Bill DeLongis | Exploring the Sport of Ice Hockey

In the "SEC of Division III," championships and high standards define the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). Now in his 10th year at Trinity College, Bill DeLongis reinforces high performance is not about scholarships — it’s about culture, strategy, and buy-in. DeLongis outlines how small-school strength coaches manage high athlete-to-staff ratios, maximize resources, and create top-tier training environments despite fewer external incentives. He discusses Trinity College’s sport science partnerships, the power of internship-driven staffing, and why Division III athletes who are playing purely for the love of the game bring a unique level of motivation. Embodying immersive coaching, he explains how experiencing a sport firsthand (through playing, site visits, and athlete surveys) enhances training specificity and buy-in. As Chair of the NSCA Ice Hockey Special Interest Group (SIG), he shares strength strategies, lessons from Team USA Women’s Hockey, and key NSCA resources. His approach proves that any program can compete at the top — with or without scholarships.

Connect with Coach DeLongis on Instagram: @billdelongis, LinkedIn: @bill-delongis, or email: bill.delongis@trincoll.edu| Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

Join DeLongis and other experts across sports and performance domains in the NSCA’s community-driven Special Interest Groups (SIGs) today.

Take your sport-specific knowledge a step further with NSCA’s Strength Training for Hockey.

“The athletes are not on an athletic scholarship, as probably most people know. They're playing the sport for the love of the game. They're very motivated. They want to be here. There's nothing really holding them. There's no NIL [Name, Image, and Likeness] money. There's no scholarship over their head. They're playing it and training because they love their sport.” 3:25

“That's 30 different cultures, obviously, more than 30 personalities. Every team has got their vibe and their style of training. So, you do get a lot of reps. You get to see a lot of different programming, work with a lot of different personalities.” 7:20

“That would be something I would recommend to anyone taking over a new sport is play the sport, and obviously, you might not play it at a super high level like I am playing at the lowest level you can play in men's league hockey in the state of Connecticut. But I'm out there. I'm experiencing it. I'm feeling what they're feeling. And then when we get on the ice, we'd be able to do our speed work or our conditioning work. I'm actually out there on skates, which I think really helps with a lot of the buy-in. It’s like, ‘All right, this guy cares. He is taking it upon himself to learn our sport, which is so different.’” 19:40

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]
[00:00:03.08] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast, Season 8, Episode 19. That would be something I would recommend to anyone taking over a new sport is play the sport, and obviously, you might not play it at a super high level like I am playing at the lowest level you can play in men's league hockey in the State of Connecticut. But I'm out there, I'm experiencing it, I'm feeling what they're feeling, and then when we get on the ice, we'd be able to do our speed work or our conditioning work. I'm actually out there on skates, which I think really helps with a lot of the buy in, was like, all right, this guy cares. He is taking it upon himself to learn our sport, which is so different.
[00:00:43.31] This is the NSCA's Coaching Podcast, where we talk to strength and conditioning coaches about what you really need to know, but probably didn't learn in school. There's strength and conditioning, and then there's everything else.
[00:00:53.85] This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm Eric McMahon, the NSCA coaching and sports science program manager. Today, we're exploring hockey strength and conditioning. The NSCA recently released a new book, Strength Training for Hockey. That's available from Human Kinetics. Our guest today is Bill DeLongis, the chair of the NSCA Ice Hockey Special Interest Group. Bill, welcome.
[00:01:16.76] Thanks for having me.
[00:01:18.35] Yeah, we got to catch up on campus not too long ago. I was traveling on the East Coast and got to drop in to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. I know there's a few Trinity's out there, so I wanted to make sure all our listeners knew where you're coming in from. But you're in the NESCAC Conference. It's a Division III, very highly academic, competitive Division III Conference. And you've been there going on a decade now.
[00:01:45.74] Yes, sir. Yep. Year 10 going on right now.
[00:01:49.07] So what's it like being a Division III head strength and conditioning coach?
