The double shifter
Rylan “living the dream” as student, athlete, and sportscaster
By Al Daniel
It would have been a perfectly succulent nonfiction fairy tale if, just as it may seem on the surface, Northeastern graduate student Dani Rylan had simply walked on to the women’s hockey team. With her on-ice resume permeated mostly by four years in the Assabet Valley program (2001-05), one year last season of coed club hockey at Metro State College in Denver, and recreational leagues, she would appear to be ice chips shy of penning a Daniel Nava-type log.
But the thing is, Rylan is a budding sports journalist with a focus on sideline reporting, so she cannot tell a lie. The reality, she said, is that she has had a time-honored friendship with Huskies’ third-year skipper Dave Flint, who was open to letting her in to the Matthews Arena sorority if the opportunity arose.
“I did my undergrad in three years and I have known Coach Flint since high school when he was the coach at St. Anselm,” said Rylan. “So the bridge has never burned. Because I still had a few years of eligibility left, he said ‘come on board.’”
Come what may, Rylan has trekked a uniquely unlikely path to a regular roster spot at Northeastern. Leading up to her lone season with the Metro State men’s club team –her first significant competitive experience since high school- she stayed in touch with Flint, albeit undetected by the public eye.
And last December, she took the initiative to join Flint’s next recruiting class. “I sent him an e-mail and then we started talking again and he said that he had a roster spot for me if I got into the school.
“Since Coach Flint had seen me play a few years ago, he guaranteed me a roster spot. It was a huge honor just to have that. The playing time that I’m getting now is just a bonus.”
Once her degree in broadcast journalism from Metro State was verified, Rylan was able to enroll in the sports leadership program at Northeastern in September. With that, she was belatedly confirmed as part of the Huskies’ nine-member recruiting class and 25-player roster.
Since then, with her open window widened in part by a handful of injured teammates, Rylan has appeared in every game, affixing herself to the left wing of the third line –opposite Claire Santostefano at center and either Siena Falino or Katie MacSorley on the right.
Through her first seven appearances, she boasted an even plus/minus rating and, in her second game, assisted on one of Falino’s two regulation goals in a 3-2 overtime win at Union. (The stats sheet still indicates she recorded two helpers, but Rylan insists that is a typo.)
“It’s been awesome,” she said. “Coming into it, I knew we had a good team, that there were going to be girls not dressing every game.
“The fact that I was coming into it accepting that I would potentially not be dressing every night, and now being on the third line, is more than I expected. I’m living the dream.”
Making sideline strides
A resident of Tampa, Fla. who studied and skated at the St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Mass., the 23-year-old Rylan stayed in Denver over the summer to serve as an intern at FSN Rocky Mountain. A three-minute montage on her own YouTube channel highlights her primary assignment as a Colorado Rockies sideline reporter, which regularly took her on the road to Major League ballparks in Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, and Anaheim, Calif.
The online clip show culminates in a still shot of Rylan perched on a dasherboard, readily equipped with her microphone whilst brandishing a pair of skates. The image is a telltale symbol of the two commitments she has pursued since last summer.
Amidst her internship, she sustained her edge on the ice through the Denver-based South Suburban Adult Hockey League, appearing in six games and etching four points for the “Roadrunners.” Although, her media itinerary did force her to miss half of her team’s weekly games.
“My schedule was extremely busy between my paying job, FSN and training,” she admitted. “But that schedule prepared me for the schedule I’m currently juggling.
“Things definitely got hectic at times, especially when I would travel with FSN, so some weeks Monday workouts were pushed to Tuesday and so on. But everything worked out and I felt great coming into the season.”
New breed of student-athlete
Reeling right off her Rocky Mountain voyage, Rylan is chipping in at NUTV, her new school’s campus television station that has deployed seven student reporters on its sports scene. Her first assignment, released on Oct. 21, simply sent her across the sheet at Matthews Arena to examine the men’s hockey team’s penalty-induced struggles.
Beyond that and her own athletic role, she is indulging in the comparative flexibility of graduate studies, which allows her to take primarily online courses and stay eligible for extracurricular activity with only nine credit hours per term. NU undergrads, conversely, must retain 12 credit hours.
“I don’t have 8 a.m. classes, which is, I guess, a relief,” she said during her phone interview last week. “This morning we had a 6 a.m. practice so some girls had to go right from there to an 8 a.m. class and I got to go back to bed, so that’s definitely a bonus.”
“Bonus” may as well be the theme word of Rylan’s life. She prolonged the universally shared dream of playing Division I sports by subsisting primarily on table scraps, all the while fostering a nascent career outside the boards.
Now with two seasons of NCAA competition at her disposal, she expects to reap extra insights into an upper level of hockey, which couldn’t hurt her cause as a sportscaster.
“I think it definitely has the potential to benefit my career,” Rylan said. “Just being able to play a high level of hockey and being around such a knowledgeable group of people, ranging from our coaching to staff to our strength and conditioning staff.
“But there’s no doubt that I’m here to play hockey, not just to further my broadcasting career.”
Al Daniel is the Hockey East correspondent to Beyond the Dashers
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