RinkWise podcast: Danielle Marmer of the Boston Bruins

Danielle Marmer played for Quinnipiac from 2013-17. (Steve Babineau, Boston Bruins)

Danielle Marmer has had quite the journey from growing up in Dorset, Vt., to working as a player development and scouting assistant for the Boston Bruins.

Over the years, she carved a unique hockey path — one that included playing prep school at Loomis Chaffee and eventually Division 1 college hockey at Quinnipiac, winning an ECAC championship in 2015-16.

She joined host Stephanie Wood on the latest episode of the RinkWise podcast.

They discussed Marmer’s career, her success and where she made mistakes along the way. It’s a fascinating look into one of the NHL’s most promising player development coaches.

On her first time facing adversity

Marmer: “I thought coming to Loomis that I had left that small pond but in reality, when you’re competing for spots with all of North America and Europe, the New England prep world still is pretty small. I found success at Loomis with the Polar Bears so I thought ‘OK everywhere I go, I’m going to be successful in hockey.’ That was not the case when I got to Quinnipiac. I was in for a bit of a rude awakening. I wasn’t prepared to be totally honest. You don’t know what you don’t know and I didn’t know going into that experience how the level and how competitive these players were, how hard they were training, the skills coaches, the personal trainers. The things players were doing to be their best. You don’t know what hard work looks like until you’re in the middle of it. I was not working hard prior to that and it’s hard to admit but if I was able to admit that earlier, it probably would’ve been a smoother transition.”

How she got started with the Bruins

Marmer: “My mentor was Ryan Nadeau, who is the director of amateur scouting for the Bruins. How the program worked is that they would send us video each month with a different position. So I remember September was the centers, October was wingers, November was defensemen and so on. They would send us three players. It’d be a pro player, an amateur player and a college player. They’d send three videos of each player and we’d watch the player and write evaluation reports, which are the same evaluation reports that I do in my job now. Every Tuesday at 9 a.m., I’d get on a Zoom with Ryan and we would talk about the players that we watched and talk about how we evaluate them and project them. We did that once a week from September to May and towards the end of that program, he knew I was looking for college Division 1 assistant jobs. He was like ‘How’s the job search going?’ and I was like ‘It’s still a little early, some teams are still playing, hasn’t really opened up yet.’ And he was like ‘What are your thoughts on doing this full-time?'”

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