"Lacrosse has always been a mental game for me, I often had to face guard the best player on the other team by getting in their face and following them around. I brought that pest behavior into hockey sneaking behind people to pickpocket them right as they’re taking a shot and so on. Rugby has taught me that the best way around something is through it. I just kinda push through my obstacles no matter how big. I’ll run with people hanging on to me, I skate like that too”. Sophia Agostinelli, The Swiss Army Knife

We had last spoken with our amazing former #10 Sophia Agostinelli at the Whale double header game February.in Bridgeport. She had brought her Mid Fairfeild Stars U12 team to watch the Whale vs Pride,  before heading off to their own game. It seemed the thing to do then, was to start off asking how they had fared. Sophia thought and replied

 “I think we actually did pretty well, but I can’t remember if we won or lost. But I guess it really doesn’t matter because the girls were pretty amped up:) And I’m pretty sure if memory serves me correctly, that we played a boys team that day. And the girls get really excited about that because they love to hit the boys! They think that checking is allowed, but it’s not, so the two lined up together and was probably a pretty crazy game.” That was before the pandemic obviously, and that prompted us to ask how Sophia, who lives in Connecticut, has dealt with the Covid situation, especially, since she is also a scientist. She replied

“I’m sure across the board, every situation is tough. But when you’re a coach or an athlete, it is just extra tough. I feel like there’s very little chance to get to the gym or play with your teammates. For me, I’ve been coaching remotely for the lacrosse season. Elena (#14 Elena Orlando) actually helps me out In filming lacrosse lessons for my girls. Because I felt really bad for them, as they totally missed out the on season. The video coaching was tough for me, because I couldn’t get any feedback, whether they were understanding things or enjoying themselves. Which are things you look for to kind of plan your practices. This is for youth lacrosse, and also for the high school. I double dipped there, originally it was about the high school, but I just ended up sending these videos to both teams. it’s really challenging because you want to teach all these concepts, but you really can’t do it, when you are just one person.” 

“There really isn’t an off season for hockey. I was supposed to have tryouts in March for my Fairfeild Stars team, but they got pushed back and we just recently had them (mid-July) Three months late. I guess it’s safe enough now. We have a small group of people and we make sure not to get too close to.the kids. But it’s crazy! How do you make sure that everyone is safe? Everyone has their own opinion, and each rink is different. But that’s the challenge.“

 And as we found out moments after she told us that, she is ready for most any challenge. At this point in our conversation, Sophia got a call from one of her rugby friends who had crashed her bike and was injured,. So it was Sophia to the rescue, literally, When she called back she said

 “Whew, I brought her to the ER so… I think she’s probably OK, but it’s tough because her feet were clipped in and she took a really hard fall. Luckily I was home so I was able to pick her up” Challenge met, no surprise. So, picking up where we left off, we wondered if she had done any of those videos for her hockey squad as well as her lacrosse team.
 
"No, just based on where we were in the season when things shut down. But I think that would have also been kind of challenging. I really don’t have access to a rink, but there is plenty of stuff you can do off ice. But I did need a break from the hockey girls, because I did just spend six months with them. Which is like a long time with kids. So I took a break from that but I know some other people, Elena for example, Is doing a weekly session which one of the girls on my team. She does some outdoor training, which I think is helpful for some of the girls trying to stay active.”

Cetacean Nation has posted about the baby shower for our former #4 Anya Packer & Madison Packer (#14 of the Rivs), that Sophia and several current and former Whale has attended recently. We thought that first time parenting, can be a little like coaching when you are first getting started in  both. Sophia laughed and said

