Magnificent Seven

While fans eagerly await the arrival of Seattle Kraken players during the next nine to 12 months, the team's hockey operations group is already filling out its lineup. GM Ron Francis announced seven new hires Wednesday to make sure all is ready for that inaugural team and season.
Four of the roles represent specialized leaders who are building blocks for any successful hockey franchise: Head athletic trainer Michael Booi, head strength and conditioning coach Nate Brookreson, head equipment manager Jeff Camelio and head video analyst Tim Ohashi. To fortify the effort, Francis tabbed a former teammate turned highly-respected training expert, Gary Roberts, as the Kraken's sports science and performance consultant.
Alexandra Mandrycky, Kraken director of hockey strategy and research, announced two additions to the team's hockey analytics group, with Eric Mathiasen, hockey operations developer and John Mavroudis, hockey operations data engineer.
"Today marks another milestone for the Kraken as we bring on core components of the hockey operations staff," said Francis. "Each individual brings years of experience and a desire to make us a great hockey franchise."

When Mike Booi moved from the Arizona Coyotes to the Washington Capitals in a similar assistant trainer role for the 2017-18 NHL season, there turned out to be one major differentiator. The Capitals won the Stanley Cup in that first season. In the traditional "Day with the Cup" summer tour for the title-winning hockey operations staff, Booi brought the hallowed trophy to his hometown of Lake Odessa, MI (about halfway between Grand Rapids and East Lansing).
All sorts of friends and family visited his parents' house in what Booi desired to be a low-key celebration for an athletic trainer who worked his way up through professional hockey levels of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL), American Hockey League (AHL) and NHL. But Seattle's new head athletic trainer-"very exciting, a dream job"-did bring a touching mix of humor and sentiment to the day: He and his wife, Laura, took daughter Hayes ("now three-and-a-half") for her first-ever dish of ice cream. The dish? The Stanley Cup. The ice cream? From the local Dairy Queen, the very same store where Booi worked his first-ever job.
Booi will work in collaboration with the team's medical staff to implement the organization's injury prevention, maintenance and recovery programs for all Kraken players, along with overseeing the athletic training staff. He says his ECHL, AHL and NHL jobs have included some "really good seasons on good teams" and, well, some klunkers. He is a believer in "championship culture" in which "egos are checked at the door and nobody is better than anyone else." The father of two (son Casey is 15 months old) sees building out the Kraken athletic training staff as all about "hiring the right people" who fit the championship culture (which he observed first-hand with Capitals and also with the NFL Chicago Bears for the 2006 season when the storied franchise made it to the Super Bowl for just the second time). Booi is enthusiastic about the Kraken's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion for hiring: "All it takes is getting that one chance."

When Kraken assistant general manager Ricky Olczyk was in Seattle earlier this year for meetings, he visited with members of the Seattle Seahawks strength and conditioning staff, in part because of the team's long-term success and performance. Olczyk discussed how the Kraken aspires to be a cutting-edge organization for instilling strength and conditioning as fundamental to winning, asking for any referrals.
One name offered up was Brookreson, who knows several Seahawks staffers from his work in college sports (and attending professional conferences) plus his football playing days at Central Washington. Olczyk reported back to Ron Francis that one candidate was stationed in Raleigh, NC-where Brookreson worked as strength and conditioning coach for Olympic sports ("water sports, court sports, field sports") and Francis still has a home. The Kraken GM seized the opportunity to meet Brookreson in person, while Seattle's new head strength and conditioning coach was happy "just to be having coffee with a legend." The coffee conversations turned into job discussions..
"I'm so excited for the opportunity," says Brookreson. "In all of my conversations with other strength and conditioning coaches, what comes back the most is hockey players are the most humble and hardworking in sports. They want to get better. I look forward to getting to know the players and their backgrounds."
Brookreson and his wife, Kelsey, grew up in Lacey, meeting in high school. They have roots here. Kelsey's parents live in Puyallup; Brookreson's dad lives in Fircrest, a brother lives in Tumwater and sister in Olympia. Their boys, Blaise, 8 ("born in Spokane") and Brock, 6, ("one inspiration for the name is [ex-UW quarterback] Brock Huard") are learning the sport by playing the league's official video game and sifting through the hockey trading cards bought for them. When asked who of all relatives was most happy when he called to give the good news about the Kraken job, Brookreson didn't hesitate: "Oh, definitely my in-laws. When we left the state in 2013, I sat down to explain my career might not take us back this way. They're happy, really happy."

