How a National Champion Hockey Coach Navigated the Pursuit of Perfection

Twelve games into the 2012-13 season, Brad Frost knew his undefeated team was good.

But the sixth-year Minnesota Women’s Hockey coach had a bit of a problem: His players knew it too.

“I wanted to bring them back down a little bit and say, ‘Listen, we’re not going to go undefeated. We’re going to have to play better. We’re going to lose a game,’” Frost said.

But the Golden Gophers won their next, then their next, then their next.

Frost’s team ultimately finished that season 41-0-0 — the only undefeated year in NCAA women’s hockey history — surviving a couple of harrowing tournament games to capture the program’s fourth national championship.

“We certainly had talent and incredible chemistry with that group,” Frost said. “The puck really doesn't care who scores it. That's a big thing for our team. The belief that they had in particular, as the streak continued, was unbelievable."

Best of 7 spoke to Frost about what he looks for in recruiting, navigating internal pressure as a coach, and managing expectations after reaching the pinnacle of the sport.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Part 1: Why a 4-Time National Champion Hockey Coach Shifted His Focus From Winning

Coach, you’re obviously recruiting some of the best prospects in the country. How do you ultimately get top talent to sacrifice?

Every player we have was a captain on their high school team, so I think it starts in the recruiting process communicating the importance of being a part of something bigger than yourself. We’re a program that's going to compete for national championships every year, but our goal is for our players to get a great education, to have a wonderful experience, to grow not just as hockey players but as people, and to hopefully win some games and some championships along the way.

One of the lines I use is, “If you want to be a big fish in a small pond, the University of Minnesota is not for you. If you want to be a big fish in a big pond and be a part of something really special, then the University of Minnesota is a great place, and our program is going to be right for you.”

I think players want to be a part of something. A lot of these kids are coming from a high school team where maybe they were the best player, and they were never really challenged or never really had to do something extraordinary. Then you come to a place where all of these players are really, really good, and now all of a sudden, you're challenged. Every day in practice is the best opportunity to grow and develop as a hockey player because you're playing with and against the best.

How do you gauge selflessness in recruiting — because I could see that being difficult to assess when you’re only seeing a player a couple of times?

I think body language says a lot. The old saying that body language doesn't whisper, it screams. Everybody knows what you're feeling and what's going on. I think that's a big part of it, the excitement that they have when their teammate scores. You can see that.

Then, when you start talking with the players, getting to know them, the first thing is the evaluation. Are they good enough? Do we believe they're good enough to play here? If we do believe that they are, now let's get to know them. Let's get to know their family and see if we can start picking up on some things. It’s going back to our values and just who we want to be, both on the ice and off.

I’m sure you get asked endlessly about your perfect season. How did you get your players to focus on what was directly in front of them and not look too far ahead?

I just felt like when our players got off the bus, they were like, “We're going to win. We don't know if we're going to blow you out. We don't know if we're going to have to score late. We don't know if it's going to be in overtime, but we're just going to win.” That belief goes a long, long way.

The pressure really ramped up when the Frozen Four was at the University of Minnesota at Ridder Arena. They put the tickets on sale months before that, and they sold out immediately. We ended up in our quarter-final, getting the draw that had us playing North Dakota for the sixth time. It's in our rink again. You talk about pressure. That was, for me as a coach, the most pressure that I've ever dealt with.

There was no doubt that we were very prepared, and our team was ready to go and excited about it. I think that's what I just continued to talk about — the excitement, the opportunity and the fact that we were prepared and ready. The outcome is going to be what it's going to be, but let's really focus on the process of being as prepared as we can be.

Great thoughts. On a personal level, how did you manage the pressure you were feeling and not project it onto your team?

I could hardly eat that week. Are we going to be the team that goes 38-1 and isn't in the Frozen Four at Ridder Arena when it's already sold out? All of these things go through your head. The pressure was crazy high trying not to let our players see what I was feeling. But again, it’s continuing to focus on the process. “Here's how we think we can win the game.”

That game ended up going three overtimes, and we scored with just over a minute left to go to the Frozen Four. Once we got to the Frozen Four, we played Boston College in the first game. That one went to overtime, and fortunately, we won within a couple minutes. I think by the time we got to the championship game, there had been all that pressure on us, and now it was just go out and be who we are. We ended up beating Boston University 6-3. It was one of the better games that we had played in a while just because I think the pressure was off.

You’ve won four national championships, have made 10 Frozen Fours. How do you resist complacency as a coach?

I think one of the hardest things in sports is to get to the mountain top and remain there for an extended period of time. That's one of the things I'm most proud of about our program.

There’s lot of teams that have won national championships or gotten close to the mountaintop that are toward the bottom of women's hockey right now, which is kind of crazy to think about. But one of the great things about college athletics is every year is different. You graduate players, you bring new players in. So there's that freshness of, “O.K., what's this team going to be?” As a staff, you just kind of have to come around your players and say, “Our goals remain the same, but how are we going to get there? What do we need to do? What things do we need to emphasize from a hockey perspective?”

You can't allow complacency to set in because your job's on the line every year, and players are coming to the University of Minnesota to play within our program, to win national championships, to get a great education, to have a wonderful experience. Complacency really just hasn't ever entered our minds.

What’s the toughest decision you’ve had to make in your career and how did you get through it?

I think there's little things that are really difficult in regards to which starting goaltender to play. People don't realize how hard of a decision that is oftentimes.

But one of the really tough decisions I had to make was we had a player who had committed to us, but, unfortunately, just kind of stopped doing the things that were necessary to be a Gopher and make an impact. Having to call her and her family and let them know that the University of Minnesota wasn’t going to work was extremely difficult.

I would imagine that’s a tough conversation.

But I think the biggest, hardest decisions I've had to make have been over my staff and who we’re going to have involved with our program. I’ve had some amazing assistant coaches. We have a great staff currently that is on board. But there have been times where I've hired people who really didn't see things the way that I saw them, maybe didn't value the things that I valued. There was some tension that was just really, really hard to deal with.

Your players end up seeing that. They don't see you and your staff as a unified front. They see some chinks in the armor, so to speak, and I think those have probably been the hardest decisions that I've had to make — whom to keep on staff, whom to hire.

Because your staff is everything.

What I learned…

When I asked Coach Frost about the pressure his team felt in pursuit of perfection in 2012-13, I was mainly expecting him to speak about some butterflies his players had leading up to the NCAA Tournament.

I wasn’t anticipating that he would open up about his own anxiety and even self-doubt.

It was a reminder to me that while the external world loves to celebrate “nerves of steel” and “cool under pressure,” the truth is that most high-stakes decision-makers do, in fact, navigate some type of internal storm.

I thought the brilliance of Coach Frost was that he knew not to project that onto his players and that he was instead able to get them to recommit to what they already knew.

True confidence isn’t about being oblivious to a worst-case scenario.

It’s about acknowledging what could go awry — and still taking the next actionable step.