“Don’t get me started! That’s like you look around the room and think: Where’s the adult? Something goes wrong and you say: Uh, who’s in charge of this? And then you realize it’s you! it’s awful! But actually the Packers decided not to do a gender reveal themed party it was just a baby shower. But it was very boy colored:) But there was no like, crazy guns shooting out colors or fires burning down houses in the right color. There wasn’t any of that. But Anya and Packer always have great parties. And so they do a lot of games and stuff which is really fun. Do you know Apples To Apples? (We did not) It’s this game where you are given a deck of cards to hold, and you get to see what’s on them. And there will be like funny sayings, and you’ll flip over card and it will be some type of story like: My favorite thing to do in the evening is (blank) And you put in what’s super funny or makes the most sense. But this one was baby themed. So it was mostly just funny parenting type things that you don’t really think about. Some of the words I didn’t know, but I think if you’re expecting you’re supposed to do the research. There were people there from all different teams, the Riveters, the Pride. Kaleigh Fratkin has played for three of the Founding Fout teams so she’s the avatar I think. Kaleigh definitely has some interesting stories, having traveled all over the league.”

Sophia remains one of our most popular Whale. If you googled “fan favorite” we’re pretty sure her name and photo would show up. And in fact, she is a former winner of the NWHL Fan's Three Stars Award. And she has stayed in touch with what's going on with the Pod. So we asked Sophia for her thoughts on both the Whale and the NWHL. She told us

“The Whale are on an upward trend, I do keep up with that. Elena is my roommate and I’m friends with lots of them. It seems like they’ve scored some pretty good people to bolster the defense and the scoring. I think the biggest thing was the scoring. That’s pretty tough. I think last year they had pretty solid defense with the Whale, and I think that’s usually the case. They usually have defense but they don’t have anybody that scores that much. But just like to meet one of the players that they signed who looks like she will be a force. I don’t really know her that well, but she also coaches for the stars: Melissa Samoskevich. I got to skate with her for one practice and her shots were scary! She’s going to shoot through me and I was about to duck, I didn’t want to get hit. It just looked like a laser! Actually, I’ve met Abbie Ives too, because she’s also coaching with the Stars. See how small the hockey world is! I like her because it’s nice to be able to look someone in the eyes (Iverson is 5’11”). I was supposed to be taller. Here’s a random fact: I have scoliosis and I lost an Inchon height. But you should still put me in at 5’11”:)

We mentioned that for one reason or other, the subject of height had come up quite a bit in chats with players this off season. We noted that former #13 Cassie Dunne had told us just the opposite, and claimed she grown an inch. Sophia laughed and replied emphatically “ No, she didn’t! I just saw her:) 

As Sophia has indicated, coaching is a big part of her athletic career. And we wondered about what style she has developed and who influenced that. She explained.

"My biggest thing that I try to do with these girls, is to be a positive influence and really encourage them to challenge themselves. And when you challenge yourself you’re bound to fail, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So I try to make sure that even when they do not meet these expectations, I’m not yelling at them. I motivate them which I think is totally different, but I never tear them down. Because you never want to do that to your athletes. Another thing I strive to do as a coach, is to make sure I fully explain what I’m coaching. We don’t ever do things just to do things, everything has a reason. And if the reason is not forthcoming, it’s because you need to really think about it. And sometimes I won’t explain it to them, I’ll have them do it and then I’ll ask them what they got out of it. And it can be kind of funny at the U12 level, to see what their answers are. Because they haven’t fully formed their vocabulary and sometimes answers will be: Well, we did this thing... so that we can get better at this...thing. And there’s literally no placeholders, it’s just like thing :)"

"We were doing a drill and there’s some passing involved, and I want them to be aware that soft touches makes sense. Because if you didn’t what went wrong? You ended up having to do more work! It’s almost like the experience is your greatest teacher. You can learn for yourself that not doing it the right way you’re going to do more work. It’s like the best teacher is when you figure it out yourself, with some help right? Like I’ll be telling them that you use your body to box people out. And then maybe I’ll body them a little, teach ‘em. One of their favorite drills is I get them to line up and do the gauntlet. When I was in guys hockey, we had this drill called the gauntlet Guys would line up on the boards about a foot off and you would have to skate through them. While they check you One of my drills is getting them confident with dealing with contact, and I’ll just push push them push them to the side push them down to see if they can correct and go towards the net. I’m not killing them”, he laughed "but they really do ask me to push them hard. So I will literally and figuratively push them hard. In our case I am the gauntlet just me I can’t trust them to do the checking because they will put their whole body into it. I’ve been wanting to do this thing that I’ve done with my lacrosse kids. We get pool noodles and slap at them them as they are going to the net. As they’d going to the net, we’ll wiggle it in their face. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it’s distracting for sure, very distracting I think people see sticks or bodies in front of them and they’re hesitant to go forward. But it’s just a stick, you could run right through it ! And people’s bodies aren’t always really in front of you, they are kind of off to the side a lot of times or slightly off-balance. And if you just go hard, it should never be an issue.“

