The United States Women’s National Hockey Team is hosting a 53-player training camp in Blaine, Minnesota this week as top professional and college players look to make their case to be a part of Team USA’s roster for next April’s International Ice Hockey Federation’s Women’s World Championships being held in Halifax and Truro, Nova Scotia.

The camp’s coaching and training staff is highlighted by four people with Maine connections, including Todd Lamoreau, who grew up in Lewiston and graduated from Lewiston High School in 1997 and now lives in Bowdoinham. Lamoreau is working as an athletic trainer at the camp.

It’s his sixth time working with the women’s national team since 2016.

Lamoreau’s duties at the training camp include being at all the strength and conditioning sessions, which includes helping the strength and conditioning coaches do testing, such as speed and agility testing. There are sometimes performance physicals that will be done and he will be on the bench for scrimmages and games.

Lamoreau has gotten the opportunity to work with the top women’s players in country through a former co-worker, Allyson Howe of Portland.

“I used to work for Intermed out of South Portland and Allyson Howe was a physician there, and she’s also the head physician for the women’s hockey team,” Lamoreau said. “She asked me to join me as part of the per diem staff in 2016.”

The other Maine connections on the training camp staff include fellow athletic trainer Paul Rucci of Waterville and the head coach of the women’s team, Bob Corkum.

Corkum played at the University of Maine from 1985-1989 and the forward had a 13-year pro career with seven NHL teams. The Massachusetts native returned to UMaine in 2008 as an associate coach for the men’s team under Tim Whitehead until 2013. He joined the women’s team during the 2018-19 season after his stint as an assistant coach with the New York Islanders (2013-17).

Lamoreau, who grew up playing basketball in a hockey-crazed city, feels pride representing his hometown at the national level.

“Growing up in Lewiston, I definitely grew up around hockey. I was a basketball player in a hockey town,” Lamoreau said. “Hockey was much more popular, but I also had friends who played hockey and I also enjoyed going to hockey games with my family, but I never played myself. I always admired the athleticism it takes to perform the sport.”

Lamoreau, who just took a job with Back in Motion Physical Therapy as Clinical Director and physical therapist in their new office in Auburn, said it’s always been a goal of his to get into high-level athletics at the “Olympic sport level.” He has worked at the high-school level and the Division III level at Bowdoin College (2004-11).

With his experience with the women’s hockey team, Lamoreau has worked at similar camps like the training camp that’s taking place in Minnesota right now and a couple of camps involving Team USA and Team Canada in Lake Placid, New York.

While the main goal of this camp is to start identifying players who will make up the team that will play in the Women’s World Championships, this is also a tryout of sorts for the athletic training staff as well.

“The more that we do and the more that we are able to build that camaraderie with the other staff members and with the players,” Lamoreau said. “If they like us, there’s more of an option for us maybe to be invited to the World Championships and the Olympic tournament at some point. I think it’s a bit of a tryout process for us as well, but it does come down to who’s available when and those types of things.”

Lamoreau’s employers have always welcomed him to attend these camps because it gives him an opportunity to learn from other medical professionals.

“It’s a learning experience. There’s some very skilled physical therapists, athletic trainers and physicians who travel with the team,” Lamoreau said. “We learn a lot from them, and people coming all over the country with different techniques and different backgrounds helps me become a better athletic trainer and a better physical therapist; learning from all these great practitioners and also to learn how the human body can function.”

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