[00:01:54.56] It's a lot better than I think most people would imagine a Division III job being. I came from Stony Brook University, a mid-major D1 school, and when the job posted, I always said I was never going to go Division III. I was like, I'm D1. You keep chasing that dream. And the job posted.
[00:02:11.80] And it's an interesting story. I didn't even want to apply for the job. I had a girlfriend at the time, who lived in Hartford, and I was living on Long Island, and she saw the job posting, and it kind of made me apply for the job. So I was like, whatever, I'll apply and didn't expect, really, to push for it.
[00:02:31.18] And then I got a phone call from our athletic director at the time and told me all about the position, and I was like, oh, wow, this is not what I expected Division III to be like, with a little bit of a life balance in the summer is a real big positive here. But we have two weight rooms on campus, two varsity-only weight rooms just for our athletes.
[00:02:50.52] We do have access to some sports science. We're using heart rate with some of our teams. We have a partnership with a local hospital, Hartford HealthCare. We have access to their NorBords and their forest frames, and we can send kids there for forest play testing.
[00:03:06.76] There's a lot of things that you wouldn't really expect a Division III team to have that we have access to, and we've been able to invest. We got a weight room coming this summer, a new weight room coming with a new building getting added to our athletic department. So there's a lot of really good things about the Division III life.
[00:03:24.59] The athletes are not on an athletic scholarship as probably most people know. So they're playing the sport for the love of the game. So they're very motivated. They want to be here. There's nothing really holding them. There's no NIL money. There's no scholarship over their head. They're playing it and training because they love their sport.
[00:03:44.38] And then being in the NESCAC, it's nicknamed the Little Ivies. So we're getting a lot of kids that maybe dreamed of going to an Ivy League school and maybe, they athletically, they weren't good enough or academically, and they kind of come down to our level. So we're working with a high academic athlete.
[00:03:59.97] And then I compare us to the SEC of the Division III, where our conference is, where we're winning national championships in different sports. various schools in our conference are always winning national championships and always at the top of the D3 Learfield Cup, which is ranks overall NCAA postseason success. So it's a fun conference to work in, and it's a fun athlete to train.
[00:04:22.23] When we think of the Division I level, there's, obviously, tons of resources out there. You mentioned the SEC, and those are some of the nicest weight rooms, the nicest facilities, sports science departments, really unlimited resources. What's the landscape like? You touched on a little bit of all the areas you include at the D3 level. How do you handle staffing and manage a strength and conditioning program at the D3 level?
[00:04:50.04] Yeah, every school is going to have a different setup. I have one full-time assistant and one part-time assistant, and we've grown our internship program with Springfield College being up the road in Central Connecticut. We have a few schools within our area that have exercise science, so we're always having one or two interns, occasionally three interns. So they're a big part in our staffing.
[00:05:10.88] Our internship here, we have 850 athletes. So if you intern here, you're put into the fire a little bit, and you're not running team lifts, but you're taking kids through and really getting some experience there, just due to the limited staffing that you would see. So we really have 2 and 1/3 strength coaches, to be honest with you. With the part time guy, he truly is part time.
[00:05:34.84] So you're working with a lot of sports. I oversee eight sports and one of them being football, which you could call, really, three sports within itself, with the roster size. So yeah, you're getting a lot of reps in, but I fell in love with lifting weights at a young age, and I love being on the floor.
[00:05:54.52] And that's what you get to do when you're at the Division III level, as opposed to maybe sitting out a practice or traveling on the road to games. We don't have any of that as a requirement here. You're mainly just on the floor or on the field or court doing speed and conditioning type work as well.
[00:06:09.85] I think there's an encouraging message in there for students or aspiring coaches who are listening that are maybe figuring out where they want to go intern or where they want to get some field work experience. And it sounds like the Division III level or a school that has a number of different sports, maybe you could look at it like, hey, you only have 2 and 1/3 staff, or relying heavily on an intern program. But that intern is going to get a ton of opportunities to coach and a ton of experience across a lot of different areas, and that can help you grow.
