November 21, 2011
Bergen's Badgers
From Bergen County to Wisconsin, the careers of sisters Brooke and Brittany Ammerman are flourishing on the big stage
by Mike Zhe/Staff Writer
(photo: Danny Marchewka)
Playing college hockey 1,000 miles from home — on a team that perennially contends for the national championship and usually wins it — could make anyone a little uneasy at first.
Then again, sisters Brooke and Brittany Ammerman (River Vale, N.J.), who are beginning their second season as teammates at reigning Division 1 champion Wisconsin, have never had much of a problem finding a comfort zone.
Anywhere.
Growing up the youngest of four children, some of the admitted highlights of their youth were the periodic trips south to visit their sisters in college, at the University of North Carolina and Clemson, respectively.
“They’d be 9 and 7, and they’d go down there and take over the dorm,” said their father, Bert Ammerman. “All the boys would be playing hockey with them.”
Brooke, a senior forward, was among the Division 1 scoring leaders late last month, with seven goals and 15 points in her first eight games. A perennial WCHA All-Star, she’s had a hand in two national titles, and was named to last year’s All-Tournament team at the Frozen Four.
Brittany Ammerman, a sophomore forward, was the Rookie of the Year in the WCHA last year after posting 13-12-25 totals. She has a goal and two assists this year for the top-ranked Badgers, who own four of the last six national titles.
So, how do two girls from Bergen County, whose family followed the sport but never played it, who admittedly made their college choices with an eye on the football scene, end up integral parts of the best women’s program in the country and at USA Hockey’s national team camps?
Indirectly. And with stops along the way.
“It’s a great story,” said New Jersey Colonials coach Shelley Looney, the two-time U.S. Olympian who coached Brittany for two years and has followed Brooke’s career. “Not just one but two from here playing Division 1 and pursuing their USA (Hockey) careers – that’s amazing.”
Brooke was 5 when she first picked up a stick – “very hyper when she was younger,” noted Brittany. “My mother decided she had to do some kind of activity. The newspaper was running an ad for a roller hockey camp.”
“It was,” said their mother, Babette, “either that or gymnastics.”
A few years later they were both on skates, moving steadily through the area youth programs and, eventually, the Colonials, a Morristown, N.J.-based travel organization about 40 miles from River Vale, a bedroom community of about 10,000.
“A lot of time was spent in the driveway, shooting pucks against the garage door,” said Brooke. “Our garage door’s kind of famous with all the dents in it.”
From there it was to the North American Hockey Academy in Vermont, playing under Bill Driscoll, where the girls – in turn – showcased themselves enough against top competition to draw the attention of the top college programs.
The cumulative travel? Incalculable. Every summer, the family would gather for a meeting; Brooke and Brittany, their parents, their older sisters Christine and Meghan, and their brothers-in-law would check their schedules, see who could be free when and parcel out the trips, which by then were taking them to places like Syracuse, N.Y., and Toronto.
“The calendar,” said Bert Ammerman, “looked like an air traffic controller’s map with all the colors.”
When it came time to choose a college, Brooke – remembering those carnival-like football Saturdays at North Carolina and Clemson – wanted a big school. She visited Boston College and Wisconsin and, after meeting with Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson, chose the latter.
Two years later, Brittany was facing a similar decision. She visited BC, loved it, thought about going somewhere outside the shadow of an older sister who had played on a national championship team as a freshman – and then visited Wisconsin five days later and decided that was the place.
“My parents and family never put the pressure on me to stay close to home,” said Brooke. “We’ve been lucky that they’ve been able to come out and watch us.”
And watch them they have.
A typical weekend for their parents would be like the one that unfolded late last month, when the Badgers had a key weekend series against Minnesota-Duluth: out of the house at 3:30 a.m. Friday -- not long after Babette had finished up a night nursing shift -- and at LaGuardia Airport to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Milwaukee.
From Milwaukee, a connecting flight to Minneapolis, where they could then hitch a ride with one of the other Wisconsin parents for the 150-mile drive to Duluth. Then everything reversed after the final horn of the series sounded Saturday night.
The Ammermans figure they’ll made 16 weekend trips to see the Badgers in action this winter, all but one of them requiring flights.
“I used to be a high school principal and now I’m a superintendent,” said Bert Ammerman. “I always said to parents, ‘You’ve got to watch your kids play. It’s something you can never get back if you miss it.’”
It’s proven to be worth the investment.
The 5-foot-8 Brooke, a right-handed shot, and the 5-foot-6 Brittany, a lefty, are sisters, but not clones. Sometimes they’ll play on the same line, but just as often they won’t.
“We’re completely different,” said Brittany. “Brooke’s more finesse. She has great hands and can put the puck in the net. I’m more of a grinder, more of a playmaker than a scorer.”
The Ammerman sisters are in Wisconsin more than Bergen County these days, but their roots are strong. Brooke interned with the New Jersey Devils this past summer. Brittany worked locally as a lifeguard
And, even as their hockey careers take them far away, their names remain known to young girls in the area who strive to achieve what they have.
“Even though they’ve been removed from this area for the past three or four years, people remember who they are, what they’re capable of and what they can do for the sport,” said Looney.
Mike Zhe can be reached at mzhe@nyhockeyjournal.com.
