Weiss keeps focus on job as Colorado AHL assistant, not historic promotion

In NHL.com's Q&A feature called "Sitting Down with …" we talk to key figures in the game, gaining insight into their lives on and off the ice. This week, we feature Kim Weiss, assistant coach of the Colorado Eagles, the Colorado Avalanche's American Hockey League affiliate. Weiss was named assistant for the Eagles on Jan. 16, joining Seattle Kraken assistant Jessica Campbell as the only women in the NHL or AHL to be a full-time assistant coach.

Kim Weiss doesn't think about the history she's made that often.

The 36-year-old is too busy with her duties that come with being the Colorado Eagles' assistant coach, including breaking down 5-on-5 video -- she was the team's video coach prior to her promotion -- presenting it to the team, pushing pucks and running practice drills.

"When the title change happened and the promotion happened, I left the office of the general manager (Kevin McDonald), and I got back to work," Weiss told NHL.com. "In the moment you're not really thinking about that kind of stuff, but obviously it's an honor.

"I'm especially grateful just because of my background. I didn't play on a national team, I didn't grow up in Minnesota or any kind of a hockey hotbed. So to get at this level and to have this legacy, for lack of a better word, from the place I'm from, a kid from Maryland that played Division III (hockey at Trinity College), it makes me even more proud to show people that you can get somewhere no matter where you start from. Then you add in being a female and all of that, I'm really proud of my journey and I'm proud of all the people who helped me along the way to get here."

It's been quite a ride for Weiss with the Eagles, who are second in the AHL Pacific Division. Last week, Weiss talked to NHL.com about her new duties, working with the Avalanche and more women in hockey.

So what was it like the day McDonald called you into the office to give you the news of your promotion?

"Honestly, it's an affirmation of the work you put in. That's what the GM said to me. Last season I had a different head coach (Aaron Schneekloth) and we had a different assistant (Dan Hinote) that both moved onto the NHL, and they both spoke highly of me to our GM in the summer and to our new head coach (Mark Letestu). Getting to know Mark this year and working for him, everything that he had heard of me got confirmed through the first few months of the year.

"I don't exactly know how the process went about to change the title, but I think he went to Kevin, and I know Kevin said this to me, this line of, 'You're doing all the work that the assistant does, so why aren't we calling you one?' I'm already on the ice with the team and I run skill skates and scratch skates and present (video). I'm doing everything the assistant coach does; I just had a different title. So I really appreciate them just giving me the opportunity to kind of advance my career and keep doing what I love to do, which is coach hockey."

Letestu also had you run one of the practices earlier in the season. How did that come about?

"Every assistant got (that chance). The big thing coming in was, he had been an assistant coach before and he wanted to make sure we all had a voice and a say, and we weren't just coming onto the ice for practice like, 'Oh, here we go. Push some pucks. Put my track suit on for 20 minutes, push some pucks and jump off.' He wanted to make sure we had the platform in front of the players.

"It started with our longest-tenured assistant coach, Tim Branham. It was nothing new or scary for any of us, but just a different dynamic. Not every staff allows their assistants to take full responsibility of a full practice. Then Derek (Army) took it and then the next week I took one."

You worked with the Avalanche for a training camp in the past, as well as development camps. What did you get from that experience?

"The biggest thing I took away is, I'm on the right path. When I was a younger coach, you question, 'I'm a female, I'm from Maryland, not Michigan or Minnesota or Massachusetts, do I know the game well enough to help players get better? Players that are playing at a higher level than I've ever played at?' I think in just being around the development camp and seeing the Avalanche, who are one of the best, most respected organizations right now in the NHL, and being on the ice with them and then the coach's room, just seeing what they work on is so similar to what I was working on with my players, whether it was junior guys or college girls or whatever my player pool was at the time.

"Coaching is still coaching. It doesn't matter that they were in the NHL and I was in girls' AAA or boys' juniors or now the AHL. The deficiencies that players have are very similar, the struggles you go through as a team are very similar, it's just the makeup of the group looks a little different. It gave me confidence to go back to the teams I was coaching at the time and just kind of march forward. Like, I'm on the right path. I know what I'm seeing is real. Then when you run into something you might have trouble with, it gives you some allies to talk to and just a resource. They have so much information and video and statistics, so when your power play is struggling and you need a new idea, or the analytics of goalie pulling in girls' AAA hockey, I don't have the data to support what time I should pull my goalie at. It was just unbelievable to lean on the resources they had at NHL level and take some of that information back to the team I was coaching, if it was relevant."

Are you encouraged that we're seeing more women in hockey?

"I struggle with that. I get that a lot. For me, it's hire the best person and I think the most positive thing that's coming out in the last 5-10 years is that the worlds of hockey are intermingling more. I'm probably one of the few coaches in the history of the game that's been in men's pro hockey, men's college hockey, boys' juniors, girls' juniors, so I'm in all of these different pockets and I know all these people, and it's insane how little those worlds connect. Even men's college to men's pro, which should be one step away from one another. You don't see anybody, you're so busy in your seasons, so you get really siloed and you hire who you know at the end of the day.

"People you trust in this life and in this business are super important, so if you don't get the opportunity to get to know people, I would never have had this job if I didn't go to (Avalanche) development camp. I got to know the coaches here over three or four weeks over two years and they got to know me and my work ethic and my passion and felt comfortable that I'm someone they wanted to be around all day. That's the reality in the sport is that you're together more than with anybody else in your life, more than your family, more than with friends. You're going to go through some battles, some adversity together, so you want to know the person who's in that trench warfare with you. I think that's the most positive thing that's coming out, is the worlds are starting to intermingle and you're seeing more people from different backgrounds get opportunity and crush it. So it can look a lot of different ways now, which is great."

And as far as girls getting into hockey more, the U.S. women's team winning another gold helps, right?

"Absolutely. I worked with the women's team in the summer in Lake Placid. I've known (women's national team coach) John Wroblewski (for a while). He was coaching at the National Team Development Program, and I was coaching girls' AAA at the time. We just stayed in touch, and when he got the women's job I'd moved to men's hockey, and then he was going from men's to women's. He said, 'I need someone who knows how I coach and my philosophies but also knows the women's game and what do I need to tinker with.' I worked with that group quite a bit over the last few summers and I'm super happy for them and they totally deserve it.

"The work those players and that staff put in to get them ready for that tournament, we've been talking about 2026 since 2022, so there was a plan in place and there was faith in it and a lot of credit goes to them. It's going to have a huge impact on American girls' hockey moving forward here, to see the level of play, skill and just grit. It was a tough game and a tough series and super excited for where that group can help propel the women's game."