NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Iona Preparatory School K-12 is excited to welcome Karl Boswick to its athletic department as the new varsity coach and looks forward to watching the hockey program continue to be one of the best in the tristate area. Coach Boswick and his staff are eager to work with our student-athletes and can’t wait for the 2017-2018 hockey season.
Boswick grew up in a hockey family out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, known to be where the sport of hockey originated in North America. His father, Carl Sr. was First Team All-Canadian and Hall of Famer for the CIS Saint Mary’s University Huskies and, in 1971, was offered a c-4 contract tryout with the Montreal Canadians of the National Hockey League (NHL).
Coach Karl’s youth was spent playing for the Centennial/Halifax Hawks. Other highlights include: Asst. Captain of the Nova Scotia Selects provincial team, World AAA Pee-Wee tournament in Quebec (1982), member of two Halifax city high-school championship teams and a member of five N.S. Tier 1 provincial championship teams. In addition, he played high school varsity basketball for Halifax West and one year for Dalhousie University.
Fulfilling his No. 1 dream, he took a hiatus from the hockey world, travelling across Canada for six years as a rock drummer in professional major label recording acts. Arriving in Boston in ’93, while attending Berklee College of Music, he captained the Div. III (ECAC-NEast) Emerson College hockey program for three years against teams such as Johnson & Wales and Franklin Pierce (he consistently attained league MVP honors and a 3 points-per-game average).
After a brief pro stint in Europe and some experience helping high school programs in Canada, he arrived in New York City in 1997. There he spent a few years coaching the travel team at St. Bernard’s private boys school (where he coached Wayne Gretzky’s son) and subsequently moved to Westchester, where he commenced coaching the NY Tier II Westchester Vipers travel program in 2001.
Karl is currently a Level 4 USA Hockey certified coach, with experience training all age groups and thousands of players individually from 2 to 65. He has coached ‘AAA, AA & A’ Travel teams at every level from Mite to Midget, as well as coaching two-to-three ‘House league’ teams per year since 2001 at the Westchester Skating Academy.
Drawing on his know-how as a player with international pro and US college experience, and competing with teammates who made the NHL, he trains players emphasizing skating form and teams with offensive puck-possession styles and sound defensive systems. He utilizes many Canadian and U.S. power-skating techniques and specializes in body-contact balance and stability training, advanced pivoting and multiple-coordination stick-handling and puck protection skills.
Working on an individual basis as a pro-hockey trainer, Karl has over 20 years experience, spending 8-20 hours weekly on the ice. He has learned how to efficiently create a well-rounded hockey player with a complete skill set. In the last year few years, some of his recent students have left to play in Canada’s major junior leagues such as Ontario Hockey League’s (OHL) Kingston Frontenacs. Another just recently made the U.S. National Development Program (committing to D1’s Quinnipiac). Moreover, former New York Islander/NHL great John Tonelli has trusted Karl to work with both his sons (one recently committing to D1 Brown), and both the current New York Rangers general manager and head trainer entrusted him to work with their boys.
The majority of his current and former students are playing at the Tier 1, AAA levels throughout the metropolitan area, and he recently sent graduates to Canada’s Major Junior OHL; U.S. Division I and III schools such as Penn State, Brown, University of New Hampshire, Shattuck-St. Mary’s, Salisbury, St. Paul’s, Groton, Kent, Taft, Choate, Hotchkiss & Westminster. Before moving north out of Westchester, Karl was Director of Skills Development for the Westchester Vipers and was a senior hockey staff pro at the Westchester Skating Academy in Elmsford, N.Y., for 13 years running Advanced Edge Control and Power Skating programs, as well as high-level stick-handling and body contact training for elite travel players.
Coach Boswick had the privilege to share the ice coaching with former NHLers such as John Tonelli, Alex Kovalev, Mike Pelino, Vinny Prospal and Matthew Barnaby.