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PALM DESERT, CA – As a pre-teen aspiring to play high school football for Paramus Catholic in northern New Jersey, just 10 miles outside of New York City, Brandon Wickett enrolled in workouts at a local sport-specific training facility. His hard work paid off, becoming a linebacker for a school that draws students from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut for its academic excellence.

Unlike other trainees (and their parents) who dreamed of NCAA and NFL or bust, the Coachella Valley Firebirds head strength and conditioning coach was drawn to the concept of becoming a physical therapist. It turned out the P.T. route didn’t appeal to him, but instead, Wickett was inspired to help athletes improve sports performance. A career was born – most decidedly to the benefit of Kraken prospects and potential NHL call-ups, ranging from 2022 second-round draft pick and Firebirds winger Jagger Firkus (working closely with Wickett to get stronger and maintain weight during the season) to veteran forward John Hayden, who was in the lineup for Seattle Tuesday night.

“I was introduced to this type of training for a specific sport at age 11,” said Wickett recently after practice and player workouts for the American Hockey League affiliate were finished. “I loved it and got reintroduced to it after college with a sports performance internship, actually with my first trainer [Mike Nunziato, TNT Training in Paramus, NJ]."

Doing Right by Himself and Kraken/Firebirds

By all accounts, Wickett made the right choice, same for the Kraken and Firebirds organizations, who hired the strength and conditioning coach ahead of the 2023-24 season. By then, Wickett had gained experience and credentials, including as a University of Minnesota intern with the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams and as a sports performance coach with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst men’s NCAA Division I baseball and hockey teams. UMass won the national men’s hockey championship in Wickett’s first full season in 2020-21.

Wickett said Kraken strength and conditioning coach Nate Brookreson was “probably the main selling point for coming here, just the knowledge and background he has and providing me with the guidance I needed professionally.” Brookreson and protégé Wickett talk a least once or twice, sometimes more, during the NHL/AHL seasons to cover individual progress reports, how the overall group is doing at the Coachella Valley training center and “the weight room atmosphere.”

“'B Wick' always has a plan for every prospect in our system,” said Brookreson on the current Kraken road trip. “He uses data to inform his process and holds them accountable daily. He challenges status-quo thinking and pushes players to get the most out of themselves.”

The aforementioned Hayden appreciates Brookreson’s commitment to every player on the Firebirds, each of whom wants to get every last shift out of playing professional hockey. Hayden has been a mainstay in Coachella Valley since the inaugural 2022-23 season while appearing in 11 games with the Kraken over three seasons, and probably more if he didn’t get injured right before the 2023 playoffs.

Keeping It Personal and Professional

“He’s a very detailed guy,” said Hayden about Wickett following Tuesday’s morning skate in Pittsburgh. “It's hard sometimes in a team setting to be hands-on individually because you're managing what, 30 guys? He does a really good job of having individual meetings and personalizing programs. That really matters because no two athletes are the same. It’s been a great experience.”

For his part, Wickett said he admires and welcomes veteran role models like Hayden, captain Max McCormick and Cale Fleury [“he’s hopping on the exercise bike for 40 minutes after a game mid-week to make sure he gets his training and the younger guys know he plays two times the minutes they do. It’s objective information.”]

Hayden proves modest about his workout diligence but glowing about a fellow teammate: “I mean, I'm not going to get by on just skill [smiling]. It has always been something that's mattered to me, including off-season being in the gym. Our [training] room all starts with Max McCormick. He's in the gym as much as anyone, taking care of his body and working out. There’s definitely a trickle-down effect.”

State-of-the-Art Training – and Tracking

Both Wickett and Brookreson credit the Kraken and Firebirds organizations and investors for affording the construction of world-class training centers in both Seattle and the southern California desert. One practical outcome is that prospects and other potential NHL call-ups are accustomed to the equipment, training center layouts and standard operating procedures of the parent club. Similar to how Coachella Valley and Seattle deploy similar systems of play on the ice, the strength coaches look to replicate.

“I want to make sure I'm conscious of that, especially from a developmental framework,” said Wickett. “We want the guys to become comfortable environmentally in a space they're going to essentially see in Seattle.”

Wicket said, “We get a good amount of objective information from the development camps and rookie camps that our prospects are part of, plus those in the main training camps.”

From there, input from the Kraken player development and scouts [in the case of recent draft choices] communicates prospects strengths and areas to address.” Wickett said it adds up to “a clear picture of where we need to go [in training].”

Holding players accountable to their workout schedules is a vital component of Wickett’s work. He is fastidious about his own note-taking and has assembled a self-reporting system the players are expected to follow. Each player has expectations to meet each week.

“We’ll usually have a type of sheet out on the floor that requires guys to fill out the weights that they lifted, the power they produce on the bike, or the speed that they run at,” said Wickett. “If that gets missed, there's a second layer, which can be helpful when we're at a busy place in the game schedule. One reason is we want to get objective pieces of information based on specific times of the year. It’s almost like an attendance check with self-reporting from each player on a daily basis.

“I take notes on every guy, every single day, about conversations we’ve had, things we’ve changed in training and any modifications in the weight room, plus any points that we need to be focused on going forward.”

Brookreson said the entire Kraken hockey operations benefit from Wickett’s pipeline of notes: “B Wick is a problem solver, always seeking to be a better practitioner. His level of communication and note-taking is the best I’ve been around in the profession. Without being there with the Firebirds players, we have a high degree of knowledge about how the day-to-day process is going for all of them.”