Trinity men's hockey is back on the ice after the holiday break with an unbeaten NESCAC record and hopes for another NCAA tournament appearance.
Those are two things their newest addition behind the bench is plenty familiar with even if at first glance the rest might seem a big out of place.
“I was always the only girl in the rink for the most part as a kid so it's very comfortable for me,” said Kim Weiss, a first-year assistant coach with the Trinity Men’s hockey program. “It's not abnormal to be involved in the men's game, I played with boys growing up, I played with men during the summers in my college career.”
Those are just a few of the reasons Weiss is right at home coaching a men’s hockey team. Another: she’s back at her alma mater - Weiss played for the Bantams’ women’s hockey team from 2007 to 2011.
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Then, she earned All-NCAA honors, all-conference honors and helped the Bants women’s program to its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance.
Now, she’s making history once again as the first full-time female assistant coach in the DIII men's hockey game.
“A lot of people talk about the little girls getting to see a woman on the bench and they can dream of that,” said Weiss, but added, there’s an impact on everyone. “It's just normalizing career paths for everyone. For our young men if they want to go do something that might be untraditional, they've seen somebody do that and for young women they can do the same thing.”
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Weiss coached men’s junior hockey in Maryland before joining Trinity. She’s also part of the NHL Coaches Association Female Coaches Program, which provides mentorship opportunities.
Last September, she visited the Colorado Avalanche training camp and picked up skills and drills to bring back to her team in Hartford.
