-year-old Arwen ten Cate, who is also honing her craft with Dutch men’s teams. Aiming to grow ahead of the Olympic qualification tournament in Sheffield, the team brought in goaltending coach Samantha Ridgewell, a former NCAA and PHF goalie who is currently on reserve with the PWHL’s Ottawa Charge.

While rosters have yet to be set, you can expect Gabriele to be back in action with the Dutch national team in February, taking on Sweden, Denmark and Norway for the Women’s Final Olympic Ice Hockey Qualification Group H. Can the Dutch beat the odds as the competition stiffens? Their chances are certainly enhanced with Gabriele’s quality netminding.

“It’s another test and another chance to learn,” said Gabriele. “I’m super-proud for our team, and I think [Olympic progress] is exactly what we need.”