Back in May, St. Anselm College announced a big change to their athletics program, with all of their teams transitioning to Division III at the beginning of the 2027-28 season. The majority of athletes at St. A’s currently compete at the Division II level, with women’s hockey and women’s bowling the two DI exceptions. Women’s hockey rose to DI in 2017 with the formation of the NEWHA conference, and found immediate success as back-to-back regular season champions. Now, the Hawks will have just one more chance to take home the NEWHA trophy as they enter their final DI season.
To talk about these changes and the program’s transitional year, The Ice Garden sat down with St. Anselm Head Coach Jessica Salisbury.
Note: this interview has been edited for clarity.
The Ice Garden: Tell me a little bit about your journey into this role of Head Coach.
Jessica Salisbury: It’s been a long one. [I’m] going on my ninth year of coaching in the college world. [I] started out at Johnson & Wales, then went to Becker, then to Assumption, and then here. I’ve been the assistant coach for the last two years, and then this past May, the previous coach moved on from that position, and they kind of just scooted me right in there. It’s exciting, but it’s been a wild ride and a long journey to get here. But my dream was always to be a Division-III head coach, so I’m super excited about the opportunity, especially at Saint A’s where I’ve been for the last two years.
TIG: You came into this position at a time of great change, with the team announcing its planned move to D-III just a couple weeks before you were announced as head coach. Did you get any advanced notice about this? And then how did you plan for the changes as a new head coach?
Salisbury: No advanced notice, really. They announced the transition to Division III when the old coach was still in position; I was still the assistant. It was shortly after the announcement that we made the transition into me taking over, but we have a year still in the NEWHA, so that gives me a little bit of time to figure out what I would like my Division-III team to look like, while also trying to navigate the roster with 14 players hopping in the portal and transferring out. I had to bring in 19 new players for just this season, so with a brand new team, it’s just focusing on getting them to dive in headfirst, [with] both feet, and be all in with this season, get through the season with as much success and happy student-athletes as we can. But just taking it one day at a time, really, I’ve learned is probably the best way to do it; not looking too far ahead because you never know what could change in a day or a week or a month.
TIG: There were a lot of departures with the announcement of the team moving to D-III, so how did the recruitment process go to refill so many positions?
Salisbury: Fast. It went really fast. I got a few out of the transfer portal. Most of them were coming from Division-III institutions, just because it was hard to get the Division-I caliber of player because they know that we are no longer going to be Division-I after this year. So it was a little tough. Basically, the goal was to fill the roster so we have a team, so I could complete the roster, so we can compete for one more year in the NEWHA before we move on. But it was go, go, go for me for about two months trying to fill those spots, which came a little easier than I thought it would. [I’m] not really surprised with the campus that we have and the history behind the women’s program that we have. It’s a pretty attractive campus to anybody that steps foot on it, so that definitely helps with the rink on campus [and] having our own locker room to keep all [our] stuff in. So it kind of feels like you’re playing Division I, even though the end goal after this year will be Division III. But it went super fast. I had to get enough to be able to play a game, so just taking as many out of the transfer portal as I can so I didn’t have to bring in 18 new freshmen was kind of my goal. We’ve got 12, I believe, freshmen, and then six or seven transfers, and then with eight returners, we ended up with 27 on the roster, which is great.
TIG: What is your goal for the team in this transitional season?
Salisbury: I honestly just want them to compete. I want them to be happy where they are right now, focus on the now and not too much into the future because we never know what could happen. I want for them to come into the rink and have it be their happy place because at the end of the day, if they’re having a good time and a good experience, it transitions to the on-ice competitiveness, and I think it makes us better as a team. I truly believe we have a better team than a lot of people think we do, so I hope we come out of this season with a lot of wins. Obviously, we’re gonna have some losses because you can’t win everything, you can’t be perfect, but as long as everybody is happy to be here, I think I’m doing my job as a coach pretty well. Wins and losses are obviously going to happen no matter what, but it’s the all-around experience I would like for every one of my student-athletes for it to be a positive one. That way, a lot of them do stick around when we do transition into D-III, or I have a good enough relationship with them to help them get to where their dreams really lie if it’s not with St. A’s. So I would just say a successful season for us would be just to get everybody through it the best we can and have them have a great experience while getting, hopefully, a pretty good amount of wins in there and making a run in playoffs for the NEWHA.
TIG: What are you looking for now in terms of leadership from the returners that you do have?
Salisbury: Honestly, keeping the culture. We want a positive team culture in and outside of the locker room. On all bases, I think helping the new players [is important] just because some of them are upperclassmen per se [and] they’re new to Saint A’s, so showing them the way that we do things here and helping them get acclimated to everything that happens on campus. And just being that role model and being happy to be there, while kind of holding everybody to a high expectation of ‘we show up and we give 100% effort’, but we also hold the culture that it’s a healthy competition, almost. I always ask that everybody brings 100% into practice because it makes the games just that much easier. So for my returners, we’ve got one captain right now. Now that we’ve had a game against Northeastern, since there’s so many new players, we’ll go in and vote for probably two more assistants, just to see where that gets us and then hopefully have our leadership squad in place. But the eight returners are great. I mean, they love the school, they love the team, I think they like me as a coach, so I think just holding down the fort [is helpful] when I can’t be in the locker room 24/7, like they are. So, you know, holding everybody accountable, having high expectations, but also keeping the culture light and happy and positive.
TIG: How did you feel about the exhibition match against Northeastern the other day?
Salisbury: I think they outdid themselves. I expected, you know, obviously, probably a loss, against the number-four ranked in the country, polled first for the Hockey East, but when Lindsay Berman — she’s the assistant coach over there, she actually coached me at UMass Boston; she was there for three out of my four years before she went back to Northeastern with Dave, so I know her pretty well — she called me about a month ago and asked what I thought about doing it. And I was like, ‘You know, being straightforward, we’re more of a high-end D-III team with a handful of Division-I players,’ just so they don’t come in here expecting a full Division-I team, because that’s not really what we are right now. And she said, ‘No, that’s great, you know, it doesn’t count, it doesn’t matter. We just, everybody wants to get on the ice.’ And so I agreed to it, and then my student-athletes just totally outdid themselves and outperformed. They performed better than I could have asked for with two days of learning systems and having to throw it right into a game. It was incredible to watch, and I’m really excited for the group that I have here. I think a lot of people have underestimated us based on the transition and losing 18 players, but I think we’ve got a pretty good group in that locker room, and I’m pretty excited. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome against that team, so I’m pretty happy with their performance for sure.
