Former Quinnipiac University women’s ice hockey player Danielle Marmer will be joining the Boston Bruins NHL team as a Player Development and Scouting Assistant. Marmer is the first woman in history to hold a position with the Bruins on ice.

The head coach of Quinnipiac’s women’s ice hockey team and Marmer’s former coach, Cassandra Turner is confident in Marmer’s ability to make a difference in the game of ice hockey.

“Danielle is incredibly intuitive, she’s very bright, she’s somebody who watches, who sees, and understands situations and people. She’s always been a phenomenal connector of people,” Turner said. “She’s earned this, you know, it’s not by chance. She has certainly earned this opportunity and will do very good work.”

Marmer will be working alongside Adam McQuaid, the player development coordinator, and Jamie Langenbrunner, the director of player development. She will be assisting players on the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League (AHL) to transition them into the NHL to become a Boston Bruin.  

As the first woman to take an on-ice position with the Boston Bruins, Marmer expressed that she’s extremely grateful just to be a part of the organization.

“I think anybody would be just honored to be a part of our organization,” Marmer said. “You know, me being a female does obviously come into play… this is a big deal, that I am the first female, but you know I’m more just so excited to be a part of the organization, regardless of the fact that I’m a female.”

Marmer’s lifelong desire to be on the ice has guided her to success with the Bruins. At age five, Marmer began playing hockey and she has since stuck with it.

“At my sister’s figure skating lesson I was bothering my mom on the bench begging her to get on the ice and asking when it was my turn,” Marmer said. 

Only two years old at the time, Marmer begged her mom to ask the instructor if she could skate too. 

“My mom said I would get out there and take a couple steps and fall and I’d pop back up,” Marmer said. 

When Marmer got to Quinnipiac, she knew her journey wouldn’t be easy. After seeing players from all over the world at Quinnipiac, Marmer realized that she had been a “big fish in a small pond” in her small town in Vermont. Working herself extra hard, Marmer set many goals for herself to ensure she would become a valuable player on the team. 

“I wanted to become an impactful player. I wanted to be somebody who was impacting the program in a positive way. It was really challenging to find a way to do it,” Marmer said.

Marmer is clear to give credit to those who guided her throughout her journey on ice, especially her former coach, Turner.

“The head coach there now, Cassandra Turner, she really helped me define a role and buy into it and be excited about it,” Marmer said. 

As Marmer became good at one role, Turner would challenge her with another one repetitively until Marmer could work her way “into the lineup and into larger ice time.” 

Looking back on her experience with her coach, Marmer said. “She helped me to love hockey again and to find a place and to be excited about it and then to want to help other people do it.”

Marmer also credits her family, especially her father, with being her biggest supporter and helping her get through difficult times during her hockey career at Quinnipiac.

“I had a lot of phone calls with him and he didn’t go easy on me. If I called him to complain about something he was the first one to tell me to suck it up and figure it out and that my coaches are always right and to listen to them,” Marmer said. “In the moment it wasn’t always the feedback that I wanted to hear but I’m so grateful that he didn’t just let me complain about things or let me sit in those struggle moments.”

As Marmer approached the end of her hockey career at Quinnipiac, she was searching for ways to continue her involvement in the sport. Marmer’s former coach brought the Boston Bruins Diversity and Inclusion Mentorship Program to her attention.

Marmer’s interest in the program with the Boston Bruins was not only because she was a lifelong fan, but she wanted to show that she could help players as well. 

“I wanted to prove that I could evaluate players and analyze characteristics of their game and project where they’d end up. Doing that with an NHL team and with NHL scouts I thought would be the perfect opportunity,” Marmer said.

With Ryan Nadeau, the associate director of amateur scouting for the Bruins, as her mentor in the program, Marmer developed a greater understanding of how to work with hockey players on a professional level.

“We met once a week on zoom every Tuesday at 9 a.m. from September to May, so we got to know each other very well and we analyzed game film, we watched prospects and players, and I wrote eval[evaluation] reports on those players,” Marmer said. 

Through her work in the Boston Bruins program, Marmer successfully proved herself to her mentor and eventually started the conversation about continuing her work with the Bruins. 

As the women’s ice hockey head coach for Quinnipiac, Turner is especially proud that Marmer is the first woman to be hired by the Boston Bruins for a position on ice. 

“[It’s] just so cool, she doesn’t call herself a trailblazer, she doesn’t call herself somebody that’s doing something new, but she is, she’s just too humble to admit that,” Turner said.

Turner believes that Marmer is nothing short of an inspiration to other women’s ice hockey players. Turner says she has a “passion for wanting to learn and grow as a player.” 

“Players within our program, you know, people that we’ve been talking to that are in high school, for them to see people like Danielle they’re now thinking, oh, I could go down that path and be in hockey in a different way,” Turner said. 

Turner will continue to support Marmer throughout her journey outside of Quinnipiac and into the NHL.

“I just hope she has just an excitement and passion and loves it, you know, I’m confident that she will and that she’ll find and carve out that role,” Turner said. “She’s become assertive and has become somebody who will certainly be confident in giving thoughts, opinions, new ideas and I just want her to enjoy that opportunity and experience.”

Marmer believes that working with the Boston Bruins will not only help her, it will keep opportunities open for other women interested in being a part of the NHL.

“I just want to keep proving that women can be here, that there’s space for women in the NHL, and make sure that I work hard so that [that] door remains open for young women who want to be a part of it as well,” Marmer said.

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