Nikki Ferraro wasn’t the first goalie in her family.
The New Canaan High School freshman had been playing ice hockey since putting on skates for the first time as a second-grader at East School, and now and again she’d grab the glove and blocker for house games at the New Canaan Winter Club.
But her younger brother, Zai, was already playing the position on a regular basis.
Budding goaltender Nikki Ferraro in the basement at home. Photo courtesy of the Ferraro family
“My parents were like ‘No, you can’t do it, we already have one goalie, that’s enough,’ ” recalled Ferraro, 15. “But I’m a pretty persistent person, so I would go home and I’d make my brother shoot on me with his pads in the basement. And my parents would come down. One day my dad came down and was like, ‘Oh, let me get a few shots on you,’ and he said, ‘All right, you’re actually not that bad.’ And I remember he told me, ‘If this is something you really want to do, let’s make it work.’ ”
It did.
NCHS girls hockey goalie Nikki Ferraro with her dad, Jason Ferraro.
Already the only freshman girls ice hockey player in Connecticut to earn both all-county and all-state honors—Ferraro finished with 40 saves in a triple-overtime thriller to top Darien 4-3 in the state final in March—she recently was selected for the prestigious USA Hockey National Team Development Program. Held June 25 to July 1 in St. Cloud, Minn., the camp is taking just 16 goalies nationwide for birth years 2005 and 2006.
Ferraro recalled crying in the hallway at NCHS when her dad, Jason, phoned with the news that she’d made the NTDP camp.
“I make so many sacrifices for hockey and when he told me, it didn’t feel real,” she said. “This is what I’ve been working for, for so long, and I finally get to have this opportunity.”
‘This is for me’
At one point, every member of the family was playing hockey, Ferraro recalled, including her three siblings (older sister Shawna is also a standout state champion field hockey player at NCHS).
Young Nikki Ferraro in goaltender gear for the Ice Cats. Photo courtesy of the Ferraro family
“My brothers kind of started playing and I was watching them, like, ‘This looks kind of fun,’ ” Ferraro recalled. “ ‘Why don’t I give it a try?’ And I just kind of got roped in from there.”
The moment she put on skates, Ferraro thought, “This is for me,” she said.
“I had the feeling of it,” she said. “I never really had doubts about it, it was something I just kept on doing.”
From the New Canaan Winter Club she went on to the join the Ice Cats all-girls travel team, making the squad as both a player and goalie, and deciding to focus on playing in net as a young athlete. Ferraro’s first goalie coaches were surprised at how quickly she picked up many of the position’s nuances—a trademark sign of her focus and determination, according to her dad.
Nikki Ferraro in goal during youth travel hockey. Photo courtesy of the Ferraro family
“She’s extremely driven,” Jason Ferraro said. “She’s just the kind of kid who, when she gets her mind made up about something, there’s really no changing it. She was very determined to try to be a goalie.”
Watching Nikki excel in the sport has made parents Jason and Darleen “extremely proud,” he said.
“She never ceases to amaze us in terms of what she is able to accomplish,” Jason Ferraro said. “The competitiveness she has in her and the drive to exceed, it’s very impressive.”
State champs, the New Canaan High School girls ice hockey team after a March 9, 2022 win versus Darien. Contributed
‘She was a rock’
Ferraro originally thought she might go directly from Saxe Middle School to boarding school, but those plans didn’t materialize last year, and she started in the fall of 2021 as a freshman at NCHS.
What followed would be a blessing for the young goalie, joining a team within the tight-knight girls ice hockey community that taught her valuable lessons about camaraderie and trust.
“It was honestly one of the best experiences I’ve been a part of,” Ferraro said.
The players on the team took her in and “I felt like family right away,” she said.
Members of the 2022 state champion NCHS girls ice hockey team. Contributed
Coach Rich Bulan said, above anything hockey skills-related, he was most impressed with Ferraro’s ability to brook direction and mature during her year as a NCHS Ram.
She joined the team on the heels of an all-state goaltender in Blythe Novick and weathered the expectations and pressure well, Bulan said.
“We kind of just played to her personality, which is a wide open canvas—she’s a funny kid and having a good time,” Bulan recalled.