[00:06:46.55] I mean, not every strength coach today gets to work with the number of sports you get to.
[00:06:51.49] Yeah, I've joked for years that if there was a requirement on interns to become certified as a strength coach, that a Division III internship should be one of those required things, or one of the options that you could do to fulfill the requirement. Obviously, I know that might not be a thing that ever happens. It's more of just a joke in my head, but the reps you can get and the amount of sports, you intern at Trinity, you walk away having the ability if you're here for like an entire day of saying that you worked with 30 different sports.
[00:07:20.77] And that's 30 different cultures, obviously, more than 30 personalities. But every team has got their vibe and their style of training. So you do get a lot of reps. You get to see a lot of different programming, work with a lot of different personalities.
[00:07:34.22] And then if you do end up specializing in one or a couple of different sports later on, you've seen a lot of different things, and you're able to pull from a lot of those different experiences. So I think a Division III internship is extremely valuable.
[00:07:47.11] That's awesome. Huge push today in fitness and strength and conditioning to specialize, but what I'm hearing here is there's a lot of value in being able to generalize our skill set across a number of different areas, a number of different sports, because you don't know where you're going to end up. And you don't know where the broad skill set you develop can take you.
[00:08:09.70] And I hear it all the time on the podcast, where a coach works with a sport that they have no interest in or they don't know anything about, and next thing that position gets them a job somewhere else. So I think that's really encouraging, Bill. I appreciate you sharing that.
[00:08:24.86] Yeah, that's exactly what's happened with me. I'm the chair of ice hockey now with a special interest group. I didn't grow up playing ice hockey, never worked with ice hockey before I got the Trinity. And then just kind of got here, and the team was amazing. Coming off a national championship, they were a great group of guys and girls to work with.
[00:08:40.94] And here I am. I don't want to say I specialize in hockey, but it's definitely a sport that I've really learned a lot about and I've taken a passion about. And now, I've grown into that sport because of the opportunity here of working with a numerous amount of sports.
[00:08:56.96] Hockey is a fun sport to play, fun sport to watch. Like you mentioned, you're the chair of the NSCA Ice Hockey Special Interest Group. Really been working hard to develop and grow that over the past year. Share some of the things you have going on.
[00:09:11.87] We got the LinkedIn group up and running. It's fairly active. We encourage our new members to introduce themselves and who they're working with, which has created some dialogue and some networking that way. We have a podcast that we started up this past, I want to say, right around August 1. It launched.
[00:09:31.83] We've had six episodes so far. Taking a little bit of a pause just with the semester, but got some episodes coming down the pipeline here in the coming weeks as this fall semester starts winding down. But interviewed three NHL strength coaches, one college strength coach, and two private sectors, so trying to get a feel of different levels of working with the sports. That's been a big part of the special interest group.
[00:09:54.89] We've done member spotlights, kind of like a podcast on paper, where just sending out some 10 questions and asking various strength coaches within our group to answer these questions, again, giving insight to how different people are training hockey players, and then also opening it up to people to ask questions to then have a conversation with an NHL strength coach or have a conversation with a high-level Division I or even a Division III or high school strength coach.
[00:10:22.92] So it's been really good from the networking side of things. The group, I feel is fairly active. We were doing the rankings last spring before the switch to LinkedIn, and we were climbing those board, the leaderboard there, which was a lot of fun. Yeah, it's been great.
[00:10:40.11] And Kevin Neeld with Boston Bruins is on board now. And he's been tremendous in the group and been really active and encouraging guys and girls to speak and to share what they're doing with the sport.
[00:10:52.28] Yeah, I played hockey growing up. You mentioned this is a sport you discovered later. Hockey is one of those sports. You either grow up with it, maybe you skate, or maybe you don't, and then you don't really gravitate towards these winter ice-related sports. So for someone that doesn't have an ice hockey or skating background, what can they get out of joining the special interest group?
