BREANN FRYKAS: TRANSFERENCE
"Everything teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; and therein is human destiny, not in longevity but in removal. We dive and reappear in new places." Ralph Waldo Emerson (Journais 1820-1824)
In Season One, forward Breann Frykas wore uniform #1 for a couple of games for our Pod. Signing on with Harry Rosenholtz under the NWHLâs Practice Player designation, a fairly common, but loosely defined convention in the first couple of seasons of the league. The story of how Bree became a pro hockey player and where sheâs gone since, contain the essence of Emersonâs quote above. We recently had a chance to chat with Bree about this and find out how transference of herself and her skills have shaped her life.
Breann is a Canadian, and we spoke with her on Canada Day, And with the restrictions and protocols of the pandemic, international travel is difficult. We wondered how Breann was dealing with that, and and how and where she was dealing with pandemic in general she informed us
âI live up in Branford , CT, and for the most part I canât go see my family. So I was lucky enough to get my TN 1 Visa renewed with my company about a week before Covid started. So I was very fortunate to have that happen, because my visa expired at the end of May. I was granted an additional three years with Boston Scientific (my employer). That was awesome, super thankful for that. Super thankful I have a job, work has actually been crazier than ever. The only part that kind of stinks is, I have a house now and itâs the first summer Iâm in my house so it would have been nice for my parents to come down, but obviously the borderâs closed. I probably wonât be seeing them in the immediate future. You can go home to Canada, as a Canadian, but you have to stay there for fourteen days. With my job, being in and out of the hospitals, itâs just not an option right now. It could be worse, and Iâm just thankful Iâm safe and have a house. Iâm not stuck in an apartment like I used to be in, which is nice. I always try to look at it from the positive side. My Dad sent me a picture of a beach up in Winnipeg, and it looks like a bar, people just stacked everywhere! It doesnât look so great. Itâll be interesting to see what the numbers are with COVID after this weekend if people arenât smart.âÂ
Breann continued "I work for the Endoscopy Division of Boston Scientific. We are one of the largest medical device companies in the world. In Endoscopy globally, weâre the market leaders. What we essentially do, is treat a lot of cancer patients, we create med devices that help cancer patients avoid going to surgery, or are less invasive, if they are not a surgical candidate. Cancers like pancreatic, colon, esophageal, and gastric. In my old job, before I got my new role in April, I was actually the one in the cases, kind of teaching the doctors what to do with the new modalities that they would offer patients. But now I just got my new role so Iâm not doing that as much anymore. It was tough because a lot of the elective procedures got paused because of Covid. Obviously, cancer patients are immunocompromised, so we were doing that virtually through different platforms and support like FaceTime. Now Iâm Regional Development Manager so I have my own team of six District Managers (my old position) who do that in the hospital. So fortunately I donât actually have to be the one inside the hospital anymore. My team is deployed in the hospitals and weâve given them the PPE to go into the cases. Thatâs important, because a lot of the time the doctorâs canât complete the cases unless theyâre there, sowe are considered essential staff. So Iâll be home for the foreseeable future. I am up at Bristol Hospital next week, but I am dealing more with the budget owners, or head of supply chain, Iâll go visit the main doctorâs at Yale, Iâm actually having dinner with them tomorrow night, just trying to be strategic about how we can connect with them outside the hospital environment. But for the most part my team is in the hospitals now, and Iâm managing that. Which is kind of nice based on the timing, and everything that hit. It will be interesting, Iâll be covering all of Boston, Rhode Island, Springfield, Hartford, and obviously southern Connecticut as well. Iâll definitely be traveling once things open up to see how my team is doing in the different hospitals during the week. But right now Iâm trying to enjoy the time at home while I can, thereâs no need to have an extra person in there if you donât need to right now."