She added  “I definitely have somebody who influenced my coaching. The funny thing about my coaching is, I kind of just like stumbled into doing it because of that one Coach. That is my high school lacrosse coach and she ended up making our high school team a State Champions multiple times, she really grew the program. Her name is Stacey Freda. She had me come as a senior to do some camps, which at first I thought was a duty of mine.since I was on the team. And then one day after I had been doing it for weeks, she gave me an envelope and there was money in it. And I was like: What is this? You get paid for this? I just thought I had to do it because I played lacrosse. And so then, since I was being paid for it, it was a job. So it was my first real job actually, ever. From there I continued to work camps for her, and I really learned a lot of her coaching style. She was a little bit scarier than me, Im going to be honest, I think I’m a little more approachable. She’s like five foot tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she was just a very intense, intimidating person. But It was because she had these high expectations for you and you just really wanted to deliver. But at the same time, she did a great job of making practices fun.”

“We always would start with something that was competitive, lacrosse related, and was fun. So we would do stuff like: you’d have a lacrosse ball, and you'd have a pinne, and it would be like pinne tag. At the same time, it wasn’t just pinne tag, It was can you stick handle while moving your hips and being aware of where people are? Keeping your head on a swivel. Again, these things are transferable to hockey or rugby. Now, I do these drills with my girls. You do the same thing, you have the pinne tucked into your pants, and you have the puck on your stick. But can you one second take your hand off that stick and grab that pinne and not lose your puck? Because if you lose the puck it doesn’t count. Those are the things I try to take, her games, I love that. I still keep in touch with her. Again, small world right? . She loves hockey but unfortunately her parents didn’t let her play it growing up. So she lives somewhat vicariously through her daughter who plays in Massachusetts. I’ve played pond hockey with her actually, at the big pond hockey tournament on Lake Winnipesaukee, NH. It was really fun playing with my coach. It was like me, my lacrosse coach and also my hockey coach, who just had a baby. She was out there on the pond too! It was just a great squad! That was actually two winters ago.” 

As we wrapped up,our chat with Sophia, we posed a few stand alone questions on topics we hadn’t delved into before with her. And if you follow our social media sites, you’ve seen that Sophia is a big proponent of supporting those who support the NWHL, like Dunkin’ Donuts. So what’s Sophia’s order when she stops at Dunks?

“In the summertime it’s definitely just plain iced tea. Extra lemons, squeeze ‘em. Just hydration. Coffee is great, but I’m pretty sure if you need to get quenched, you’re going to want something with more water content, less caffeine. And an order of hash browns! You’ll never catch me with a donut. I don’t know why, but I don’t really like sweet stuff, Fun Fact. And donuts are very sweet.”

Considering her multi sport career, we thought it might be interesting to ask about the most memorable venue where she competed.

