PWHL Boston Looking To Play Style Of Hockey Familiar To Fans

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WELLESLEY, Mass. — PWHL Boston hired general manager Danielle Marmer in September, and they didn’t waste time in presenting her with some pretty daunting tasks.

It’s not like she was entering under normal circumstances. Marmer had to build PWHL Boston from the ground up.

We’ve heard some pretty funny stories about the early days, which we’re not too far removed from. Marmer, along with head coach Courtney Kessel, didn’t just have to worry about roster construction. They had to worry about actual construction, as they designed the locker room and meeting areas at Boston’s practice facility in Wellesley, Mass.

They also had to do the whole hockey thing, deciding what kind of team Boston was going to be, and who would fit their first-ever roster.

“It was an interesting draft process because you’re building a team in one sitting, as opposed to the NHL style where you draft five-to-seven players and you hope that they impact your lineup in three to five years,” Marmer told NESN.com back in November. ‘This was balancing talent and positional needs. We wanted to make sure we had players who want to compete, who are courageous, and who are willing to get into the dirty areas and play a physical style. We want to play fast in transition, and so I think we’ve done a pretty good job of building that team. I’m excited to see them on the ice.”

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Boston wanted to be competitive, physical and fast. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Marmer, who cut her teeth as a scouting assistant with the Boston Bruins, clearly took inspiration from her time down the road at Warrior Ice Arena.

“The culture with the Bruins. That’s the biggest thing that I learned there,” Marmer said. “… The lessons along the way that were instrumental in how I wanted to design our culture and the things that we care about here. A lot of that is stuff that I’ve pulled and learned from down the road.”

It’ll be up to Kessel to help execute that vision, and it looks like she’s on the same page as her partner in crime.

“We want to play a fast, physical game,” Kessel told NESN.com, just days into training camp. “I think we have that up front, and our goaltending is tremendously deep. We might give up a goal or two, but we’ll have the offense to come back and score.”

That, again, sounds a lot like the way the Bruins do things.

Bostonians can do much worse than another team like the B’s, who once again look like one of the best in the NHL. If they’re lucky, and Marmer and Kessel’s vision comes to life, the PWHL squad could look similar.