Breann comes from the Winnipeg area inManitoba, about ninety minutes above the US border in North Dakota. We asked her to tell us a little about her home and what itâs like looking back to where it all started for her. She replied
âI was born and raised in Winnipeg, and my family moved to East Saint Paul, Manitoba when I was thirteen, and everyone is there still. I left when I was sixteen to move to Detroit to play for Little Caesarâs, and havenât lived back home since. Iâve lived in the states now for thirteen years. Itâs kind of crazy when you look back and think of how long itâs been. In my career, I sometimes even forget hockey was a part of my life sometimes. It seems so long ago, Iâm like a female in a business world that is predominantly male, and Iâm so focused with my career and so busy, that sometimes someone will say: Oh, you played hockey? And I say I did and they look me up and say: Oh, you weâre actually decent at the time! But you forget about it, you kind of forget about that part of your life sometimes, because you get focused on the next goal or accomplishment. But then when you remind yourself of it, youâre like: Wow, that was a great time in my life! There are a lot of transferable skills that make you successful not just in sports, but in your career or in your life based off the experiences and people youâve been around. â
Bree added: âI love where I grew up, itâs part of who I am. But at the same time, through hockey, Iâve gotten so many different experiences. New York City was a place that when I grew up we dreamed of from watching TV. It wasnât a place I ever thought about really going to. And now I can go there every weekend, and sometimes when a Iâm on the train thinking when I was a little girl this was something I could hardly dream of and now I can just go there. Itâs kind of crazy to think about those little things that you take for granted sometimes. And to just realize how far you've come, in terms of the experience and the perspective. Itâs definitely a different lifestyle living in New York. In Winnipeg the are great but thereâs not a lot around Winnipeg, so sometimes you get stuck in a bubble, or a way of life. Everything is more slow paced than the East Coast, where things go at a lot faster speed than even the rest of the United States!â
So Cetacean Nation was curious how hockey came into the picture, and Bree enlightened us with some unusual aspects of that!
âItâs just something you grow up doing, youâre starting at four, five, or six years old. My Dad was a hockey player, and my little brother was two years younger than me. So my Dad started out having us skate, and I ended up being a decent skater. But the only reason he put me into hockey was so that my little brother could get started! If you had an older sibling on the team, you could start a year earlier. So he was four and I was six, and Dad kind of put me in as the guinea pig so my little brother could start at four instead of five. And I ended up scoring something like sixry goals that first season. So my Dad was like: Letâs kind of stick with this. I was a decent skater, and thatâs kind of how it started, playing for the the Oak Bluff Blues on the same team with my little brother. My Dad was super passionate about it. Obviously my uncle (Barry Trotz) played for Regina Pass and he coaches for the Islanders now, so itâs kind of inate. My cousins played for the Selkirk Steelers, so itâs just kind of a big culture of our family as well. So, thatâs kind of how it started or meâ
Immersed in all that hockey at an early age, we wondered if she tried her hand at any other sports. Bree enthusiastically replied
âEverything! Thatâs one of the things I kind of hate about sports these days, I kind of think itâs gotten to be so competitive. That like you have to keep playing your one sport all the way through the year, to where donât have time for the other sports. Thatâs why what I always did, play hockey, but, also every other sport. I played baseball with the boys until I was thirteen, played competitive softball until I was fifteen, and my life guarding came from my swimming team. I played on the middle school and high school volleyball team, the basketball team, badminton, and track. Sports was my thing. I was never the most fit athlete, but coordination was more my thing. I pitched for a little bit in softball, and I still play slo pitch, and actually volleyball. Volleyball pretty competitively right now. My parents were big believers (in multi sports) and I wish it was more like that now. You need a break sometimes. I didnât always make hockey the priority, there are a lot of great sports out there and sometimes itâs good give yourself a rest and reset. There are different coordination things that are cross trained as well. Transferable. So I definitely played everything growing up and I wish that I did even more, but there âs just not enough time. And to be really good at one you have to dedicate your time to it, one versus the other eventually, once you get to a certain age.â
So we asked Breann to tell us about how hockey came to be that sport. for her, the one she dedicated to. She explained
"I played boys hockey growing up, so I didnât know anything different. There was girls hockey but it just wasnât at the level it is at now. I think the biggest breakthrough maybe, when I was younger, when I really put myself on the map, was when I made the AAA Boyâs team in Winnipeg, for the Winnipeg Sharks. There had only ever been three females that has made AAA, Chelsea Karpenko, whoâs a year older than me and was also on the National Team with me. She made it the year before me. But I played summer hockey for the Manitoba AAA organization right around when I was eight. So that is kind of what started to push me through. When I was 13, I made the boys AAA team, and that was a big Wow! I got my team Manitoba tryouts from there too. And then I started playing both boys and girls hockey in the summer around age 14, and thatâs when I started scoring 4, 5, 6 goals a game. And everyone was like: Hey! Who is this person? You start talking about it now like this, and it sounds kind of crazy. How do you score 6 or seven goals a game, that seems so cocky! But it happened back in the day, however many years ago, so thatâs a little bit of the snippet right around those two events.â
Before Bree went to Michigan, which she mentioned earlier, to join Little Caesars, she had some great moments with Team Manitoba. She revealed
 âUsually to play on Team Manitoba you have to be 17 or 18 years old, so I played as an underager. We went to the 2007 Canada Winter games, so I would have been 16 just then. So I went there and finished that, and then went to Detroit the next summer. So With Team Manitoba, we finished with the Silver Medal at the Games, against Team Ontario. If you look at that Team Ontario, like every single girl on that team was on the National Team! We were just a little Manitoba team, but it was good group of girls there and we did well. Then I played on Team Manitoba the next two years, which were my real years I was eligible for and thatâs when I started to get scouted by Mel Davidson. Itâs funny, she just posted her retirement from Hockey Canada yesterday. She was the head scout, and that was when they started to do the whole scouting for U18 program for Team Canada, so a lot of the scouts were at the Canada Winter Games in 2007. That was when they started the first national camp.â
 So one of Breannâs most significant transferences was of herself, geographically to the United States. Hereâs how she explained the way that came about, and turned out.
