No. 1 Women’s Hockey Conditioned to Win: New Strength and Conditioning Staff Key to Current Season’s Success

The Harvard women’s hockey team’s No. 1 national ranking and 28-1-1 record has been a tribute to more than just the players on the ice and the coaches behind the bench. In fact, two such people are often sitting in the stands. Though the names Sean Hayes and Jodi Nash are never announced when Harvard scores a goal, they are providing the assists for the Crimson every week in the weight room.

Hayes has been Harvard’s first full-time strength and conditioning coordinator for just over a year, and Nash has been Hayes’ full-time assistant since the summer. Together, the two have worked with coaches to produce sport-specific programs for all 41 Harvard varsity teams. Women’s hockey coach Katey Stone said she recognized from the first moments of practice in October the impact the two would have this year.

“The difference is like night and day,” Stone said. “Our kids are in tremendous shape. They’re strong, they are fit, and they are fast, and it is so much a tribute to what they have done for us.”

The team’s record this season speaks for itself. In school history, no Harvard team has won more games convincingly or used more players regularly.

“It is no coincidence that our most successful season is running parallel to a remodeled weight room and strength staff,” said captain Jamie Hagerman. “I don’t think we could thank Sean and Jodi enough.”

The difference was most apparent in the beginning of the season. The Crimson needed just one weekend to break a school consecutive-day record for goals scored with a 13-0 win over Vermont and a 9-2 thrashing of No. 4 Dartmouth.

A week later, Harvard played its third game of the season against then-No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth. The Bulldogs, not subject to Ivy scheduling restrictions, had already played 10 games. Nevertheless, the Crimson proved to be in midseason form with a 2-1 triumph over the two-time defending national champions.

“I can safely say that compared to other falls where we have come back to school for preseason for hockey, this fall we were the most prepared we had ever been,” Hagerman said.

While Hayes said his staff does its best to challenge Harvard’s athletes and help them achieve their goals, he is quick to say that the credit belongs to athletes. They are, after all, the ones doing the exercises. Seven players stayed in the area to work out with Hayes during the summer and that work ethic has carried throughout the season.

“The older kids on this team have set the standard on this team—what extra you do to make sure you’re ready,” Stone said. “We’ve had great commitment to our off-ice training.”

Harvard has its most difficult challenges ahead with the ECAC championship at Brown this weekend and the NCAA championship at Duluth the following weekend. Stone recognizes that the strength and conditioning staff deserves credit for preparing her team.

“The benefits of having a full-time strength and conditioning staff at this university is huge,” Stone said at the outset of the season. “That’s 50 percent of what we do. If we’re successful this year, it’s just as much because of them as because of what we’re doing here.”

Work-out Renaissance

Before Hayes, Harvard’s weight programs lacked structure. Team coaching staffs had the duel burden of instructing their players on the field and in the gym.

“When I came to Harvard in the fall of ’99, the weight room was a skeleton of what it is today,” Hagerman said.

Director of Athletics Bob Scalise named Hayes to the position of Strength and Conditioning Coordinator in January of 2002 to fill a void that was unique to Harvard among Division I programs. Hayes, who possesses undergraduate and graduate degrees from Springfield, had previously worked as an assistant coach at Springfield and D-I Tulsa.

Hayes knew he could not build Harvard’s program by himself, so he begged and pleaded with Harvard for a full-time assistant. Jodi Nash, another Springfield graduate who had worked at five different D-I programs, proved to be the right fit.

“I could not run the program the way it is without Jodi,” Hayes said.

In addition to Jodi, Hayes carries two interns, Scott Lucas and Rick Armstrong. There are now four people to provide assistance when there were none before.

“Every time you walk in, you know exactly what you’re doing,” said captain Angela Ruggiero. “They have at least three people in the gym every time, which is so important to our team, especially to the freshmen who are learning how to lift and do it properly.”

The teams now receive programs specifically suited to their sports. Hayes has instructed the women’s hockey team to perform Olympic lifts to build their explosive power and first-step quickness to the puck.

“They’re strong, very athletic young ladies, and we’re going to challenge them with what we do,” Hayes said. “We’ve got to raise the bar. This is best hockey team in the country. To make them better athletes we’ve got to challenge their bodies with sport-specific programs.”

Because of safety concerns, such difficult programs simply would not be possible without the supervision of the current staff. In Stone’s words, all the programs are gone over with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they are safe.

“They’re not in here without a strength coach,” Hayes said. “We bring them through the program from the warm-up to the core workout to everything they do. It’s fully supervised. We want to create a fun, productive and safe environment.”

Such difficult workouts during the offseason have become more significant as college women’s hockey has become more competitive.

