Cassie mentioned the diffrence stresses in sprinting on and off ice, and we wondered if that had to do with the hip movements. Cassie offered

 “I am no expert in the body movements of it. But I will tell you that when you are not in hockey shape on the ice to sprint, to do a sprint on the ice feels much more painful, then to do a regular sprint out on the street:) And I’m sure it has something to do with the amount of engagement of your legs compared to the rest of your body, your legs really do burn out at a certain point. But the mechanics of it, I’m not quite sure. But hips sounds right, because it I get to a point where I if haven’t been skating for a long time, and I get back on the ice, the next day, I feel like I can’t lift my legs over the boards.” She laughed “It gets a little tough, once you start getting older. And then we’ve got these recent college graduate rookies coming out their D1 leagues, school trainers, and they’re totally in shape, and then you’ve got your Season Six girls who are still going strong. But they”re definitely, and I can speak for myself, a workout probably hits me different than some of the other girls. Now, I incorporate mor recovery. I never used to be a big stretcher, but now it’s like I’m always stretching or foam rolling. I had an injury going into college, it was a chest injury that is now giving me really bad back pain, in the discs. Ever since then, my body, sometimes when I wake up after a workout, I feel like i’ve been hit by a car:)

Cassie added “I think back when I was young and went from camp to camp, or one ice hockey practice to another ice hockey practice and we never stretched. Coaches maybe mentioned it, but no one really did it with you. And now, that’s just so critical. I think a lot of girls programs now at the junior level are starting to implement off ice training, and not focusing on like getting them out there with barbells and beating them down with weights, but really focusing on movements and balance. And recovery, which I think is super important. Back then it just wasn’t as big of a focus. Coaches and parents were thinking: If you are going to be good at this sport, you have to practice, practice, practice. And it wasn’t so much about the off ice, it was all about the on ice. But I definitely see a much larger focus and push to training your body and protecting your body for your sport, which I think is great!”

While on the topic of training and conditioning, we mentioned the Pod’s involvement with Prentiss Hockey Performance this past season, and Cassie responded

“So the Whale were real lucky with that, those guys at Prentiss are pretty awesome! They train a ton of high level athletes, so to get our girls in the league in there and working with them was a huge win. Both from a readiness standpoint, and also from just the visibility. And they also have Greenwich Sports Medicine, which is connected to them. They have a team of PT Physicians, so it was really great. I had been going there ever since I started playing on the Whale and I was working with Dr. Dustin Debroy, and I would recommend anybody to go see him. He has a great personality, and really cares about getting you on the ice and they are really committed to their athletes. That was a really awesome resource to have.”

 Cassie continued

“And then for the Rivs last year at Pro Skate, above the rinks, they have a fitness center there that does training and physical therapy. We used to train with a guy every night before practice, and the workouts were mandatory. As it is in the league, a lot of girls have jobs, and need to have jobs. And it’s from a standpoint of do as much as you can to get there. But we have pretty much the whole team there before practice, either lifting or doing their recovery workout for the game that weekend. And it just adds such another level to the team camaraderie because people take on such different roles. Whether it’s in the locker room, on the ice, on the bench, or in the workout room, like someone will always find their voice there. And it’s fun to always be together with the girls training. It’s nice that as the league continues to grow, we have more opportunities to train together and work with professionals who know the sport and know what we need. It's such an added bonus.”

 Cetacean Nation has recorded some humorous references to Pro Skate from our Pod. this offseason. And we mentioned one to Cassie, about Elena Orlando who had talked about having to speed up up to get momentum to jump onto the bench after a shift.because the boards were so high.  Cassie laughed and said

"And that’s funny, because Lando, she’s got three or four inches on me! But I felt the exact same way. I would say half of our defensive line was all pretty much the same height, and there were times that if you were absolutely gassed from your shift, you would come to the bench and somebody would have to pull you halfway up and onto the bench. It was very high, you had to have some speed and give it a little bit of a jump, it’s just like one of those funny little nuances of rinks. But yeah, they were very high! I don’t know if it’s safer to have them higher so when guys are checking, they are less likely to be thrown over the boards, I don’t , know, it varies across different rinks and just depends on how the rink is built. Like when you’re standing on the bench the bench is higher up than the ice surface so it’s not bad getting on to the ice, but bad getting off the ice. You never know whether that was an intentional board height or maybe it just worked out that way."And on the rule about having to jump over the boards, Cassie added ”That’s something you have to teach when the girls join the league, first game of the season somebody opens the door and it’s like: Oh, no! Close the door, close the door! And obviously nobody understands why until we tell them:”

Cassie also offered this about her home rink “Obviously from my standpoint, location is very important, and we want to try to build a consistent fan base . So that’s really important. That was one of the great things about Newark, that facility was really nice, just from a transportation standpoint. I got on the train from Manhattan when I was playing on the Whale, and it took me 12 minutes. A lot of the Rivs Nation fan base is located in Brooklyn, and it’s super important, because we love the little girls and their families that come, they are such a big part of what we do, But the people who are buying the tickets are older, and we have to keep working on and building the fan base of older fans. So being in a place where they’re living is key. I feel like, and this might just be my view, I feel like me and none of my friends have cars these days, especially if you’re living in the city. So if these people can take public transit, it’s like come on!” 

