Reliable pipeline in danger for Syracuse after departure of National Sports Academy coach
Brittney Krebs likes to think she started a pipeline of sorts when she committed to Syracuse out of the National Sports Academy.
That decision has since helped to spawn the arrival of junior Kaillie Goodnough and freshman Elizabeth Scala to come play for the Orange.
“Kaillie was actually my roommate (at NSA), and she came, and we talked a lot through it,” Krebs, a senior, said. “And (Scala) talked to her about it, so it was kind of a pipeline.”
That pipeline has helped Syracuse the past four years and given hope that several more players will come in the near future. It may be in jeopardy, though, because of NSA head coach Bill Ward’s recent departure from the program.
The NSA is a highly competitive winter sports schooling and training program located in Lake Placid, N.Y. The school specializes in training luge, skiing, and boy’s and girl’s hockey players.
For the three SU players, playing at NSA gave them a glimpse of the challenges of balancing competitive hockey and an education.
Scala said she would have to walk to practice every morning in negative-20 degree weather, before attending classes in the afternoon from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“It was really sports-oriented,” Scala said. “We would leave on Wednesdays or Thursdays, and our teachers would understand if we didn’t get our work done because we were playing all weekend.”
Syracuse head coach Paul Flanagan said his relationship with Ward helped him originally recruit Krebs and allowed him to keep coming back to try and sign players.
“It’s certainly one of the places that elite players tend to migrate to,” Flanagan said. “It’s really just another one of a handful of schools that cater to hockey players.”
Scala, who scored a goal in Syracuse’s lone preseason game, said a lot of her NSA teammates have already reached out to her about playing at Syracuse.
But while there is some interest from current NSA players to come and compete for the Orange, the pipeline might be at risk of suffering a dent. Ward, NSA’s coach for 11 years, left the school two weeks ago, Flanagan said. It may prove to be a recruiting hurdle for the SU head coach.
“Unfortunately he’s not there anymore,” Flanagan said. “Now does that hinder any future recruiting? Right now we’re not recruiting anyone off that team for next year, but they have some pretty good young players. We have that identification with the school, and so much of it is that relationship with the coach.”
If the NSA channel does eventually fall through, Syracuse may have others to fall back on. The Orange has two other pairs of players that both went to the same high school.
Cara Johnson and Kallie Billadeau both attended Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minn., while Akane Hosoyamada and Jessica Sibley both graduated from Warner Hockey School in Alberta, Canada. Flanagan said that the reason Sibley came to Syracuse was because Hosoyamada was an icon at Warner, and when Sibley visited it was all but a done deal.
“With any program, when you get a little bit of a pipeline going, your best advertisement is if someone is here and having a good experience,” Flanagan said. “They pass that information along.
“Those kinds of things, whether it’s Warner or NSA or any of those schools, you try and build on that pipeline for sure.“