âI played boys hockey as a 13 & 14 year old, so that was Bantam 1 & 2. After that I was too small to play with the guys, I would have gotten hurt if I played Midgets. So as a 15 & 16 year old, I played at Balmoral Hall (prep). They started an all girls travel hockey program there. Essentially most of us went to school there free on scholarship. All the girls I played with were a year or two,older than me, so I went in as a 10th grader and played for two years.Then the next year everyone graduated, and there really wasnât anybody left on the team that was going to help me accelerate to the next level. So my parents were looking at different options, Shattuck-Saint Maryâs, for example, but financially that wasnât an option. And they have scholarships and stuff, but still it was US dollars and they really couldnât afford that. But an opportunity came up while we were at the JWHL tournament. One of the coaches had come to my Dad about an opportunity with a Detroit Little Caesars. And the cool part was, Madison Packer at the time was on that team, and her and I ended up living with her family for that year. We were in school together, and we trained on the same Little Caesarâs Team. And while I was on Team Canada U18 she was on Team USA U18 and we trained together for the whole year, and it was a great way to accelerate my development for that last year prior to college. â
Bree added "I did Team Canada for two years, the Lake Placid Series and the Toronto Series. The first two years I made the U18 team in the Series, but I was the last cut for the World Championships in Calgary. I think the only U18 players that made the squad were Fortino, Poulin, and Jenner. Actually, Fortino is a year older so Poulin and Jenner were the only U18 that made the team. I was kind of defeated there, and then I came back the next year and played at Lake Placid in the Series. Then went to Germany for the World Championships with the U18 Team where we won the silver medal. The US beat us in OT. Madison and I lived together at that time, so you can imagine that! Then we went on to win the state championship in Michigan together right afterwards, in March with a Little Caesarâs."
