Coach Laura Ardoin prepares to welcome 26 athletes to the varsity program
As anticipation builds up for the fall sports here at Roger Williams University, many are excited to witness the new addition of the RWU women’s hockey team. Head coach Laura Ardoin spoke out about her background leading up to becoming the head coach and her passion for the game. As well as athletic director Kiki Jacobs voicing her opinion on the immense value she believes coach Arodin is going to bring to this first-year team. Jacobs explains she believes Arodin and the team will be very successful, regardless of it being very tough to be a first-year program. Arodin has been playing hockey since she was three years old and took her talents to play at SUNY Canton, playing hockey and lacrosse. Since college, Arodin has coached for several years, making this her eighth year, allowing her to take all her experience and help build a program at RWU from scratch. When asked more on building this team and why Arodin decided to take the coaching job she mentioned several deciding factors, one of the biggest being “I think kind of what I just mentioned about like starting an inaugural program and really having my hands in and building like the cultures and the traditions and the things that are gonna be long lasting past, even my tenure here, um, was something that really intrigued me, especially having done it as a player”. While these deciding factors led her to take the head coach position of the new team, Arodin explains that ever since she took the job, she can not wait to experience certain factors, such as the team’s first goal and the team’s very first win. When asked more about it, Arodin explains it as having “FOMO” due to her other friends who coach at RWU being on the ice and actually having a season, and just being very excited about it all. While speaking to friends, Arodin has who coached at RWU she spoke of her friendship with Coach Hall, the men’s hockey coach. Arodin states, “We work really intermentally, like well together.” “I’ve actually been on the bench with them this season, so, um, and I’ve been on the ice with ‘em for practices as well”. Arodin appreciates this experience working closely with Coach Hall and the men’s hockey team, allowing her to see further what works well with the players and build good relationships with them. After speaking about the men’s team and coach hall Arodin was asked what the addition of this women’s hockey team can bring to a D3 school such as Roger Williams. Arodin explained how incredible it is and emphasized the importance of women’s sports getting the recognition that they deserve. She states, “It is nice to see that there’s starting to become some sort of legitimacy behind women’s sports”. As well as mentioning how much women’s sports have grown in the past couple of years. While ending the interview, Arodin states more about her women’s team, mentioning how many of them are first-year students, the team has nineteen skaters and three goalies, and “ a lot of fun personalities coming in, a lot of fun young energy, which I think is going to be really, really, exciting to see all translate onto the ice”. The RWU community, Kiki Jacobs, and Laura Arodin are all excited to see where the future of this women’s hockey program will go, as well as for the start of the season.
Contributors: Brenna Medeiros, Alex Tavaglione, Ana Dwyer