When gamers got here to the rink in Ottawa for the second day of Skilled Girls’s Hockey League (PWHL) coaching camp on Thursday, they bought to spend a lot of the day speaking about the way to construct their crew tradition.
That included working with the crew’s psychological efficiency coach, Brenley Shapiro.
Having a sports activities psychologist on employees is widespread in a league just like the NHL, however hasn’t been commonplace on the earth of girls’s hockey, the place the record of employees has historically been razor skinny.
It is a method Ottawa basic supervisor Mike Hirshfeld is attempting to make his crew stand out from the pack of six, as he builds a crew from scratch in a world the place all his opponents share the identical proprietor and sources. Every crew bought a finances to rent employees, and the way they’ve chosen to spend that cash differs throughout the league.
Hirshfeld was the crew’s first worker when his hiring was introduced in September. Seventy-four days later, the crew now has about 15 employees on the payroll, not together with the 29 gamers who’re at coaching camp this week.
“We need to be the very best crew within the league,” the GM stated.
“We need to present our gamers with as many sources as we will to assist them succeed and assist them flourish. We’re very conscientious in regards to the crew that we constructed behind the crew.”
On the ice, Hirshfeld has prioritized talent, grit and gamers who’re good teammates.
When it got here time for the draft, he was the one GM to make use of all of his first three picks on defenders, choosing Savannah Harmon, Ashton Bell and Jincy Roese, who’ve all logged time with their international locations’ nationwide groups. He acknowledged the expertise pool on defence was prone to empty sooner than the pool of expert forwards.
Collaboration a key phrase for GMs
Hirshfeld’s path to being a basic supervisor of an expert hockey crew did not simply weave via ice rinks, but in addition baseball fields and boardrooms.
His first cease in Ottawa got here greater than a decade in the past, when he was working for the Ottawa Lynx, a minor league baseball crew that left town in 2007.
He is additionally labored as a lawyer and in finance, and earlier than becoming a member of PWHL Ottawa, served as govt director of the NHL Coaches’ Affiliation for seven years.
However the commonest phrase he makes use of when describing the imaginative and prescient for his crew is collaboration, whether or not that is leaning on head coach Carla MacLeod or different hockey consultants he is introduced in when wanted.
The crew seemed to Jess Campbell, a coach with the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League, for recommendation main as much as the draft. Earlier this week, earlier than gamers arrived in Ottawa to start camp, Claude Julien met with the teaching employees to supply recommendation on operating a coaching camp.
“It is a year-long season that may in the end be a subsequent season and subsequent season,” Hirshfeld stated. “There’s some long-term planning, some short-term planning, some medium-term planning. So we’re attempting to ensure we’re pondering of each eventuality.”
Staff to hit the ice on Friday
A lot of Ottawa’s camp to date been targeted on getting all the brand new faces acquainted with each other, together with a crew scavenger hunt on Thursday.
That feeling out course of strikes to the rink on Friday, when the gamers hit the ice at TD Place for the primary time.
“For us, it is much less about worrying about combos and chemistry proper now and simply who do now we have?” MacLeod, stated.
“You possibly can watch video on gamers, you may see them possibly along with your eye however till you are on the ice with them, till you begin seeing how they naturally play with others, I feel we would be doing a disservice for our group if we did not simply allow them to go play for a bit and see what we see.”
Going into camp, the crew has 17 gamers beneath contract, leaving six roster spots open for 11 gamers who will attempt to fill them. Each crew can have 23 gamers beneath contract, plus two reserve gamers, heading into the primary season.
These 17 contracts Hirshfeld has signed embrace each one of many crew’s draft picks, aside from Caitrin Lonergan, who is not at camp this yr, and Audrey-Anne Veillette, who’s injured.
Though information of the contracts have been filtering out via the PWHL’s social media channels during the last couple weeks, Hirshfeld stated the crew was completed signing gamers about three weeks in the past.
He did not need contract negotiations to be a distraction at coaching camp, however wasn’t the one purpose why he locked up gamers rapidly.
Ottawa’s camp invite record included the names of a few of the greatest free brokers who weren’t drafted, together with former Premier Hockey Federation MVP Mikyla Grant-Mentis and Becca Gilmore, who simply returned from the Rivalry Collection between Canada and the United States. Gilmore was signed to a one-year contract earlier than camp, however Grant-Mentis will likely be vying for one of many obtainable roster spots.
The crew should minimize at the least two gamers from the camp roster by Nov. 29. The crew will then head to Utica, New York, for a number of days of scrimmages towards the opposite 5 groups.
Hirshfeld plans on having his remaining 23-player roster finalized by Dec. 9.
“I feel we will attempt to preserve the very best gamers we will,” Hirshfeld stated. “The combination itself, whether or not it is 12 forwards or 11 forwards or seven or eight [defenders], we’ll simply let it play out and see how individuals carry out.”
When gamers hit the ice Friday, the gamers will likely be beneath analysis. However MacLeod additionally needs to ensure they’re having enjoyable.
“If you can begin to domesticate that, that is simply as essential of a talent as defending a two-on-one,” she stated. “We’ll attempt to construct the totally different aspects of our sport and certainly one of them is enjoyment. We’ll ensure that’s a precedence.”
