The Seattle Kraken have added seven new hires to the club’s hockey operations department, headlined by Gary Roberts as a sports science and performance consultant.
The newest NHL franchise has also hired Michael Booi as head athletic trainer, Nate Brookreson as head strength and conditioning coach, Jeff Camelio as head equipment manager, Eric Mathiasen as a hockey operations developer, John Mavroudis as a hockey operations data engineer and Tim Ohashi as head video analyst.
“Today marks another milestone for the Kraken as we bring on core components of the hockey operations staff,” said general manager Ron Francis in a statement. “Each individual brings years of experience and a desire to make us a great hockey franchise.”
Roberts, who played in the NHL for 21 seasons, currently works with a number of players at the Gary Roberts High Performance Centre in Toronto. In his role with the Kraken, Roberts will be tasked with providing “the Kraken Training Center and team infrastructure with the proper equipment and systems in place to enable Kraken players to perform at their highest potential,” according to a statement.
Booi and Ohashi join the Kraken from the Washington Capitals where both contributed to the 2018 Stanley Cup championship. Booi, who has also worked with the Arizona Coyotes, “will work in collaboration with the team’s medical staff to implement the organization’s injury prevention, maintenance and recovery programs for all Kraken players, along with overseeing the athletic training staff,” according to a statement. Ohashi “will work closely with hockey operations staff, including scouts and coaches, to provide insight and prepare video analysis of Kraken players and opponents.”
The #SeaKraken group gets stronger, bigger and better prepared for the 2021-22 season with seven key hires in hockey operations.
Get to know them here https://t.co/4YL2fnvBJn pic.twitter.com/2eQT2I6Ze3
— Seattle Kraken (@NHLSeattle_) October 21, 2020
Brookreson has experience working with Olympic and college athletes, some of whom now work on the Seattle Seahawks’ strength and conditioning staff. He will be tasked with building a culture that prioritizes strength and conditioning as a pillar to winning.
“I’m so excited for the opportunity,” Brookreson said in a statement. “In all of my conversations with other strength and conditioning coaches, what comes back the most is hockey players are the most humble and hardworking in sports. They want to get better. I look forward to getting to know the players and their backgrounds.”
Camelio brings more than 1,700 NHL games of experience to the Kraken as the assistant equipment manager with the Nashville Predators. Seattle will be his first opportunity to be the head equipment manager.
Mathiasen and Mavroudis will work closely with the Kraken’s director of hockey strategy and research, Alexandra Mandrycky, as the club builds out its hockey analytics department. Mathiasen joins the Kraken from Microsoft while Mavroudis previously worked for Hellosign, a company owned by Dropbox.
“What most people may consider staff on an ‘analytics’ team would be the analysts,” Mandrycky said in a statement.”But as the Kraken built our research and development team, we prioritized the technology side of things just as much as the analysis.”
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