[00:11:18.62] Yeah, strength and conditioning, there's so many, just because it's mainly hockey specific, there's things you could take from it that apply to tons of other sports. Obviously, there's some major differences with being on ice, but the way you train a hockey player isn't that different than you're going to train other athletes. So it's a great way to just learn general strength and conditioning practices and get your network up and just communicate and have some conversations.
[00:11:46.64] So there's a huge push today in strength and conditioning. We were talking about it before, being multifaceted, doing a lot of different things, and just growing your skill set and really doing what we love to do, getting different athletes in the weight room and expanding our knowledge and abilities. You also work with Team USA Women's Hockey Program over a number of years. Tell us about that.
[00:12:08.58] Yeah, I've been working with USA Women's Hockey since 2017. Started low level doing some U17, U15 developmental camps over the summertime. Shout out to the Division III life. His summers are basically off. We don't have athletes that are on campus training, so it allowed me to accept this job doing a few weeks of summer of these camps and just kind of worked up the ladder.
[00:12:32.94] I get asked all the time, how did I get up to getting opportunities to work with the national team, the Olympic team or the college team. And it's just, I basically never said no. Every time they asked me to do something, I found a way. I rearranged my schedule and said yes and showed up to anything and everything that they asked me to do. And that availability and showing face and connecting with the sport coaches there and the GM has helped me progress up that ladder.
[00:13:02.22] But it's been a huge experience for me. I'm working under Cal Dietz a couple weeks a year, getting to have conversations with him throughout the year now. He's been a major mentor of mine even before I knew him, just from reading his book back in 2013. So that's been tremendous.
[00:13:19.69] And all the people they're bringing in, they're bringing in strength coaches from all over the country, from all different levels, from AHL to college to private sector. So every camp you're getting to work, you're getting to learn, and you're getting to work with the highest level athletes out there.
[00:13:34.59] So I've been doing the UA team, national team from 2017 up until this summer, and now, they've added a collegiate team that I'll be heading over to Finland with for a Six Nations Tournament in December. So it's great to see that. There's so many tournaments on the men's side, and now, they're starting to equal out a little bit, and we're adding some more tournaments on the women's side of things, which is awesome.
[00:13:58.86] Yeah, it's really exciting. And it's something that, looking at your resume, you're doing a lot of different things. And I love hearing how well you connect across the profession, talk about networking and all the values we really talk about through the NSCA community, through the special interest group. And I think anyone listening to this podcast would realize that, hey, there's a lot of value in getting out there.
[00:14:26.83] And it makes me think of when I was in graduate school and we had a coach at the time take a job at a small school. And they went from an area where there was tons of us grad students all talking, shop, connecting and sharing to they were the only strength coach on that campus. It's sort of a connection to the D3, a smaller staff.
[00:14:49.23] So it draws a connection to you have to get out there and connect and learn as much as you can and bring it back to Trinity. I think it's really cool what you're doing. You're doing a ton for the ice hockey SIG.
[00:15:03.69] We've had a lot of growth over the years with that. Going back a few chapters in the NSCA, NSCA TV, there were some NSCA hockey events back in the day that we held at the headquarters. So if you're looking for hockey content, there's definitely some on there.
[00:15:21.00] But I feel like there's a few years where there was maybe a little bit of a gap. I think some of the guys from college jumped up to the NHL level, and a lot of people get busy in this profession, so it's really cool what we're doing with the special interest group. Really cool to hear all the exciting things, USA Hockey and the opportunities you're having.
[00:15:40.76] I heard you got the opportunity to see the Strength Training for Hockey book from Human Kinetics. You got your hands on a copy of that?
[00:15:50.27] Yeah, I got an early released copy of that book and skimming through it. Haven't started fully reading it, but skimmed through to see what all the chapters are about and the high-level contributors. I was blown away with how many big-name hockey strength coaches wrote a chapter in that book. It seems like a really good-value book.