“That’s tough, because now I have to think about the world really. I can think about a couple of places where I thought : What is this? Am I really in a rink? So I would say that the craziest place I played was in Hanover, Germany. They have a Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) which is a big thing in Germany. They’ll have these market that pop up, like full cabins pop up in the middle of the city. They put up pine trees and it almost obscures the buildings around you. You’re walking around and it seems like you’re in the forest, but you’re in the middle of the city. Hanover is a big train hub in Germany, about two hours from Berlin and below Hamburg, so it’s an intersection of sorts. There’s a very big plaza and they made an ice rink, a temporary ice rink, that was in the center of this Christmas Market. And of course our hockey team (Hanover Scorpions) got invited to skate on there, a little practice session. And we got dressed in one of the cabins, and it’s got this rustic cabin feel, with a fireplace. And not only that, but there was a drink shop and a snack shop facing the rink. You could get what is called Gluhwein which is hot mulled wine, and you could get a German donut, They have basically fried dough balls which are like very good. Not as sweet, I would say. They were perfect :) And I could do that,I was about to, but I didnt, because my coach was there:) But it’s definitely a different culture. I think at some of the rinks people were smoking in the stands, some of them are outdoors. The uniforms from my team the Scorpions tried to mimic the Sechsundneunzig, the 96er’s of Hanover, which is a soccer team. Similar color and stripe theme. Football, soccer over there, is the sport. That is what everyone is about. Soccer? Everyone is watching it that’s what’s on TV.“

Sophia is a big Boston Bruins fan, so Cetacean Nation was not surprised that they figured into her answer to our question about her favorite moment as a fan. She revealed

“I think I had a great time going to my first Bruins game. I had been a very big fan of them, watching them on TV. I really picked up watching them in 2011, which is when they won the Stanley Cup, that was like random, and luckily they won it all. I was super invested from the start of the season, and so when I went to my first game and saw them as real human beings moving on the ice, I was like shell shocked. I think it’s definitely something else to be at the arena. I’ve gone to many games since, not just the Bruins, but being in a big arena and seeing the people you look up to play on the ice, it’s just something. I feel the same way when I see the NWHL players play, but unfortunately I’m friends with most of them. I see them outside the arena, so it’s not like they’re mythical people. But those Bruins players to me, I didn’t know if they were real or not, and then there they were. I almost could touch them, it was weird.”  Cetacean Nation has seen the look that must have been on Sophia’s face, many times on the faces of our Little Future Draft Picks watching and interacting with the Pod.

So now, as a player, we asked what was her favorite “Sophia nailed it” moment?  

"So, your phrasing on that has changed my opinion on what I’m going to say. So when I played lacrosse in college at Holy Cross, I had a special role. Everyone finds that role on a team, right? If you’re on offense you’re the scorer, if your the goalie you’re stopping things. But on defense you don’t imagine them having a very specific role. But my role in this particular game, we were playing our rival, they were the best team in the Patriot League, this was Navy. They had a player who was, like on the cover of a magazine, she was a big deal. And my job was to facegaurd her, follow her around, facing her, nose to nose. Kind of like Avery, who when he was with the Rangers, skated up to the goalie and shook his stick in his face so he couldn’t see. Which is definitely not normal. But in lacrosse you do this faceguarding thing. It’s a similar mindset, you’re trying to get in people’s heads, really not giving them a chance to do their job. This girl’s job was to score, my job was to make sure she didn’t touch the ball. So in this game we ultimately ended up,losing, but that girl, she had to go off the field. She got the ball, once, and I was so tight on her she ended up falling as she was taking a shot and she had to leave the field. And when she came back, she was crying. So I knew I had really gotten to her so I was proud of myself " she laughed " I didn’t do anything to her physically, but I did get to her. And at the end of the day, it was an accomplishment. Because she did not score a single point. I don’t know any other sport where that is allowed, it seems wrong:) I was told to step on her feet, maybe wave my stick in her face, but we literally breathed the same air. Her tears almost fell on my shoes. It ain’t right, but I didn’t try to hurt her, I just didn’t let her get any space physically.

Cetacean Nation once again thanks our amazing #10 Sophia Agostinelli, the player who suggested there be a Cetacean Nation entity in the first place, for once again sharing her wit and wisdom with the fans here. If this is your first meeting with Sophia, while you are here you might want to view her other stories on the site as well, listed just above this one. And further down towards the bottom, in the story “Expanding Horizons”. It was the original interview, so fittingly , it has some input from Sophia, a true American Original herself. Fins Up Forever Sophia! .