Bree had put together an impressive resume on the ice by time it came to choose a college. Wisconsin is where she ended up, but it was not a  simple choice. She explained
"Honestly, Wisconsin was not my first school of choice. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship offer from all 41 Division 1 schools. I was a lot better going into college than my college career ended up being:) I definitely think it was under performed. So originally I wanted to go Ivy League, I was always pretty bright in school, but my parents werenât financially very well off. So I looked at Ivy League schools, Dartmouth was one of them. I actually went on an official visit there, and loved it and verbally committed to go there. And then of course Wisconsin, it was the #1 hockey school school. One of the reasons I ended up deciding to go there was because my family could come to all my away games. Living in Winnipeg, Â Wisconsin is ten hours away, going to North Dakota is two hours, Saint Cloud is five, and Minnesota is seven. So, that was a big draw. My parents came down to do my official visit with me, which really helped the feeling. It was a big kind of social environment, which is a big part of my personality. So thatâs what drew me there, and obviously them being the #1 team. I was super competitive and wanted to be part of it. But the last piece is, going Ivy League they donât give out full ride scholarships. And with my Dad having his own business that was growing at the time, I couldnât put my family in that (financial) situation there. Iâd heard horror stories where the first year is $5,000 and the following year was X amount of dollars based on the income of your family. So thatâs a lot of the reason I chose to go to Wisconsin, other than geography and it being a good hockey program, and academically itâs a good school. So those are some of the reasons why.â
Even though Breann only played two seasons of her college career at Wisconsin, her sophomore year was pretty special. In the 2010-2011 season, her Badgers won the NCAA National Championship. She recalled
"That team Iâll never forget! ! You probably could have put anyone behind the bench that season, we were just so intense! Practices were like games! Our healthy scratch players could have been a top line player on every team. Everyoneâs work ethic, and the team environment had the purpose everyday just to make everyone better.. Thereâs been nothing else Iâve been a part of like that. It was a really cool team culture, and youâre practicing against Olympians every single day. So definitely a cool experience. I definitely think being a part of that team was a highlight of mine, I learned a lot. I faced a lot of adversity that year. It wasn't an easy ride. I definitely started off really strong. I played a regular shift, but I wasnât on special teams. There was a different perspective from the coaching environment, where on a different team I might have played a little more. So it wasnât an easy year for me, but overall as I look back, it made me a better person and a better player by going through that experience. And so I think ultimately too, just understanding the betterment of the team, team success versus just my own as well, was key. So a big piece was the adversity and perseverance of that experience, not only our team winning, but from my personal growth as a person. It was a big part of that dynamic.â
Before we spoke about her next transferance, again of herself to Quinnipiac University, we asked about her height. The Badgers had  listed Bree as 5â4â and the Bobcats a year later as 5â5â Bree explained she hadn't grown an inch, and clarifiedÂ
 âI think it can go either way! Iâm probably honestly 5â4.5â It just depends on how they want it, I definitely didnât grow an inch in that period of time. Maybe they measured me with skates on or I had a ponytail that day:) At the doctorâs Iâm 5â5â or 5â4 ž â but I say 5â5â, it makes me feel better"she laughed.
So Cetacean Nation asked Bree to set the record straight on her transfer as well, and she did so, admitting
âIt wasnât an easy decision. My going to Wisconsin as a school was literally one of the best experiences of my life. I truly look back on my college career and regardless of the hockey statistics, everyone wants theirs to be better, I think I got the best of both worlds. I went to a Big Ten school, a big environment, then I was able to go to a smaller East coast school, where hockey was the dominant sport. Iâm very thankful for both of thise experiences. The people I met at Wisconsin were awesome. But the reasons why I left? I was frustrated, I wished I played more. And I was at a point where I thought I deserved a little bit more than I was getting. Thatâs OK, that happens sometimes. A lot of people have different styles of coaching and different player profiles that they particularly scout for. The easy thing to do wouldâve probably been to just stay at Wisconsin. I would have played a lot my junior and senior year, And keep in mind that my freshman year at Wisconsin, it was not traditional. We had none of our coaches. Coach Johnson wasnât there, and Dan Cook left to go to Shattuck-Saint Maryâs. It was a very tense year for everyone first coming into college.â
âI had two years left of hockey and I had to kind of do what I had to do, to put myself in the right environment. Like when I look back in 20 years, what would that look like? I was also super passionate about Cass (Cassandra Turner, Assistant at Quinnipiac). Originally while Cass was at Colgate, she was someone I stayed close with through the U22 program with team Canada. So I started having coversation with Cass. and decided to to do something different.And I really thought Cass was a coach that could help develop me, and pursue my goals. So she was a lot of the reason why I went to Quinnipiac. There were certain schools that Wisconsin would not let me transfer to when I was looking at doing that. There was interest from other schools in the same conference so specifically they would not let me transfer to those. Or anyone we were playing the next season for example BU, they were playing them the next season. So super happy that I did it. I played so much at Quinnipiac, and I was able to be a leader on the team. itâs so crazy the environment of the school Itâs such a different world! Even though Wisconsin is a Big Ten school the facilities at Quinnipiac are amazing! And thatâs where you spend the majority of your time. From the schooling perspective, it was really eye-opening for me. I had always been a good student. But in a Big Ten school youâre in a class with 500 people:) I never used to go to class, I would literally just teach myself and go to my exams because I did not learn from somebody just lecturing me.â
"So I went to business school at Quinnipiac with classes of just 30 people The application side of things is a lot more beneficial in terms of what you would utilize in the work force rather than a lecture style.So that was another big piece of it. And I knew I wanted to go to grad school so I looked into places that had a good grad school program. So those are the kind of kind of whyâs I chose Quinnipiac. After I did my official visit I was sold. I also had two teammates I played with in Winnipeg: Chelsea Illchuck and Regan Boltin who were both on the team at Quinnipiac and were both fellow Winnipeg people. So that made me so comfortable going to a school where they could tell me firsthand what it was like. And itâs scary too, because when youâre a transfer, there can be a kind of stigma. Like: Whatâs wrong with he, whatâs the problem? But I am very thankful that my senior year Coach Seeley brought in another transfer, Shiann Darkangelo, and it helped change his perspective on transfers. And Coach Seeley has had his own challenges, and after I graduated he left the team. Thatâs a whole other conversation and I have my own opinion on that."
