Female coach nets NHL first in desert
Dawn Braid made history when it was announced she had been hired as the Arizona Coyotes’ skating coach — becoming the NHL’s first female full-time coach.
Braid’s hiring follows similar firsts in the NBA, where the Spurs made Becky Hammon the first female fulltime coach in 2014, and the NFL, where the Bills did the same with Kathryn Smith in January. Smith’s hiring followed Jen Welter with the Arizona Cardinals on a multi-week internship last year, making her the NFL’s first female position coach.
“I’m very excited about this opportunity with the Coyotes,” Braid said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to working with (Coyotes head coach) Dave Tippett and his coaching staff and all the great players in the organization.
“It’s something that I’ve wanted to see happen. The fact that they respect what I do enough to name me as a full-time coach, or to name me as the first female coach in the NHL, I take a ton of pride in that. I’ve worked very hard for this opportunity. It’s been going on for years and I just look forward to going even further with it.”
Braid worked as a part-time instructor for the Coyotes last year, and she previously was a consultant with the Maple Leafs (who have also used former Canadian Olympic figure skater Barb Underhill as an instructor), Ducks, Sabres and Flames. During her time as the director of skating development at Athlete Training Centre in Mississauga, her clients included Islanders star John Tavares.
“Dawn has wanted to put me in to make myself a more powerful and efficient skater,” Tavares told NHL.com in 2012. “Dawn always says, ‘If you didn’t train properly and do the certain things you need to do, you’re not going to be strong enough to do the things I want you to do.’”