Scott Radley: Laura Fortino becomes first female OHL assistant coach with Hamilton Bulldogs

There isn't much Laura Fortino hasn't done in hockey. She's played in the NCAA championship game, been a first-overall draft pick in the Canadian Women's Hockey league and set up the Golden Goal at the Sochi Olympics.

Even so, as she listened to Hamilton Bulldogs general manager Steve Staios offer her a job as the team's assistant coach and director of player development on Saturday morning, she got shivers.

Steve said, This is history,'" she says.

It is history. When she accepted - the hiring was announced on Monday morning, just days after Hamilton's Sarah Nurse became the first female player to land on the cover of an EA Sports NHL game - the 31-year-old from Ancaster became the first woman to hold such a position in the Ontario Hockey League. Which is a big deal. Though if you'd had to guess at who might eventually break that ice ceiling, Fortino would've been a good choice.

It's been years in the making, to be quite honest," Staios says.

For years, Fortino stood out as the only girl playing with the boys on the Hamilton Reps. Back in atom or thereabouts, her defence partner was future NHL blueliner Ben Chiarot.

Who was better then? She laughs and never answers. That's OK.

Despite her terrific skating and other skills, it wasn't just raw athleticism that allowed her to advance into higher and higher levels of hockey and eventually into the national women's program and then onto the national team. It can't be just pure physicality when you're a five-foot-four defenceman who doesn't tip the scale past 140 pounds.

Someone like that has to think. Which is exactly what she's all about. Fortino - who starred for Cornell in university hockey where smarts are a prerequisite - is a cerebral player whose grey matter is as sharp as her skates. She gets the game.

With that going for her, it made sense that her hometown Bulldogs would've asked her a year ago to come help out with skill development. It was there that Staios says she really made an impression.

So during a discussion with the coaches the other day, someone suggested adding her to the staff. Staios says they looked at each other and realized it was a terrific idea. They just had to find out if she was interested.

The answer was obviously yes. Fortino has long thought this would be her future. Sort of.

I didn't think it would be on the men's side," she laughs. But here I am."

As he and she talked about what this meant, Staios made clear what this was about. And what it wasn't about.

We're not hiring you because you are a female," she says he explained. We're hiring you because of what you bring to the table."

And what is that?

Staios starts down the checklist. Character. Passion for the game. Work ethic. Smarts. And no, it doesn't hurt that she's local.

Listening to the offer was a surreal feeling. She's still got her own career as a player with the Professional Women's Hockey Players' Association Toronto Sonnet. She'll continue with that. But now she can immerse herself in the game full time. And blaze a trail doing it.

While it's absolutely exciting, Fortino's not going to lie, being first brings some nerves. She wondered how a bunch of teenage boys would react to her in this role. So when she stepped on the ice on Saturday for the first time as a full-fledged coach, her thoughts were pretty clear.

Oh, don't screw up here," she laughs again.

Those concerns were quickly allayed. She says every single player was respectful. They called her Coach Laura. They listened to her instructions and asked her opinion on things. The coaching staff did, too.

How her job will evolve and what it'll look like is a bit of a work in progress. She'll probably find herself on the bench at some point if not right from the start. She'll definitely be working on skill development. She'll have other tasks just like all the assistant coaches.

Most of all, she says, she's going to soak in everything she can.

I'm going to be like a sponge this year," she says. I'm going to be doing a lot more listening than talking."

Except in every visiting arena where people will want to chat with her about making a bit of history.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com