Assistant athletic trainer Anthony Polazzo is dedicated to providing the best possible care to bolster the health and well-being of the Griffins’ players.

Story by Mark Newman / Photo by Nicolas Carrillo

For professional athletes to perform to the best of their abilities, they need to feel their best.

That’s easier said than done when fatigue and injuries – whether acute or chronic – can deter the realization of that goal. Given that the sport of hockey is so physically demanding, a player’s fitness status puts a premium on the people with the responsibility for keeping him on the ice.

Now in his fifth full season as the assistant athletic trainer for the Griffins, Anthony Polazzo is a key member of the team behind the team, one of several behind-the-scenes professionals who are committed to caring for the physical condition of the Griffins’ players.

Ironically, it was football, not hockey, that first drew Polazzo to his chosen profession.

A native of Menominee, Mich., Polazzo was a member of the 2006 state-champion Maroons football team. He had played linebacker in middle school, but injuries led him to move to the center position in high school, where the Maroons’ single-wing offense meant virtually every snap was a misdirection play. It was a successful strategy, as Menominee outscored its opponents 538-44 during an unbeaten season that still ranks among the most dominating performances in Michigan high school football history.

More significantly for Polazzo, his football experience exposed him to the benefits of rehabilitation and fostered an interest in a career in physical therapy. Although he had never been downstate until he was a senior in high school, he was contemplating going to Grand Valley State University in Allendale when his mother convinced him to check out Northern Michigan University first.

Polazzo ultimately acquiesced to his mother’s wishes and enrolled in the Marquette school, where an advisor recommended that he give athletic training a look.

At Northern, Polazzo spent a semester working with the United States Olympic Education Center (USOEC), which put him in the training room with athletes from a variety of sports, including boxing, men’s Greco-Roman wrestling, women’s freestyle wrestling, men’s and women’s weightlifting, as well as men’s and women’s speedskating.

Working with Olympic hopefuls provided Polazzo with a broad-based educational experience, allowing him to be exposed not only to the whole spectrum of sports injuries but also to the various strategies and techniques that athletic trainers use to keep individuals of all shapes and sizes in peak condition.

During his senior year, Polazzo finally got to work with the NMU hockey team (which included freshman Jared Coreau, the goaltender who would lead the Griffins to their second Calder Cup title six years later). Practicing his craft with the team’s head athletic trainer, Polazzo got to observe every game and every practice. “Working with the hockey team solidified my desire to become an athletic trainer,” he said.

Polazzo noticed that there was something different about hockey players from the other athletes with whom he had worked.

“I don’t know what it was, but they always seemed to be happy,” he recalled. “You could see their camaraderie and how they were almost like a family. I had seen a certain closeness among athletes during my time with the USOEC, but the hockey community felt just a little closer. It felt like something I wanted to be a part of.”

Upon graduation from Northern after four years, Polazzo accepted an internship at the University of Notre Dame, where it seemed like every sport had its own facility. He worked all the summer camps at the school, everything from lacrosse to soccer to basketball. “We were busy from sunup to sundown,” he said.

He eventually returned to Marquette, where he worked in a physical therapy clinic for a year doing treatments and outreach. “I spent a fifth year up there because I didn’t want to leave Marquette,” said Polazzo, who decided to pursue his master’s degree in health care administration at Grand Valley, where he also began teaching as a graduate assistant.

“When I first started, I was so nervous because of the public speaking aspect, but I fell in love with teaching,” said Polazzo, who is still an adjunct professor at the school. He teaches a course in first aid and CPR every semester. “I try to keep the class light and fun, but I think it’s one of the more important classes because you never know when you might find yourself in a position where you have to act during an emergency.”

Polazzo’s first taste of professional sports came during a summer internship with the Detroit Tigers in Florida. He mainly worked with the Tigers’ rookie ball team, but he also worked in the organization’s main rehab location in Lakeland, which allowed him to observe how veterans helped mentor young players.

His first actual job in the field came at Evanston Township High School in Illinois, where he stayed for only nine months. “There might have been a year or two of my life where you might find a picture of me wearing a Packers jersey, but I don’t talk about those years now,” he said. “I grew up a Bears fan, so I always wanted to live in Chicago. But once I got the experience, I decided I wanted to move back to Grand Rapids.”:

Back in West Michigan, Polazzo became employed by Metro Health, where he began working at Grand Rapids Christian High School. It was there that he met Dr. Ed Kornoelje, a long-time team physician of the Griffins. “I asked if I could observe him working a Griffins game some night and instead he connected me with John Bernal, the head athletic trainer for the Griffins at the time.”