âI was happy that I would be able to provide enough, that Quinnipiac would give me an Assistant Captain roll my senior year. That also helped break that transfer stigma. Itâs like okay forpeople to make different decisions, it doesnât mean theyâre a bad egg. They just had to make a change for themselves. Itâs funny, you donât know at the time, but life has pointed you in a direction. And when I look back on it, I could never imagine my life different. But like living in Connecticut, who wouldâve thought that I would be the only Bobcat still living 10 miles away from the school! And as a transfer, however many years ago. Itâs funny how it all works out:)â
 âAnd now there are a lot of different girls who reach out to me because I did my transfer, and ask me about it. And Iâll tell them: Donât just go to the best school. Sometimes itâs not the right move for you. Your first two years at a school thatâs even in the top ten, you might develop so much more than from the opportunities you got from going to the best program, and kind of playing on the JV side. Not saying you should do one or the other, but it is definitely something to take into consideration. Every coach is going to tell you, when you get recruited, you are first or second line. And you assume because you get a full ride athletic scholarship that might be what it means. But you have to take everything into perspective and understand whoâs on the team. And the numbers are the numbers. They may have a different opinion on your play, than maybe you do. â
Breann had a great first season at Quinnipiac, leading the team in power play goals and totaling twenty points, mostly on defense, for a program that was just beginning to make noise on the D1 hockey scene. She finished the season especially strong, with six points over her last four contests. But, âlife has a funny way of sneaking up on youâ as another Canadian, Alanis Morrisette once wrote. And Breann explained the ups and downs of her Bobcat days.
"Quinnipiac changed my life, it taught me it was not easy. I mean I went from practices where weâd only do flow drills for 45 minutes to the grit and adversity at Quinnipiac. To being a leader on the team where I was in kind of an old-school style, which I actually love. I would not say that there was a particular moment, but I think the day to day enjoyment of the people thereâs as special. We all had a different why and maybe werenât necessarily the best players from all over the country. But we were the hardest workers and we brought that pride to what we did every single day. I ended up playing defense my junior year by November time, so I played defense for almost my whole junior year because it was the best thing to do for the team. I played defense on power plays and kind of just helped out in whatever way possible. So for one moment, I would say my junior year when we played at UConn would have been one of the big highlights for me. My Dad came down to visit, and that was a moment where I knew I made the right decision. I played like forty minutes of the game, and it was just like, I was getting better, I was making the people around me better, the team was getting better. Sometimes with an underdog, thereâs just that feeling of perseverance. It wasnât easy, but when you make it, it just feels so much better. â
She added wistfully "But my senior year at QU was tough. I came in at my best weight, best shape, and I really felt like it was my year. I came into to the team as a captain, and I was centering the second and fourth line. This was everything I had been hoping for and I had put myself in the best possible position to get invited to a Team Canada camp. That was ultimately the goal. But, I got hurt. I had two knee surgeries that year that I battled through. The first time my knee wasnât treated correctly, so I wasnât able to redshirt after they did the first diagnosis with my MCL and my meniscus. And my synovial plica was stuck as well (a membrane surrounding the knee joint) At the same time, the third game in against Mercyhurst , I took a face off and lost the feeling in my left shoulder. I was getting tingling in my hand, right around the time I was getting my knee done. My fingers were turning blue as I was sleeping at night! Literally the day I found out about my knee, I got the MRI results back on my shoulder, and the labrum was totally torn, along with my rotator cuff. It was rough! I was one of the captains of the team, and why I transferred was to get to this point.â
Bree continued Â
