Michigan Hockey Inc: How Brandon Naurato’s Business Background has Shaped his Program

Brandon Naurato sits at his desk inside Yost Ice Arena. It’s the middle of May, more than a month since his University of Michigan hockey team lost to Boston College in the Frozen Four. The college hockey world has slowed down for the summer. Meanwhile, Naurato is speeding up. He and his staff have pored over video and data this Friday morning. He’s already delayed our interview by half an hour.

There’s nothing off about this offseason. No, this is when the season is shaped the most, when the calm pace of the summer allows for the reflection and revision necessary to make program changes.

Running one of the most historic hockey programs in the country is all new territory to Naurato. He’d never been a head coach before earning the Wolverines’ interim role two years ago. He’s still learning lessons about being a head coach on the fly as he builds the Michigan vision he pitched from day one. And even though he spent his first year as an interim head coach, he’s only really had one full year with the license and ability to truly build his own program.

“Before I actually sat in this seat, you feel that you have an idea of what this role entails. After sitting in it, it's so much more,” Naurato told The Hockey News. “At times it can be the loneliest seat in the world, and at other times it can be the greatest seat in the world. But no one truly knows what you deal with day to day, and that’s kind of a metaphor for life and walking in other people's shoes. It's not just this title. It's everything — it's getting to know other people and appreciating their path.”

What Naurato lacked in experience as a head coach, he made up for with experience as a business owner. Most days, head coaching resembles his life when he ran the Detroit office of Total Package Hockey as a player development coach more than it resembles his one year as an assistant coach for the Wolverines. Working at the largest hockey development company in the country, Naurato’s time at TPH gave him experience with the intricacies of managing personnel and assets. This time, at the helm of a 101-year-old hockey program, his job falls more in line with renovation and optimization.

The way Naurato sees it, coaching his alma mater is a chance to step outside of the box. Being in the business world, there was a lot of established framework for him to implement and modify to build the company he wanted to build. He could form his business to occupy a niche, specializing in areas he thought were important.

“When we started the TPH academy, that started with me googling hockey academies,” Naurato explains. “And I'm proud of that. It's truly from scratch.” The process forced him out of his comfort zone, for instance when he had to meet with educators to bring academics into his development program.

Running a Division I hockey program is a lot like running a business, especially with all the resources that the Block M provides Naurato with. While he has to weave through more red tape with NCAA compliance rules and university standard practice guides, working at Michigan gives Naurato so many resources to maximize. His methodology to do so begins with people.

“What I've learned is a business, a hockey team, a family — it's all about having the right people,” Naurato explains. “Like-minded people with a growth mindset that are trying to be the best versions of themselves. That's where we put the most pride or value in.”

Making Michigan a national champion doesn’t mean Naurato is willing to sacrifice everything else to get there. In reality, it’s his own vision — the optimization of Michigan hockey like a hockey business — that Naurato feels will help him bring Michigan to the top.

Look at it this way, it isn’t Michigan Hockey anymore. This is Michigan Hockey Inc.

Like any corporation, Michigan needed an overhaul under new management. When Naurato took over, the state of the hockey program was a lot like Yost itself these days. It’s beautiful in its charm, but beneath the paint and marketing, amenities were scarce — practice space, recovery rooms and even the visiting locker room are squeezed into the rink. At the program level, many operations were lacking, too. There was no analytics department. The alumni network was loose and decentralized. Even the specific roles of staff members weren’t the type Naurato wanted to wield; they were too inefficient, too much of a throwback to empower the program in the modern NCAA.

These all had to change, and Naurato did change them. In his first two years in charge, he played CEO and HR director, establishing the departments he wanted to lean on and filling his positions with experts. Entering his third season, the analytics department is up to full speed, with apps and technology in place to maximize what players can do on and off the ice. Naurato has redefined roles for staff members and coaches, finally putting together his first full staff with the hiring of Chrissy Powers as a brand developer for his players. Now, he’s in the process of beefing up the alumni network through a mentorship program that focuses on life beyond hockey.

“That's where I feel NCAA athletics is going, is that the head coach needs to pivot to more of a CEO role,” Naurato said. “And then through that, you need to identify what's your identity — what do we want to be great at on and off the ice? And then after you figure out what we want to be great at, then you surround yourself with people that are great at building this identity. You hire or you recruit the right type of people or kids to play inside of this identity.”