Twenty-two years ago, 21-year-old Jeff Camelio was about to start his first season as head equipment manager with the South Carolina Stingrays. But he detoured for a couple weeks when long-time mentor Pete Rogers called to invite Camelio to assist in the first training camp for the Nashville Predators expansion team. Camelio, who began working for Rogers as a 14-year-old in Rochester, NY, was hired in Nashville seven years later.
Camelio comes into his first head equipment manager position for an NHL team with 15 seasons and 1,700 NHL games under his belt assisting Rogers in Nashville. He is already purchasing equipment and thinking about how to deck out the Kraken Training Center at Northgate and the players' locker room at Climate Pledge Arena. He's had a few pinch-me moments already: "This is a dream come true," he says. "When I started out filling water bottles in Rochester and getting to go on road trips as a kid, I didn't dare think it would come about. I have one of only 32 jobs like this is the world. It's hard to put into words."
His big break came at the start of the 2019-20 season when long-time Predators General Manager David Poile tipped off Camelio that Seattle GM Ron Francis would be in town to scout. Poile asked if Camelio wanted an introduction, which turned into a 30-minute sitdown and ultimately his new role with the Kraken.
Camelio says the game has changed during the 15 seasons in Nashville: "The players are more in tune with what they need with nutrition, shakes and the right foods. They are more specific about the types of sticks and skates they want. My job is to take care of every player's needs. They're all important from the first-line center to the fourth-line grinding winger."

Graduating from Bates College in Lewiston, ME, Tim Ohashi planned to be a middle-school math teacher. Then a major back issue caused him to return to his parents' home in Bethesda, MD, to await back surgery. His mother and his girlfriend (now fiancé) urged him to maybe quell his restlessness by taking some sports management graduate courses at Georgetown University. The lightbulb clicked on for Ohashi's career.
"I was the kid who didn't want to watch cartoons, I just wanted to watch sports," says Ohashi. "Or I wanted to go outside and play sports, especially ball hockey...When I was five or six, my cousins from Minnesota came to town for Christmas. They took me to a Capitals game, which I loved. The sports management classes brought it all back."
Ohashi earned a master's degree in the process, along with an internship with newly hired coach Barry Trotz and the Washington coaching staff. Ohashi got to know Trotz, who of course helped the Caps and superstar Alex Ovechkin win a Stanley Cup and also talked glowingly about working for an expansion franchise in Nashville.
"That has always stuck with me," says Ohashi, who will work closely with hockey operations staff, including scouts and coaches, to provide insight and prepare video analysis of Kraken players and opponents. "Working for an expansion team is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Ohashi admits to thinking about working for the Seattle NHL organization as soon as the team's ownership group was awarded the league's 32nd franchise. One added reason: His fiancé, Nicole Kahn, grew up in Seattle as a huge Mariners and Seahawks fan.
Capitals players will miss Ohashi's meticulous work as a video analyst-along with Ohashi's father, Kenichi. The elder Ohashi was on his first "Mentor's Trip" in 2017, traveling first to St. Louis, Dallas and Tampa Bay. To help motivate the team, Tim promised that if the team won in Tampa, his dad would do 100 pushups. The players, including Tom Wilson and Mt. Vernon native T.J. Oshie were intrigued because they heard Kenichi Ohashi was a 5th degree black belt in the Japanese martial art, shorinji kempo. The Capitals won in overtime and the rest is

.

