BY RANDY SCHULTZ –
November will always be a special month for Buffalo State College Women’s Hockey Coach, Rachel Grampp. It was just a year ago this month that Grampp was suddenly promoted to interim head women’s ice hockey coach at Buffalo State, just three games into their regular season of play.
Grampp, who had been serving as an assistant coach with the Bengals since 2019, didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. She remembers the moment very well.
“We talked to the players and told them to put their heads down and keep competing,” recalled the Williamsville, NY native. “That’s the mentality that I had.
“It was a lot more work. It turned out to be a lot of fun for all of us. We just tried to make the best of the situation.”
Today, a year later, the interim label has been removed and Grampp is the head coach of the Buffalo State squad. She had the opportunity to recruit and put her own mark on this team.
Grampp admits that she came into this season feeling better than she did a year ago when she took over the team without any prior warning.
“It definitely helps a little bit,” commented Grampp, who had previous coaching experience as an assistant with SUNY Canton in 2018-19 as well as serving as an intern coach for the U15 USA National Development Camp. “I definitely like seeing my own recruits out there and seeing how they are adapting to my system of play.
“I’m really just excited to see how we will look in a couple of years as we keep growing and keep building and keep putting the work in to make us better.”
Grampp is no stranger to girls/women’s hockey in the Western New York area. She played defense for the Williamsville Girls High School Hockey Team as well as the Buffalo Bisons before moving on to a four year hockey career at Elmira College.
Does Grampp’s Buffalo State team’s style of play reflect the style that Grampp played during his playing career?
“I would love to see that, but I don’t think we’re there yet,” commented Grampp, who was the United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) Defensive Player of the Year with Elmira College. “We’re taking some of the simple things that I’ve learned as a player growing up and while I was also at Elmira and applying it.
“Honestly, it’s different when you can recruit players to play a certain style. But right now I have a group of players and we’re growing from the inside out.
“We’re creating a style that best fits us as a team versus creating a style that we’re not really fit to play.”
Unofficially, Grampp is the first player to come out of the Western New York Girls Ice Hockey Federation to become a head coach in hockey.
Grampp is considered by many to be a pioneer in girls/women’s hockey in Western New York.
“Honestly, I didn’t know that I was the first player to become a head coach in hockey, but it’s just me giving back to the hockey world that’s given so much to me,” said Grampp, who helped the Soaring Eagles of Elmira reach the NCAA Championships in each of her four seasons with them, including a pair of national runner-up finishes in 2015 and 2018. “This is where I want to be.
“I wanted to be back in Buffalo. Home is a big part of who I am.
“Just to be back here, watching those high school games and recruiting some of those players and watch them develop over the next four years, it’s a lot of fun.”
Ironically, coaching hockey wasn’t really on Grampp’s radar screen until her final season of college play.
“I didn’t know that I was really interested in coaching until I was applying for grad school,” said Grampp, who completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology with a criminal justice minor. “I was talking with Rick Hopkins (her Williamsville Girls High School hockey coach) and he asked me if I was going to go into coaching.
“I told him no. Then I talked with a few of my other coaches and the next thing I knew I was an assistant coach at SUNY Canton with Dave LaBaff.
“He gave me full reign to anything I wanted to do. I was running drills. I was running systems.
“So was fortunate to have such a great mentor let me find my way and find what I liked and learn how to coach.
“Now it’s up to me to do something with that.”
(Photos By Janet Schultz Photography/NY Hockey OnLine)
