Ottawa Charge Sign First-Round Pick Vivian Jungels
The 11th overall pick signed a one-year PWHL agreement after four seasons and three national titles at Wisconsin.
The Ottawa Charge have signed defender Vivian Jungels to a one-year Professional Women’s Hockey League Standard Player Agreement for the 2026-27 season, the team announced Wednesday.
Jungels, 22, was Ottawa’s first selection in June’s draft, taken 11th overall and first of six players selected by the Charge. The Edina, Minnesota, native won three NCAA national championships at the University of Wisconsin.
Across four seasons with the Badgers, Jungels recorded 75 points (19 goals, 56 assists) in 162 games, including 21 points in 39 games in 2025-26. She finished her college career with a plus-218 rating, an all-time program high, and led Wisconsin in blocked shots in each of the past two seasons, totaling 118 in 80 games.
Charge general manager Mike Hirshfeld praised Jungels’ skating, hockey sense and ability to move the puck out of the defensive zone. He said he expects the defender to “have an impact right away.”
Jungels played alongside Caroline “KK” Harvey on Wisconsin’s blue line. She will also reunite in Ottawa with former Badgers teammate Sarah Wozniewicz, with whom she played for three seasons and won two national titles.
Before college, Jungels won the 2022 Ms. Minnesota Hockey Award as the state’s top female high-school senior and helped Edina High win state championships in 2019 and 2021. She scored 156 points in 101 regular-season high-school games and represented the United States in the Collegiate Series against Canada from 2023 through 2025.
Ottawa now has 19 players under contract, including 16 returnees. Jungels joins a defence group featuring Ronja Savolainen, Jocelyne Larocque, Kathryn Reilly, Emma Greco, Brooke Hobson and Vita Poniatovskaia.