Ferraro was “very raw” not in terms of hockey skill, but in terms of having what it took to play within the structure of the high school team, and “I have to give her a ton of credit,” he said.
“She had some maturing and growing to do, and she dove into that challenge,” he said.
Bulan recalled that the team started out the season with 4-3 and 5-2 wins, and that during the second game (against Greenwich), he was “fuming” because as well as Ferraro played the position, “she was trying to make every save an ESPN save, and rebounds were coming out and they were scoring goals they should not be scoring.” One such goal was scored deep into the Greenwich game to cut New Canaan’s lead to 3-2 and Bulan “ripped into her,” he said.
He called a timeout, spoke in plain language to his young goalie about what he was seeing and “that kid went back in and from that point on she understood that I just have to make the stop and it does’t have to be fancy.”
The team went on a 12-game tear that included five shutouts and seven one-goal games for Ferraro, Bulan recalled, and “she was mature enough to understand that I was not yelling at her, but she needs to be better and she is better than that. She listened and from there on in she was a rock. I mean, a rock.”
He added, “I was really very proud of the way she handled that, so much more than actual gameplay.”
Ferraro said that she had “never experienced anything like the state championship game” versus Darien.
“It was honestly the best time I’ve been on the ice, the best thing ever,” she said. “I have not played in a game or frankly anything like that. It was so exhilarating to win that game, to know I was part of such a team like that. Everything we did and all the success came down to how close we were. Past all of our skill—everybody is going to be good when you get into the FCIAC finals and into the state championship— but I think the thing that bonded us together was just our trust in each other, and how bad we wanted it. How bad I wanted it.”
Ferraro said she didn’t feel nervous at all during the three overtime periods because “I had trust in myself and I had trust in everyone else”
“I knew I could make a save and I just kind of had fun with it, because I knew you’re not going to get to me in that game any other time,” she said.
“I want to get there some day”
Ferraro is planning to attend The Hotchkiss School next year (“It’s going to be tough to replace her,” Bulan said). The Lakeville-based prep school includes strong programs in ice hockey, which Ferraro intends to play along with soccer and lacrosse.
L-R: The Ferraro family, Shawna, Jason, Nikki, Noah, Zai and Darleen.
Reflecting on the support network that has helped her get to this point, Ferraro said first that her parents “have been there since day one.”
“They recognized this is something I wanted to do and the sacrifices they have made for me, it’s insane. I don’t know how they keep doing it, they keep on my side, no matter if I have a bad game or if I’m conflicted about something.”
She also credited her teammates and coaches, including Mackenzie Bruch of Pro Crease Goaltending, who was “a friendly face” at the tryouts for the USA Hockey camp.
Goalies Nikki and Zai Ferraro at their makeshift training mat at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo courtesy of the Ferraro family
“And my brother Zai,” Ferraro said. “I don’t think I could have done this without him, because as I say, I’m a competitive person, we go to lessons and training and he’s always there, we do everything together. He’s a goalie and he brings it out of me.”
Reflecting on her dreams from a hockey standpoint, Ferraro said she never questioned playing Division 1 hockey in college.
“That is something I definitely want to do and I think it’s possible if I keep on this path, because I know myself and what I want to do,” she said. “But I would love to be on the Olympic team.”
Though Ferraro is shorter than similarly aged high-level goalies, she noted that she beat out far taller competitors at the tryout. (Jason Ferraro also noted that defying stereotypes about what size a goalie needs to be is part of what drives his daughter.)
“I want to be there, I want to put on a USA jersey one day and I think I just need to keep working hard and keep my priorities straight,” Nikki Ferraro said. “I want to get there some day.”
Whatever comes, Ferraro said that her experience in ice hockey has already changed her as a person.
“It’s made me mentally stronger,” she said. “I think when life puts you down—and every time you get scored on, you have to get back up and you have to keep going stronger—and even so, my teammates, they put their trust in me. If it’s a breakaway, they have trust in me. So I think that’s helped me maintain relationships—if my teammates trust me, I think people outside the ice will trust me. If I have a goal on the ice, I will get it done and I will hold myself accountable for that. It’s translated to school, if I want to do well on a test, I’ll put in the work and do what it takes. Same thing on the ice.”