“We’re not the biggest team in the league but we try to play with our strength as opposed to just our raw size,” Ruggiero said. “When you reach those most competitive games, it’s the small but important things that make a difference.”

Thanks to Hayes, Harvard’s strength and conditioning program if finally out of the dark ages.

“[Because] we never had a strength and conditioning coach, I didn’t really know this sort of thing existed, to be honest,” said captain Kalen Ingram.

A Summer to Remember

Ingram, Hagerman and Ruggiero were three of the seven women’s hockey players who worked out with Hayes’ program during the summer, along with a couple dozen football players, a dozen men’s hockey players and a few field hockey players.

The program was demanding, given that it required five days of running, three days of lifting and one day of long-distance running per week, which the women’s hockey players all maintained on top off full-time jobs. Though they had slightly different schedules, they tried to coordinate their arrivals.

“We managed to organize it so we would get their undivided attention,” Ingram said. “One of them would go out and take us through the whole [program]. I would have never thought we could have that experience.”

Hayes praised the dedication of those who worked out with him this summer.

“They knew what their overall goal was,” Hayes said. “They knew they had a chance to be this good. They worked that hard because they wanted to reach that potential.”

The hockey players enjoyed the program so much that they made t-shirts for themselves, Hayes and Nash to commemorate the experience. The front corner of the shirts said “Fat Camp 2002.” The shirts’ backs read “NICE RACK” in big letters—a tribute to the Murr Center weight racks.

“They love our kids—they love to have our kids come in because our kids will work hard and get in there,” Stone said.

Individual Attention

The strength and conditioning staff’s importance comes through in the most difficult of situations.

For example, Hagerman suffered a torn ACL early in her collegiate career, which greatly limited the kind of strengthening programs she could do on her own. For Hayes and Nash, Hagerman’s dysfunctional knee was only a challenge.

Hayes’ staff recommended balance and hamstring work to make sure Hagerman’s knee was stabilized—exercises he likes to call ‘prehab,’ to prevent injuries. Hagerman says the staff is constantly thinking of new ways to strengthen her knee so she can perform at the highest level.

“They stood by me in my decision to play and at the same time did everything in their power to make sure I was strong and stable so that I could help my team in any way possible,” Hagerman said.

Hagerman says, while knocking on wood, that her knee has felt better than it ever has since the injury.

“She’s one of the hardest workers on the team,” Hayes said. “She’s so goal-oriented that you just challenge her with something she’s going to do it.”

Thanks largely to conditioning, the women’s hockey team has escaped this season with just one long-term injury, and an unavoidable one at that. Ingram suffered a thumb fracture when she was hit into the boards by a Dartmouth player in November. The injury kept her off the ice for six weeks but not out of the weight room. Such an injury was just another challenge for Hayes.

“We’re able to develop a program for an injured athlete, because just because you have one injured limb on your body, you still have three healthy limbs,” he said. “You’ve got to train your body throughout your injury. That way when you’re ready to get back on the ice, you’re stronger than you were when you got injured.”

Hayes told Ingram to look at the injury as an opportunity to make herself stronger than anyone else on the ice.

“You’ve got to give her credit for working her butt off,” Hayes said. “This being her senior season, she missed six weeks, she had a great attitude and worked hard and pushed herself right through it.”

Stone has credited the senior class for providing a good example to the team. Hagerman gives credit to Hayes for inspiring the team’s work ethic.

“The first meeting our team had with Sean, he said to us that he doesn’t know who the starters are, and he is not concerned with who gets the most ice time,” Hagerman said. “He insists we are all equals, and he and Jodi have every intention of giving each one of us the same attention”

Part of the Team

The women’s hockey team is most appreciative when they see Hayes and Nash at their games.

“They’re so supportive,” Ruggiero said. “You really feel that they’re part of our team.”

Hayes explains that seeing Harvard teams win—and seeing the women’s hockey team maintain the No. 1 national ranking—is a great source of pride for his staff.

“We want to let our athletes know we’re here to support them, not just in the weight room,” he said. “We’ll drive ourselves to Providence to watch them play. We’ll make sure that our presence is felt because we care.”

Though Hayes takes pride in Harvard victories, he is not going to let that interfere with his duties. The team has invited Hayes to travel to Duluth for the NCAA Frozen Four, but Hayes says he must decline. The flight to Duluth would leave on Wednesday, which would cause him to miss three days of work. The games will, however, be televised.

“I’d love to go but my duties come first,” Hayes said. “Weight room duties come before travel.”

“I would love to have the time in my schedule to go,” he added. “You bet I would.”

While Hayes might not be physically present in Duluth, his impact on the team’s physical strength will not be left behind.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.