Gary Roberts played 21 seasons in the NHL before becoming a leading expert in training NHL players and prospects for peak performance. He won a Stanley Cup and appeared in three All-Star games. He trains any number of the NHL's player, who make their way to the Gary Roberts High Performance Centre in Toronto. In his capacity as sports, science and performance consultant to the Kraken, Roberts will work to provide the Kraken Training Center and team infrastructure with the proper equipment and systems in place to enable Kraken players to perform at their highest potential.
On his website, Roberts explains how evolved from hockey player to performance expert:
"My inspiration to start Gary Roberts HPT has grown out of my own journey to regenerate myself after I suffered a serious neck injury that forced me to retire from the NHL in 1996 after 10 seasons. After two neck surgeries and with the assistance of many experts, I embarked on a program that combined specialized training, proper nutrition, rehabilitative therapies and recovery strategies. It was this integrated routine that enabled me to resume my career for another 12 years.
"Now my passion is sharing what I've learned with players, alongside an elite team of training, nutrition and sports therapy professionals, to teach them how to effectively prepare to play in a way that gives them a chance at longevity in the game. My hope is that they will be able to avoid many of the challenges that can arise in professional sports or at least be as prepared as they can be to overcome them."

Growing up in British Columbia, you would expect Eric Mathiasen to be a Vancouver Canucks fan. But a cousin he admired was devoted to the Edmonton Oilers, inspiring the Kraken's new hockey operations developer to do the same despite a family brimming with avid Canucks fans.
"I'm looking forward to the Kraken's rivalry with Vancouver," says Mathiasen, who qualifies as a skilled developer who joins the Seattle NHL franchise from a most recent senior technical designer position at Microsoft but most certainly wins additional points for his childhood fandom decision. "It's exciting to be involved in the early stages of a new NHL franchise, and being able to use my skill set to help our hockey operations group construct a team.
"We are building a platform that will allow us to visualize our team's in-depth analytical data, scouting reports and player statistics. The goal is to create a 'one-stop shop' for our staff and coaches that puts all of the data needed to supplement decisions around drafting, trades, strategy and scouting at their fingertips."
"What most people may consider staff on an 'analytics' team would be the analysts," says Alexandra Mandrycky, Kraken director of hockey strategy and research. "But as the Kraken built our research and development team, we prioritized the technology side of things just as much as the analysis. Eric is charged with making all of our data and analysis easily accessible to members of the hockey operations department. The tools and applications Eric has developed have already become ingrained in our processes."

When Kraken hockey operations data engineer John Mavroudis attended his first San Jose Sharks game as a six-year-old, his parents likely knew their son was about to become a lifelong hockey fan. What Mom, Dad and son didn't know is it would lead to an exciting career. Mavroudis joins the Kraken's growing analytics team, coming from a position as technical program manager, data engineering at Hellosign, which is a Dropbox company.
"Growing up in the East Bay [San Francisco], access to rinks was pretty difficult," says Mavroudis. "I never had the opportunity to play, but I became an astute student of the game: I watched it, participated in fantasy hockey and even made some good friends through the EA NHL game series... now I get to think about hockey all day "
Mavroudis equally loves a startup culture-handy for expansion teamwork-and data engineering. He explains the latter and how he can help the Kraken hockey analytics team: "In the most basic sense I collect all the messy data that exists out in the hockey world about players, games, leagues, team, etc. Then I design and build the software for our team to gather, organize and label all of that data. Sort of like how a librarian organizes a library, I organize hockey information into databases for our analysts to analyze."
"John is integral to our processes, says his boss, Alexandra Mandrycky. "As a data engineer, he takes our numerous data sources and turns them into something usable for our analysts as well as our various stakeholders. He then works with the analysts to incorporate their work back into our data warehouse."