Cassie pointed out “It shows how big of an impact it is, when you put a woman in a predominantly male sport, and you keep growing the sport, and then thise women continue to give back to all the other girls that start taking your lead. It’s a really powerful thing and it’s really important But now that I live in Manhattan and work in Stamford CT, and also travel to New Jersey for hockey, I was not doing any sort of coaching this past season. Maybe down the road, I think it’s something that I would consider. It’s hard when you have a job that’s not particularly 9-5, I just have to leave the office whenever it is that I’m done. It would be hard to manage, but at some point if I could, I would like to. We had some teammates on the Rivs last season who coached a lot of different girls teams and they’re just like running from ice rink to ice rink, and I don’t know how they don’t get burnt out by that. I don’t want to be in a freezing cold ice rink other than I have to be:) Going from practice to practice a I think my toes would fall off from being so cold. But they love it, and the girls love them” 

In her first interview, Cassie had told us that 3 on 3 games were her favorite part of practice. Cetacean Nation wondered if that was because they were just plain fun or if there were specific things she worked on in that scenario. She elaborated for us

“For me, I think there is just so much space to make plays, and connect with your teammates. It’s supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be a game. It’s not like a drill. You’re getting to go out for thirty seconds at a fast pace with your teammates and try to make something happen. It’s typically pretty high intensity and most of the time one team has to score over the other team, and someone has to win. If you don’t, you’re either skating or picking up the pucks, so there’s always some kind of , incentive.”

Ok, so what Is your opinion on 3 on 3 in overtime situations, we asked.

“I think it would be extremely exhausting. When we do 3 on 3 at practice, most of the time it’s in the zone or the neutral zone, so most of the time you are not doing a three on three on the full ice sheet. And when you do that, we refer to that as an undercover bag skate. Which probably means your coach thinks you need more conditioning or maybe practice wasn’t going so well, or you lost a game or something, and they’re secretly skating you in a game format. So 3 on 3 overtime, I think would be cruel. I would be way too difficult! Most of the guys in the NHL are six something, and they cover a little bit more of the ice than we do with our stride. But still, I imagine 3 on 3, that would just be bad. Ties would be bad too!”

We hadn’t gotten into it in her first interview, but we were curious, as always, about the genesis of her jersey number, and Cassie revealed

“On Team USA I was #4 which I was fine with, I liked that. It’s not my preference, but that one was fine. So three! My brother played hockey growing up and he always wore #13, so I was such a little tomboy, I always followed my brother around. So when we finally weren’t playing on the same team anymore, I wanted to start wearing #13. But other than that, visually, I just like what a three looks like. On different teams, if you join the roster and somebody else has #13, my next go to is something else with a three in it. Outside of #23, I don’t know why but I can’t get behind that. So when I joined the Whale I was excited because nobody had #13 . And when I joined the Riveters I had a little bit of an argument with Cailey Hutchinson, and did not win that battle. So she was #13 and I took on #3. When I first got to high school we had someone on our team who was #3 and #13, and I was obviously the youngest of all of them, so I went with #33. Which is a goalie number, it’s not really a player number, so I definitely have gotten some stuff for that one! I couldn’t not go with the threes, so I did what I had to do:) I don’t know how some people gert so lucky. I’ve had teammates that said: Oh no, I’ve always worn this number. I’m like How? All right, I haven’t been that lucky!”

As we wrapped up our chat with Cassie, she looked into the future a bit and offered her opinion on the upcoming NWHL Season Six  “I think that there are a lot of sports that are returning way before hockey will return. So it’s nice in that sense, that we will have learnings, and we can figure out what protocols work, , health wise, and what doesnt. And we’ll probably really just be able to follow suit of what other sports are successfully doing, which will be really helpful.” An excellent point by Cassie, and a possible silver lining for the NWHL. Cetacean Nation thanks our amazing former #13 Cassie Dunne for her sharing her thoughts and candid insights on these on and off ice topics. No matter what number, no matter what sweater number, Once A Whale, Always A Whale! Fins Up to you Cassie!