Hartwick Eager to Begin New Job
Brandon, MB – Zach Hartwick’s love of sports has led him to the Brandon Wheat Kings.
The 28-year-old, who was recently named the Western Hockey League club’s new athletic therapist, replaces William Sadonick-Carriere, who took a job with the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose in June.
“I’ve always been involved in sports and played sports growing up,” Hartwick said. “I just wanted to stay involved in sports somehow. I grew up playing hockey, loved the sport and from there stayed involved it. I like to see the progress — you hate to see guys get hurt — but for them, the process of getting back to play.”
Hartwick grew up in Fisherville, Ont., a community of 500 people south of Hamilton and west of Niagara Falls. He did a kinesiology degree at Laurentian University in Sudbury, and during his fourth year, served an internship with a club football team.
“That kind of got me into athletic therapy,” said Hartwick, who worked with the men’s hockey team at Laurentian, then applied to Sheridan College.
The four-year program has certainly made a strong impression on the Wheat Kings organization.
Roman (RJ) Kaszcjiz, who was also going through the Sheridan program with Hartwick, spent the 2018-19 season in Brandon before being recruited to join the American Hockey League’s Utica Comets. The Comets moved to Abbotsford during the summer, where Kaszcjiz will be joined by another former Wheat Kings athletic therapist, Chris Trivieri, who also went to Sheridan.
After Hartwick graduated with a degree in athletic therapy in 2018, he was quickly hired by the Melville Millionaires of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League to serve as both athletic therapist and equipment manager.
“That was a great start for me out of school,” Hartwick said. “It was really good for me to learn the equipment side of things. Obviously here I can help (Brandon equipment manager Scott Hlady) Scooter with stuff. It taught me a lot of time management stuff.
“There is only so much time in the day and I have to get the AT (athletic therapy) stuff done and the equipment stuff so I have to sort out when stuff gets done and what’s first in line. Obviously the AT stuff is more important with guys’ health.”
He also had to learn to do more with less.
Working at the Tier 2 level, there simply isn’t the same money available for therapy equipment as there is in the WHL.
“There was a lot of problem solving,” Hartwick said. “If a guy got injured, normally I would use one thing but now I have to work my way around it. My manual skills got a lot stronger because I didn’t have anything else to do.”
After the 2019-20 season, Hartwick was hired by the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, but the season was later cancelled because of COVID-19. He needed to work, so he joined the Drayton Valley Thunder of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, but their season was also cancelled after a few games due to the pandemic.
When the Brandon job came open, Hartwick asked Kaszcjiz about the opportunity.
“He had nothing but good things to say about the staff here,” Hartwick said. “He said working with Scooter every day was great, plus the rink and the people. He had nothing bad to say about Brandon.”
Hartwick’s job doesn’t just entail injury treatment. An equally important part of his work is injury prevention, which is reflected in strength and flexibility training, along with pre-game warmups.
There are standard approaches to training in his profession, but each athletic therapist also brings their own favourites to the job.
“There are different routines,” Hartwick said. “I’m not saying one is better than the other, it’s just when you’ve seen your own thing work, you stick with it.”
Hartwick hasn’t reached out to many of his fellow athletic therapists around the WHL just yet — he’s still getting settled after joining the team last month — but he knows Swift Current Broncos athletic therapist Andrew Kutnikoff from their time together working in the SJHL. He’s looking forward to the opportunity to hit the road once the season begins.
“It’s definitely cool,” Hartwick said. “You get to meet a lot of different people, a lot of great buildings we play in too, like the new arena in Edmonton that I’ve never been to.”
The job has certainly taken his three predecessors to some fine new arenas as well. Hartwick is Brandon’s fourth athletic therapist since Josh Guenther left after the 2015-16 campaign, but the other three all work in professional hockey.
“Obviously it’s great to see people in my position moving on to the next level,” Hartwick said. “I see myself being here a little longer. My girlfriend (Megan) wants to stick around one place because we’ve been kind of moving around a lot the last couple of years.”
The pair will move into their new place in Brandon in mid-September after the spot they originally booked wasn’t completely as advertised. He’s been living in an Airbnb rental — and she’s still in Melville — until they can settle in their new spot.
He’ll be awfully busy by then.
While the players have been arriving for more than a week, rookie camp actually opens on Tuesday. After the pandemic wreaked havoc on the last couple of seasons, Hartwick is eager to get busy.
“I’m definitely really excited,” Hartwick said. “It’s been a long couple of years with COVID last year … To actually get back in a regular routine is what I’m most excited about.”
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