âSo I ended up getting the knee surgery, and doing a quick rehab, but I was never as good when I came back. There just wasnât enough time to fully heal. In order to play the last eight games of the season, I just got cortisone shots in my shoulder, and I got my shoulder done after the season. So I had a rough mental battle, because it was everything I had worked for my whole life, and Iâm graduating. What am I going to do next in life? I donât ever talk about it, but itâll always hit a soft spot what that was like, because I never got a chance to end my career on a good note. I guess thatâs why Iâm so passionate about my career now because Iâve tried to put my time and energy into something else. Because it was OK to recognize I was not going to be a pro athlete, thereâs was no money in womenâs sports. Iâm thankful I got a full ride scholarship for four years and got my grad school paid for. It was time to close that chapter and start up a new one. My parents wanted me to move home, but I didnât want to do that. I kind of went against what everybody else wanted me to do. I needed something where I could make something of myself. Whatâs going to be next now that hockeyâs over? So I basically put myself through grad school, and I worked in the graduate assistant program at Quinnipiac Athletic Department. I overlooked all the scholarships for the athletes, and basically did two years of grad school in one year. I got my MBA double major in Operations and Supply Chain / Healthcare Management. So I worked forty hours a week while doing a double classroom workload. My parents were going to pay for grad school if I moved home, but I did not want that. So thatâs kind of the story of grad school, the best decision I ever made. I came out with my MBA at 23, an now there is no way that I would be able to go back and do that with the work load I have currently on my plate.âÂ
But as we know, Breeâs career on the ice did not exactly end, and she is part of the history of womenâs sports that is the NWHL and the Connecticut Whale. So two years after her last game as a Quinnipiac Bobcat, Cetacean Nation wondered how Bree came to the Pod, and what that was like. She reflected and said
âSo I was playing for a weekend team, Team Connecticut which was kind of a senior womenâs league after college for a little bit. And when the NWHL and the Whale started up, I was working retail at the time before I started my new job. And Harry Rosenholtz was involved with Quinnipiac and the NWHL at the time. Harry had helped recruit me to QU. I had talked to him before, when he was over at Yale, as well. So he brought me on board with the Whale, and honestly, if I had stuck with it and been more dedicated I could have played regularly. But really, when they approached me to come play, I had already started to transition into my career. I told them since I was working eighty hours a week, I could only be a practice player. Iâd skate once or twice a week. The practices were all the way in Stamford, it was something to do to get back in shape at a high level at practice, versus just going to the gym. Not to necessarily play the games. But when it came to the games, theyâd ask if I could come to some, but after Iâve been working with cancer patients all week, the last thing I want to do is get on an eight hour bus ride to Buffalo! I appreciate the people that can do it, and there was a time and place in my life for that. But my career was now my focus. I am very thankful for the experience with the Whale, it was super cool to be a part of hockey history, that was new. And I am very glad that I stayed involved. There were also a lot of changes with coaching, some of the hiccups of the league, trying to get it to a well oiled machine. There was a lot of unknown, for example there was some difficulty with the girlâs visas. But ultimately, you put a group of girls together who played college hockey, and weâre going to be pretty good. Itâs going to a good time, itâs going to make you better, thatâs why we do it , the whole experience of it.â
 She added âSuper thankful I got to be a part of it. It it wasnât for my career being so demanding, I would have loved to be more involved in it. But I just had to make the mature decision, and figure out long term, what was more important to me. I played a few home games, mostly in the beginning, helping out here and there. All home games, I didnât go to any of the away games. But it was cool! All the little girls there, that was awesome! I never had that when I was little. So just to see the development of the game over a period of time is pretty neat. And, there were other players I'd known, like Kaleigh Fratkin, who had played at Little Caesars with myself and Madison Packer a little bit. There were different people who we all had been connected to at some point in our careers. Molly Engstrom went to Wisconsin, Kelli Stack was on the National Team and I knew her through Brianna Decker at Wisconsin. There were so many different networks of people, which made the experience really neat. Itâs so cool, because itâs all about those people. You learn so much from each other, and the whole experience of it. In my career now, I hire D-1 athletes, I have a Cornell lacrosse player on my team, I have a Women's softball D-1 player on my team. We just did an event about how sports skills transfer. There are so many skills, and that grit mentality, that becomes part of your life. Those experiences of bringing those people together is the one thing I miss right now. Having all of my friends in one place. This week we were going to have a little bit of a Quinnipiac alumni get together and have it at my house. But with Covid, thatâs on the back burner. But thatâs what makes it so neat, that people piece of it. Overall, a great experience, forever and super thankful for it.âÂ
