Summer Retreat Interviews #1: Goalie Zach Wilson '09

This is the first of three interviews I shot at the summer retreat which took place at defenseman Sean Legnini's home in Avalon, NJ at the end of August.

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Zach Wilson will be a senior this year, and this Fall is his last in Boston, as he'll be spending his Spring at the school's L.A. program, hoping to get a leg up on his career in television. Wilson has been with the team the past two seasons, serving as backup goalie to Greg Cohen and sharing the net with Lance Ning last Spring while Cohen was in the Netherlands.

Off the ice, Wilson is very involved in the EVVYs production team, and is the head of the TRF sports production unit, which puts together award-winning multi-camera coverage of many Emerson athletic events, including hockey.

Here's a highlight reel from an Emerson/Berklee game the EVVY's shot and Zach edited together to some music:

I accidentally hit him in the back with a puck at practice one night last season, but he was gracious enough to forgive me for that. We played 18 holes of miniature golf on the Ocean City boardwalk (don't go to Congo Falls Golf -- sure the large gorilla is alluring, but every hole is an unimaginative par 2) and we sat down for an interview the next day over hamburgers.

Here, Zach talks about how the retreat helped build "teamraderie," as he put it:

Teamraderie is especially beneficial should you fall out of a kayak:

Getting down to brass tacks, Zach appraises the team's ability for TV coverage:

...and talks about how games being shown on the Emerson Channel would bring the team more exposure:

He feels the condensed schedule this year will be a challenge for the team:

But a little later, he added: "I think if the younger guys stick to it and really get committed from the beginning it'll be a lot easier because they'll be used to it as opposed to like trying to add stuff to the schedule."

Finally, let's go back in time a bit. To about... 1991, when Wilson appeared on Sesame Street (he comes in around 1:40):

I think I had the same haircut when I was 4 years old, LOL... He told some of the other guys and I that he was in a couple more episodes, too.

If you want to see more of Zach's work off the ice, visit his YouTube page at: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZWilsonFilms