If you’re going to speak of Brett Kramer in relation to the GCU Men’s and Women’s Hockey programs, you’ll need to include this term: “first”. While Kramer is only beginning his 3rd year as the assistant coach of the GCU Women’s Hockey program, he has been an integral part of just about every major milestone of Grand Canyon University Ice Hockey.
First, when Danny Roy initially started up the Lopes’ Men’s Hockey program in 2016, it was Kramer’s name that was at the top of his first recruit list and was his first signee. The impact of Kramer – who didn’t have to travel far to get to the GCU campus from his home in El Mirage – was immediate, scoring 17 goals and registering 25 assists in the program’s first two years on the ice. Kramer was also the first hockey player ever to suit up for 100 or more games in Lopes’ purple, skating off the ice for the final time right before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020.
After a few years in the private sector, Roy asked Kramer to return to the fold for his first try at coaching, helping Danny when Roy took over as the Lopes’ Interim Women’s Hockey Head Coach in the spring of 2024. Kramer stayed on as Reid Miller’s lead assistant, and a year later, was helping to hoist the program’s first-ever WWCHL Championship trophy and first ACHA D1 Nationals berth. Kramer helped the team repeat those feats this past spring.
Off the ice, since he graduated from GCU in 2020 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Care Administration and Management, Kramer became the president for three years of Thunder’s Student Athletes, a non-profit that keeps Lopes’ Hockey involving in the community in various ways; and currently works with hospitals, doctors and health care facilities as the marketing director at Royal Hospice in the East Valley.