From recruiting to player development to staff organization, Naurato’s vision has gone under construction since the start. But with implementation comes adjustment. The vision itself hasn’t changed — Naurato knows that he wants to build a program that plays great hockey through having great people. But there are roadblocks that he’s learned a lot from over the past year. As much as the first year saw Naurato overhaul Michigan’s systems and structures, the second year saw these go into full action. All of that primes Naurato’s Wolverines for his third year.

People First

It’s the night before the Wolverines play North Dakota in the 2024 Maryland Heights NCAA Regional. Michigan’s game tomorrow could be the last of its season. Rest and preparation are imperative.

So naturally, the Wolverines spend their evening creating an entirely new game.

In the way that a group of 20-some 20-somethings always seem to get into antics, his players combined the hotel tennis court and a soccer ball to invent their own hybrid game. The players loved it, playing it late into the night — time that would otherwise be spent preparing for a do-or-die game. Even if this doesn’t sound like game prep, it really was in Michigan’s unique way. The Wolverines were all together, all united as one unit. Their priority before a high-stress game is letting loose because their ultimate trait is their ability to play as a pack.

“This summarizes what we're trying to build in regards to the culture of this program,” Naurato said. “The staff’s out there, wives and kids are out there, every single player on the team is out there. We're spending time together, and we're happy and smiling. There's no pressure for the next big game tonight.”

That’s culture, and so is the way the Wolverines manage the rest of their time. Whereas other teams might break down into friend groups of threes and fours, Michigan spends its time together. Some guys are studying, some guys are watching other games, and some guys are even cutting loose by playing a game, but they’re ultimately together. Michigan hockey might run like a business, but its relationships give it its power.

Naurato also wants to be authentic himself. He doesn’t put on a persona to talk to his players, even when conversations about roles and ice time get difficult. There are no off-limits topics. His mantra is to be as clear and honest with players as he can be.

“Whether that's right or wrong, that allows me to have consistency,” Naurato said. “… I want them to come into the office comfortable to be open with me and let me know what's going on in their lives on or off the ice in a positive or negative way. Because if they don't tell me those things, or they're not comfortable and open with me, we haven't developed that trust and I can't help support them.”

Players have relationships with every staff member, created from their interactions with them. From athletic trainer Brian Brewster to academic adviser Ashley Korn to director of hockey ops Evan Hall and beyond, all these mentors prioritize building trust so that they can help players grow. They’re tasked with being leaders — aces in their places, as Naurato says. 

These relationships aren’t just created as a representative of the coaching staff, either. Rather they are unique to each staff member. Young men need mentors, most importantly ones they believe in. This makes tough conversations palatable, and praise even more believable.

“We can have the best strength coach or the best assistant coach in the world,” Naurato said. “If they can't connect with people and get their message across and require buy in, the X’s and O’s don’t matter.”

Everything in Naurato’s program ties back to people. This is a lesson Naurato picked up from TPH, where he was afforded the opportunity to succeed and fail forward in his own way because of great mentors. With the right leaders ahead of him who were open and honest with him — particularly TPH founder Nathan Bowen and business partner Keith Rowe — Naurato knew where he stood and knew where he needed to move to. Now, he's replicating that environment for his players.

“What everyone wants is the opportunity to fly and succeed. What everyone wants is the opportunity that if they fail, they're gonna get another chance,” Naurato said. “So failing is OK, it's a good thing, you're gonna be able to figure it out from failure. And to do that — again, whether it's a family, a hockey team or business — you need to be in an environment with the right mentors and the right type of people that allow you to go through that.”

TPH did that for Naurato, with people like Bowen and Rowe guiding him forward. “It was being thrown in the fire, learning, growing and figuring it out from there.” That’s why he wants to build an environment where his players can be united problem solvers, not just obedient followers.

Authenticity, at the end of the day, isn’t what the outside world will ever judge Naurato’s program by. Instead, external evaluations will look at the quantitative data of records and championships. But internally, Naurato evaluates himself on the way his program can impact the lives of his players and help them achieve.