[00:16:10.27] Getting into this profession, we haven't always had the vast array of resources we have today. I think this series of books that the NSCA has is extremely valuable. If you're working with a new sport, it's really a great starting point for you to get in and see what other people are doing. And it speaks to this episode, because what I'm hearing from you, Bill, is that you have to, as a strength coach, be able to adapt your skill set to sports you're not familiar with.
[00:16:43.84] That's spot on. Yeah, you gotta have different personalities. You gotta be able to flip that light switch of how to talk to a hockey player, to be able to talk to a squash player. And your communication skills are vital in this relationship-based business that we're in.
[00:16:58.75] So I'm going to give you a case study, a case scenario here, and you just take me through this process. Trinity adds a new sport. I know in the NESCAC or in the Ivies, you have large athletic departments, and that happen from time to time. What's your process of learning about that sport, connecting with a new head coach, connecting with a different type of athlete?
[00:17:22.60] Yeah, when I took over hockey here, I played roller hockey a little bit when I was growing up. That was really the extent. I wasn't even really a fan of the NHL when I got here. But what I did was-- and what I would do again if I took over a new sport is, I sent out a SurveyMonkey to the team, and I asked them just a couple simple questions.
[00:17:44.19] I hope SurveyMonkey is still a website, but just, basically, it's a Google form is what I sent out. But it's basically asking them, what exercises do you like doing? What exercises have you disliked doing? What exercises do you think correlate the best with your sport? What have you liked about previous strength and conditioning experience? What have you disliked?
[00:18:05.91] Just simple questions like that. It was like five or six questions along those lines, just trying to get an idea of what they thought was valuable and invaluable. Which was really eye opening for me because, I eliminated some of the exercises that were said quite often that they disliked. So then I came in automatically and they were like, all right, this guy listens.
[00:18:26.75] The exercises that were really up there as far as liked. I was incorporating. I incorporated a little bit of like a menu based for some of the exercises, gave him a couple options of things to allow them to choose. For me, I went on a couple site visits. Having summers off, I went up my first summer at Trinity and watched Boston College ice hockey train.
[00:18:51.53] So I got to see firsthand a major, major team training and ask questions to that strength coach. And that's one of the biggest things that I try to do every summer is just get around to various schools in New England and just shoot an email out and just ask, hey, do you mind if I come up and watch one of your teams train, talk some shop, and potentially grab a lift myself?
[00:19:15.42] So I usually bounce around different schools and do that. I work out myself and hopefully, work out with their staff. If that's what they do, and watch a couple teams train, ask some questions. So I did that. And then I hired a skating coach and started learning how to skate and play.
[00:19:31.23] So now, I'm playing men's league. I've been playing for a little over two years now, skating for a little over four years for the first part of it, was just learning the basics of skating. But that would be something I would recommend to anyone taking over a new sport is play the sport, and obviously, you might not play it at a super high level like I am playing at the lowest level you can play in men's league hockey in the State of Connecticut.
[00:19:56.32] But I'm out there. I'm experiencing it. I'm feeling what they're feeling. And then when we get on the ice, we'd be able to do, our speed work or our conditioning work. I'm actually out there on skates, which I think really helps with a lot of the buy in, was like, all right, this guy cares. He is taking it upon himself to learn our sport, which is so different.
[00:20:16.08] But yeah, I encourage all my assistants here on staff, if you're taking over a new sport. We've had guys get-- assistants in my past, get in the pool with the swim coaches and learn how to do the various strokes. They never competed. They never did anything special. But they got in the pool, and they felt what the athlete feels.
[00:20:32.16] We've done that a lot with our sports here, because we do have some different sports like squash and hockey and wrestling. So I mean that's a really easy way is do it. We're supposed to be athletes as well. We should practice what we preach. We should walk the talk and play some sports and maybe try playing the sports that you're coaching.