âYou know, I played boys hockey my whole early career and never got hurt. Sophomore year of college I was intending to get labrum surgery post graduation. It wasnât something that was life threatening. but over time needed to be repaired. Iâm playing menâs league twice a week now in Shelton, and Iâm probably better than I was when I was playing for the Whale, because Iâm on the ice more:) I hadnât played in awhile and I just threw on skates maybe a month before. Iâm in better shape now, but youâre never the same. I think my knee is a lot better but with my shoulder, I still canât do a full push up. You graduate, and they donât pay for your recovery. I donât need to do it anymore, thereâs no reason to push it to the point where Iâm going to hurt myself more, either. That was the other thing . To play with the Whale, all it takes is a weird run into the boards, and I have to pay for a $50,000 surgery that previously was paid for while I was a college athlete.â
Breann also has some thoughts about staying involved in hockey in another, unique way. She revealed
"I know Babs (Kelly Babstock) and Shiann (Darkangelo) are in Toronto, and I actually did a Quinnipiac alumni weekend in Toronto with Emma Greco last year. Itâll be nice for them to start up there in the East, because the travel line from Buffalo, Connecticut, New York makes sense from a cost standpoint and a travel schedule schedule. Thatâs a good sign. And one thing I have been talking about with Cass Turner, was I wish there was a better womenâs alumni network with colleges. A cool part is you bring alumni together they are more prone to give resources back and be educated about whatâs new and how they can help. Itâs good for the community. I would like to get involved at some point, because I feel there are so many female athletes that graduate college these days. And there are two different groups that need help. One is the group of girls that are looking to go to college. I wish when I was 16 years old that there was someone that I could have talked to, my parents didnât know what college was. To be able to help look at the different colleges, and the pros and cons, and find the best fit. And the other group are players dealing with things like work visas. Katie Tabin, she played at Quinnipiac, she just called me the other day, and she is fighting the visa process in the US now. As a Canadian it isnât easy, the networking to get the visa. Iâve been fortunate enough to get with a company that pays for the visa process, but itâs not easy if you donât know the right people or route to get there. So two things that Iâm passionate about are bridging those gaps. I may not be a pro athlete anymore (or never was depending on who you ask:), but would like to be able to help those people who have taken their career to the extent they have. And give what advice I can to help make themselves successful. Because I feel a lot of people get into that rut of being not really sure of whatâs next for them. So providing them insight and direction, that would be so helpful. â
We concluded our conversation with Breann by remarking how we have always felt even if they never pulled on a pair of skates, the women who have played for the Pod would be great role models in their off ice careers as well. Bree agreed, and offered
âI appreciate that because sometimes I feel Iâm looked down upon, because I didnât go as far in my hockey career as planned. But in my job Iâm the first ever regional manager before the age of thirty. Thereâs only two females across the whole US that are at that trajectory level. So for me, my goal now isnât to be a pro or Olympic Athlete, but to be the VP of the largest medical device company in the world. It âs different, but it is kind of cool that people might look at that,. Because sometimes I think it gets lost, if you are not a doctor or lawyer they donât really understand other industries and what that means or where theyâre at. I went to business school, and I never thought in a million years Iâd be in the medical device industries teaching doctors what to do, and how those two career paths end up meeting at some point. I was lucky to just have it fall in my lap, and Iâm like: Do people actually schedule this to happen in their life? I didnât even know about it. In my procedures Iâm thinking: Iâm a hockey player who finished college, why am I telling doctors what to do? But then, youâve gone to mini-med school, learned the stuff, worked hard and it continues. If you set goals and work hard, it will pay off in one way or another. Learning that work ethic is the best part of sports. I think anyone who has the opportunity to play in a team environment should. Even in my slo pitch softball league, we have such a great time, and great team camaraderie. Those people become your family. I know for me, my friends are my family because my family isnât that close:) So itâs cool! And Cetacean Nation thinks our former #1, OW Breann Frykas and her message of transference is pretty cool too! We thank Breann for her unique and compelling content, and know that she will always be wearing a hockey sweater under her business suit. Fins Up Forever Breann!