Our Coaches — Ohio Hockey Project

Every Mentor Is a Current OHP Head Coach

Not an outside hire, and not a tutor with a hockey logo on it. The person your player meets with each month already coaches inside this pathway — and has played it. Here is exactly who you would be working with, before you choose a stage.

Russ Sinkewich

Founder · The Path Forward mentor, 17U and up

Russ grew up playing in Northeast Ohio — AAA with the Cleveland Americans and high school hockey at St. Edward — before NCAA Division I at Bowling Green State University and seven professional seasons with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters. He retired from playing in 2015 and went full-time into Ohio Hockey Project, the organization he had founded in 2008. He has walked every stage this program maps, from a first AAA tryout to a professional locker room. The gap this curriculum was built to close is one he lived, not one he read about.

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Russ Sinkewich, founder of Ohio Hockey Project

Lauren Bernard

Development mentor, 12U to 14U · OHP skill instruction lead

A two-time NCAA national champion at Ohio State (2022 and 2024) and a Team USA U18 Worlds silver medalist, Lauren plays professionally for the PWHL’s New York Sirens — which means your player gets a mentor who is living the exact pathway this curriculum teaches, in real time. She leads OHP’s skill instruction and brings a defender’s honesty to every check-in: clear standards, real encouragement, no shortcuts.

See the Development Stage

Shannon Szabados

Development mentor · OHP goaltending and girls programs

One of the most decorated goaltenders in women’s hockey history: two Olympic gold medals (2010 and 2014), Olympic silver (2018), and IIHF Goaltender of the Decade. Shannon is also the first and only woman to record a shutout in men’s professional hockey in North America. She leads OHP’s goaltending and girls programs — and shows every young player in this program exactly how far the pathway can go.

See the Development Stage

Shannon Szabados, OHP goaltending and girls programs lead

Spencer Bellina

Advancement mentor, 15U to 16U

A Medina, Ohio native who walked the exact road this program maps — and is still walking it. Spencer played junior hockey in the NCDC and NAHL before a four-year NCAA career as a defenseman at Plattsburgh State, where he earned his degree in Economics and Finance. This season he begins his professional career with the Knoxville Ice Bears of the SPHL. He made the junior-and-college decisions your player is facing, recently, and knows what the road actually looks like from the inside.

See the Advancement Stage