ASU Women’s Hockey: Devils led by fully female coaching staff

(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)

The Arizona State women’s club hockey team is unique in many ways. However, one that isn’t mentioned often is the women behind the bench for the Sun Devils.

These women take time out of their busy schedules including other jobs, to come to Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe twice a week for morning practices and games on the weekends.

Coaching is one of the most important aspects of any sport. Without a coach, it would be a difficult time for a team to hold itself together.

Hockey, a mostly male dominated sport, can and will be coached by women. For example, when ASU played Colorado University a few weeks ago, the team was led by a male coach and assisted by a female coach.

However, the Sun Devils’ three coaches are all female including their head coach, Lindsey Ellis.

Many people do not know that Ellis almost single handily put the women’s club hockey team together by herself. At the beginning, she was not even majoring in anything related to coaching.

“Originally, I didn’t want to go into coaching and I had to do an internship in college and I interned over at CAHA (Coyotes Amateur Hockey Development) with the youth hockey development and that’s when I kind of decided what I wanted to do and then senior year I added a double major in coaching,” said Ellis.

After coaching back in Miami, Ohio for the Junior Redhawks team everything fell into place for Ellis to coach at ASU.

Last season, Ellis hired assistant coach and goaltending coach Kaley Marino. Marino played in the same program as Ellis, but was on the older team.

From the Phoenix area, Marino went out of state to play college hockey at St. Nortbert College in Wisconsin. She was previously a goalie coach for the Lady Coyotes, a local team in Phoenix.

“After I graduated from college in 2014, I knew that I wanted to somehow get back to the sport again in a coaching role just to be a part of a team again,” said Marino.

She was simply a goalie coach for the Lady Coyotes for about two years before hearing what Ellis was trying to put together at ASU.

“I found out that Lindsey was trying to create the ASU women’s hockey team, so I had reached out to her and just told her ‘Hey, if you need any help with the goalies let me know’ and she was just happy to hear I could help out with the goalies, so that kind of brought me on to ASU,” Marino explained.

The third woman who makes up the coaching staff for the Sun Devils is assistant coach Katie McGovern, who is in her first season with the team.

McGovern and Ellis had previously played together on youth teams in Arizona. Before coming to ASU to coach, McGovern played at Minnesota-Duluth for four years.

“I think they (the players) are comfortable with me, with just being a good role model and seeing that I can do it and their female also so knowing that they have the potential to do something like I can,” said McGovern.

All the women have had positive support from their family and friends when they took on their coaching roles. For Marino, she felt like she was entering the “family business” because her father is also a goaltending coach.

Ellis also had tremendous support from her family and friends when she took on the task to build a program at Arizona State.

The three of them all mentioned how those around them who supported their decision to coach even show up to the women’s club games to support the team and the coaches.

“My family comes to the games,” said Marino. “My mom comes and my grandmas came to the breast cancer awareness game, my cousins, my brother, my husband comes, so it’s definitely a family affair still.”

The world of sports is ever changing and that can include the coaching side as well. More women coaches are stepping up to the plate whether they coach at a youth level or collegiate level.

Marino even mentioned when she was at a recent coaching seminar that Kristen Wright had a presentation in a male dominated room. It’s the little wins for women in coaching that help fellow women who are interested in coaching to reach the level that they would like to.

“I’d push more girls to get into coaching, especially at the youth level. Especially here in Arizona you don’t see any woman coaches at the youth level so I encourage any girl to coach,” said Ellis.

 

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