Bernal saw someone eager to learn while Polazzo saw a golden opportunity to gain valuable experience at the professional hockey level. “He said, ‘I could use some help on game nights, so you’re welcome to come back any time you’re free,’” said Polazzo, who volunteered as much as he could for the next three years.

Polazzo attended most home games when he wasn’t working for the school or had other work commitments. “Being able to work with Bernal and to see everything he did was extremely beneficial,” he said. “He had been an assistant athletic trainer in the NHL, so he had been around and picked up a lot of valuable techniques over the years.”

Eventually, the volunteer opportunity became a full-time job as Polazzo became an athletic trainer for University of Michigan Health-West, a medical partner of the Griffins. In his expanded role, he covers all home games and practices, as well as a select number of road trips and the team’s joint training camps with the Detroit Red Wings in Traverse City.

Polazzo works not only with head athletic trainer Josh Chapman, but also with physical therapist Eldon Graham, strength and conditioning coordinator Marcus Kinney, massage therapist Ronald Marckini, and sports data analyst Jack Rummells. “We work as a team, working in conjunction with each other,” he said.

Most days start around 7 a.m. “We talk every morning about what we have going on,” he said. “It works to our advantage that we can share different ideas. We’re all looking at different ways that we can optimize the players’ performance and prevent things like injuries and fatigue.”

Fatigue poses one of the greatest challenges at the minor league level, especially for guys who played at the collegiate level or in Europe where shorter schedules are the norm. In the AHL, players have to learn to deal with back-to-back games or even 3-in-3 weekends.

“It’s a long season with a lot of games in a short amount of time,” Polazzo said. “As fatigue increases, the chance for injury goes up. We try to tell the guys if they’re feeling anything, let’s get on it sooner so it doesn’t become worse during the season.”

Injury prevention is only one of several domains of athletic training. On any given day, Polazzo might be providing immediate care and treatment, working with players toward rehabilitation and reconditioning, or providing direction and guidance to help them achieve maximum health and well-being.

His work might involve wrapping or taping a specific part of the body to help a player who is nursing an injury. It could be helping a guy with a sore groin do some extra stretching to get them ready before a game. “There are different stretching techniques to work different muscles, just like there are different taping techniques and different types of tape, depending on the need,” he said.

The tasks can vary from day to day. “No two injuries are the same, even on the same guy. The same injury might require a different approach the second time,” he said. “There’s no cookie cutter approach because every situation is different and might call for something different.”

That’s why Polazzo makes it a point to chat with visiting athletic trainers. By sharing new ideas – what works, what doesn’t – athletic trainers are able to better care for their players, which is the shared goal of all those who are looking to improve the overall health and well-being of athletes.

“You never know what will help each athlete,” Polazzo said. “A technique might help one player but might not help the next, so you will have to try something a little different because injuries are a part of the sport. Not even the best prevention programs can stop injuries from happening.”

The Griffins’ athletic trainers work under the direction of the team physicians. “We keep open lines of communication,” Polazzo said. “They give us the parameters and we determine the exercises that will work within those parameters. Whether it’s an acute issue that will go away or it’s a chronic problem that requires continual monitoring and treatment, we always want to provide the best possible care.”

Being observant is a prerequisite for the job.

“We’re always keeping an eye on things, whether it’s during practice or during a game,” he said. “We’re not just watching for things to happen, but to monitor the little things that might impact a player’s ability to perform to the best of his ability. It’s all about keeping guys on the ice so they can do their jobs. We’re trying to help them prolong their careers.”

The field of athletic training has become increasingly sophisticated. In recent years, the Griffins have bolstered their coaching staff by adding more and more off-ice professionals whose focus is solely on the physical side of the sport and not the Xs and Os.

Attention to pre-season screening, data analytics, and biomechanics is now commonplace in the AHL. Almost everything – from heart rates to hydration levels – is now monitored as organizations continue to look for ways to maximize the performance of their teams.

New techniques - whether dry needling (Western medicine’s answer to acupuncture) or blood flow restriction therapy for rehabilitation, as a couple of examples – continue to be investigated and/or implemented. “The fact is we’re always learning,” he said. “Every year there is something new.”

Polazzo is loving every minute of his time with the Griffins. His wife, Kelsey, is a nurse in the neonatal unit at Corewell Health. They met as students at Grand Valley. “She works crazy hours as well – nights and weekends,” he said. “She loves coming to the games when she gets the time.”

He admits that he is quite content in his current position. Being contracted by University of Michigan Health-West, he gets to help out in the clinic as well as work local running and cycling events. “My wife and I love Grand Rapids,” he said. “She loves her job and I love what I do. We love the community here. We go back to Marquette every chance we get, but this is now home.”