On Wednesday, July 23rd, the Boston Fleet announced Kris Sparre would be the team's newest head coach [https://thehockeynews.com/womens/pwhl/boston-fleet-name-kris-sparre-new-head-coach]. Before becoming the head coach of the Fleet, Sparre was an assistant coach in the American Hockey League. He spent the past three seasons with the Anaheim Ducks affiliate. Prior to that, he coached the Flint Firebirds of the Ontario Hockey League as the associate coach. When coaching, Sparre takes on a player-first approach. He explained his coaching style and said, “I believe you know, my strengths as a coach are my ability to communicate a message effectively and my ability to build strong relationships with our players.” Boston Fleet General Manager Danielle Marmer said that his relationship-based approach was one of the reasons she picked Sparre for the job. “He has an ability to connect and to engage, which allows you to build trust,” Marmer said. “I think that is a crucial quality for a head coach.” For the past two seasons, Courtney Kessel has served as the head coach for the Fleet. Kessel announced in the off-season that she would be leaving the Fleet [https://thehockeynews.com/womens/pwhl/former-fleet-head-coach-courtney-kessel-officially-named-new-bench-boss-for-princeton] to become the head coach at Princeton University. Under Kessel, the Fleet made it to the Walter Cup Championship in their first season, but narrowly missed the playoffs last season. Sparre wants to ensure they make the postseason this season with his ‘above and beyond’ coaching style. “We are going to be suffocating in every area of the ice, and we're going to build a culture where we crave the work,” he said. “We're doing more than the regular teams [are] willing to do, because we know that the results are going to pay off in the end.” Sparre has spent his career coaching men’s hockey. The transition to coaching women's hockey didn’t faze him. “I didn't look at it as men's [or] women's,” he said. “I looked at it as the best option to work with the best in the world.” Marmer backed him up and said she had no concerns about the fact that he hadn’t coached women’s hockey before. She said, “he's coached professional athletes. He's coached the best players in the game. Our players want to be treated like pros, and they want to learn from the best, and I think that's what we're doing here.” Sparre knows that Boston is a championship city. He made it clear that he came to win. “It's not going to be easy,” he said. “There are going to be struggles. There’s going to be adversity, but that's where the communication aspect and the relationship building come in.” Danielle Marmer (left) and Kris Sparre (right) - Photo @ PWHL [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/c8dfc6bd-10b7-40d6-859c-065423929892.jpeg] Danielle Marmer (left) and Kris Sparre (right) - Photo @ PWHL
