Veale bringing experience, knowledge to new role as Sault College women's hockey coach

There will be a familiar face in a new position behind the bench of the Sault College women’s hockey team when the season opens up in the fall.

After spending a season with the team as an assistant coach, Brianne Veale takes over as head coach of the team as it prepares for American Collegiate Hockey Association action next season.

Veale takes over for Chad Mousseau and is looking forward to the opportunity.

“The team was looking to add a female coach on their bench (for last season) so I took the role of being an assistant coach, which was great, and when the position became available as head coach, it was something that I was obviously interested in,” Veale said. “After the season that I had last year in being able to connect with the players and some of the other coaches and the athletic department, it seemed like it was going to be a good fit.”

Veale, who competed as a player at Brock University and has served as a hockey camp instructor overseas in Sweden as well as serving as the head instructor of the Northern Elite Female Hockey Academy locally, feels that a female coach who is close to the same age as the players will be an asset.

“It’s great to have not only a female coach, but someone who is relatively close in age,” Veale said. “I know exactly what they’ve gone through. I know the programs they’ve been raised to go through, whether they’ve played boy’s hockey or girl’s hockey. I know how hard it is for them to decide to play a sport while going to college. It’s not an easy decision.”

With the early success of the men’s program, the hockey teams have started to become the flagship teams in Sault College athletics and have received plenty of support along the way.

The importance of the support from the school is key in building the program as they look to take it to a new level.

“It’s been a goal of mine to not only grow, but promote female hockey in Sault Ste. Marie,” Veale said. “Having an athletic department that is wanting to give you whatever resources you need and help and support you in order to have our athletes compete at the highest level is amazing. That’s the type of leadership you want. It really helps our coaching staff moving forward and the players are going to see that too that we’re looking to take this team to the next level.”

Veale added that the ultimate goal is to enjoy similar success that the men’s team has had in its first two seasons of ACHA action.

“The men’s team did it very quickly and I can’t say it’s going to happen overnight for us, but there’s no doubt that we want to be in the same position they are,” Veale said.

After her playing career at Brock, Veale spent time as a student recruiter for the school. That experience will be a help as she looks to be part of the recruiting process for potential players at Sault College.

“It’s something I’ve always loved doing,” Veale said. “Now, I get to go all in with talking about hockey and my main passion. And on top of that, I can talk about the academic side of it. Now I get to fully immerse the conversation to be about sports.”

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made things difficult in terms of meetings and getting prepared for the 2020-21 season, but Veale did say things are moving forward.

“It’s definitely making things interesting,” Veale said. “I’m eager to get things started and have a lot happen virtually right now. We’re setting up coaches’ meetings already. I plan on speaking with all of our recruits as well as our returning players that we’ve committed to and getting them set up with any workout programs that we can to prep them for the fitness testing whenever the season is able to start. We just take advantage of what we have. We’re able to do a lot of stuff online. We can even do workouts based on whatever they have at home. We’ll be able to personalize each of their programs to fit whatever it is that they have.”

The women’s coaching staff will also include assistant coaches Danny Lambert, Vanessa Rota, and Jessica Fabbro. The staff will also include Shannon Clement, who will act as a consultant.

Rick Webb will serve as the general manager for the team.

(Full disclosure: On top of being a fantastic hockey coach and mentor, Brianne is also an account strategist at Village Media, SooToday's Sault-based parent company)