[00:20:53.99] Yeah, immerse yourself in the sport. Learn as much as you can. Connect with other people in the profession. But I think a huge thing comes through of just experiencing what the athletes experience and being open to their input and feedback, that's a great takeaway for everyone.
[00:21:11.64] Yeah, another thing that was easy was just start watching the sport, and that's like a no brainer, obviously. But I started learning players' names, and then you're able to have a conversation with the guys about NHL team or an NHL player.
[00:21:23.48] I became a pretty big New York Islanders fan. I'm from New York. I was like, I'm going to take over the Islanders. Yeah, I didn't really have a favorite NHL team, but that's like an easy, free way is just like start watching and becoming a fan of the sport and then be able to have those conversations.
[00:21:38.58] Even playing Xbox. I bought NHL 19 and started playing that. And I learned a lot, the rules aspect of playing the game. I picked up a lot just playing a video game, so you don't even have to play the sport. Maybe you just play it virtually.
[00:21:53.55] Yeah. I mean, video gaming, there's a whole other podcast episode in there. My son is a big gamer, and when we play the sports games, it's pretty impressive, the level of analytics and stats and data and information you can pick up about a sport just from getting in there and playing, even if you're not great at games. So I think that is a good free way to get in there.
[00:22:18.79] I like that, learn the sport, try some different things that immerse yourself in the sport. And yeah, just some great takeaways there. Really appreciate you sharing that, Bill.
[00:22:29.26] So we covered a lot today. Your experience at Trinity Division III, strength and conditioning coach, Team USA, working with aspiring and Olympic-level hockey players and our NSCA Ice Hockey Special Interest Group. I know some people are going to want to reach out. What's the best way for them to do that?
[00:22:48.48] I'm pretty active on Instagram. Handle is my name, Bill DeLongis with no space in between. Active and responding to messages on there. And I'm sharing content with what my teams are doing. Just posted a video the other day of my women's hockey team training and always showing what my athletes are doing here and my own training.
[00:23:09.25] So that's like that's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me is via Instagram and email being another option. And email is the same thing, just with a dot. So it's Bill.Delongis@trincol.edu. And I'm sure you'll put that in the show notes, but I'm open to emails and open a Instagram messages and anything like that.
[00:23:30.91] And obviously, a great way is just going on LinkedIn and joining the Special Interest Group for Ice Hockey and becoming an active member. And you could just simply ask this question on that, and tag me or tag any of the other members in there, and then we can start having a conversation that everyone can read, so everyone can benefit from it.
[00:23:51.03] If you've been involved with an NSCA special interest group, maybe you were involved on Facebook. We've recently moved our special interest group platform over to LinkedIn. So over the coming months, you're going to see less activity on Facebook. Those groups will go away.
[00:24:08.23] LinkedIn is taking over for all the special interest groups in the coming year. We're rolling that out gradually from group to group. So as Bill mentioned, we'll add the LinkedIn group to the show notes for this. But if you're involved in any special interest group for the NSCA, make sure you get on LinkedIn, a professional community to share ideas, network, and be a part of future special interest groups, and we have tons of them. So we'll make sure you have access to that on the show notes for this episode.
[00:24:39.20] Thanks, Bill, for being with us. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in, and special thanks to Sorinex exercise equipment. We appreciate their support.
[00:24:47.08] Hey, guys, it's Dr. Bryan Mann coming at you from Texas A&M University. Hey, this is a call to arms. If you feel like there's something that needs to be done, something that needs to be changed, this is your call to go ahead and sign up for the volunteer opportunities within the SIGs, the different committees, or just to get involved in your local chapter. Please go to the website for more details.
[00:25:11.20] This was the NSCA's Coaching Podcast. The National Strength and Conditioning Association was founded in 1978 by strength and conditioning coaches to share information, resources, and help advance the profession. Serving coaches for over 40 years, the NSCA is the trusted source for strength and conditioning professionals. Be sure to join us next time.

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