Anna Hamid’s hockey playing days may have ended earlier than she would have liked, but her love for the game never went away. Hamid has transitioned from player to coach, having been announced on Oct. 8 as the coach of Hiram College’s first women’s ice hockey team.
“It is such an honor truly,” Hamid told The Weekly Villager. “It is obviously a very big task, so you have to be selective in who you pick and I am really honored to be the person to be able to grow this program and make it something special and contribute to the athletics culture at Hiram.”
Hamid arrives at Hiram after spending the first year of graduate school as an assistant coach at Castleton University in VT, which was only her second year of coaching collegiate hockey. She will continue her graduate studies as she is in the middle of her second and final year of pursuing a master’s degree in sports leadership.
In addition to continuing her studies, Hamid is currently spending every weekend on the recruiting trail out of state, searching for the first crop of players to form Hiram’s newest athletic program According to Hamid, the women’s ice hockey season will not begin until the 2026-27 school year and the Terriers will most likely be playing as an independent program, as the Presidents’ Athletic Conference does have a women’s ice hockey program.
For Hamid, coaching hockey became an option for her after her collegiate career ended abruptly even before her senior season started when she suffered her third concussion in as many years playing goalkeeper for the State University of New York at Cortland.
“I was out for a pretty decent amount of time,” Hamdi noted. “My coaches and my athletic training staff, they were like ‘This is your brain we are talking about and we cannot mess with that but we have this great position for you, still being in the game and still enjoying your senior year to some extent with whatever is left of it’. It is definitely a unique story, but it is my mine and I love it and I would not change it.”
Hamid spent her senior season as a student-assistant coach and enjoyed the position so much that she continued coaching when she entered graduate school.
She was prepared to enter her second year of being a graduate assistant coach but received word from a friend, Joe Vandervere-Sarlanis, an assistant coach for the Hiram men’s hockey program, that the College was seeking a women’s ice hockey coach and Hamid applied for the position.
“I am really happy that they see something in me and think that I can do this so having support from the athletic department in that sense is very cool.” Hamid said.
Although Hamid’s coaching career is still in its infancy stages, her knowledge of the game of hockey stretches back to when she first learned to skate as a child and became enthralled by the sport.
Hamid said that she would accompany her father, who worked as a skills/skating coach, to his classes while living in Long Island, NY and became inspired to learn how to skate so she could take up hockey.
Once Hamid learned to skate, she attended a camp in Montreal which was run by tenured Montreal Canadiens’ goalkeeper Carey Price.
“I met my favorite player ever and was like ‘I want to be just like him’ so I switched over to goaltending,” Hamid said. “I don’t think my Dad was too happy about that but he does not regret it.”
Hamid was a four-year starter for the girls’ hockey prep team at Portledge School in New York and also spent two years with a girls’ club team. She said that she enjoyed playing goalkeeper because it was such a niche position.
“Hockey is already a nice (niche?) sport,” she added. “I take a lot of psych classes and being a goaltender in any sport takes a special mindset for sure. Everybody says goalkeepers are crazy, but you need to be so on time and on top of your game and keeping yourself mentally healthy takes a lot and I love a good challenge.”
Although Hamid’s hockey playing career has ended, her coaching career is just beginning as she is currently laying the foundation for another successful Hiram athletic program.
“Something that is important to me is building a good team culture right from the jump,” she said. “If you have good people that can put aside differences and come together as a family and set a really good foundation and have fun with it, you are going to set yourself up for success.”
