Auckland's Botany Swarm ice hockey team have qualified for the national semi-finals for the first time in eight years with a history-making coach at the helm.
Michele Cox is the first ever New Zealand woman to coach an all men’s team and has made trainings tougher than ever to prepare the boys.
Cox, the queen bee of the Swarm, has been whipping it on the ice since she was 12 and she's no stranger to being amongst the boys.
"I grew up playing the boys grades, there was no women’s grades so always played in Auckland so under 15 reps, 19s, under 21s so it was full contact men’s hockey," Cox told 1 NEWS.
She captained the national women's team before moving into coaching in Australia.
Andrew Hay has been with the Swarm for 15 years, he says when the job came up, getting Cox on board was a no brainer.
"She's a really tough task master, really demands a lot from the guys in terms of discipline and working hard, all those really important things that you need to form a winning culture," Hay said.
There certainly hasn’t been any holding back from either coach or the players though stereotypes do persist.
"One of the players on the bench told her to f--- off and then she came in the room and said if you tell me to f--- off again you can f--- off," Hay said.
"In fact, a couple of weeks ago we were in Queenstown playing the Stampede down there and I was walking around and they were like, ‘oh are you the physio?’ Like, do you have a ticket? And I'm like, no I'm the coach," Cox said.
The Swarm haven't qualified for a final in years but the boys on the team say they're positive they'll be seeing a different result this weekend at the semi-final because of Cox's coaching.
"You're just another player, you're not the girl player or anything like that you're just another part of the team," Hay said.
The Swarm face cross-town rivals, the West Auckland Admirals tomorrow, where they'll be hoping for another sweet victory.
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