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It’s a small world for Steel, figure skating coaches

NEW ULM — Many have often heard the cliche “It’s a small world.”

For engaged couple Andrew Kolb and Ellie Eichert, that cliche is reality.

Kolb, the head coach of the New Ulm Steel hockey team and Eichert, the Skating Director for the New Ulm Figure Skating Club (NUFSC), grew up basically 30 miles away from each other.

Kolb grew up in Toledo, Ohio where he played hockey.

Eichert was born 30 miles south of Toledo in Findlay, Ohio and grew up in Tiffin, Ohio which is 40 minutes south of Toledo.

“She stayed there for a few years before she moved to Houghton, Michigan and there she started her figure skating,” Kolb said.

“I started figure skating when I was 4,” Eichert said. “And when I was 12, I moved out to Jamestown, New York to skate.”

Her skating skills led her to become a professional figure skater with Disney On Ice.

“That was amazing,” she said. “I skated in 18 countries around the world — a different city every week — and it was my dream to skate for Disney since I was seven years old.”

That schedule was tough for her.

“We’d have three shows at a time — we’d have two days off — and we skated in every major National Hockey League rink in the country,” Eichert said. “It was tiring after doing that for five years.”

Meanwhile, Kolb stayed in Toledo where be started playing hockey.

“I played high school hockey there and then played two years of Junior Hockey for the Toledo Cherokee,” he said. “I moved on to Marquette in 2010.”

Eichert and her family later moved to Mankato and she went to Minnesota State University for Sports Management. That was when fate stepped in for both Kolb and Eichert.

“Last year was my first year as an assistant coach with the Steel,” said Kolb who played college hockey at Wisconsin-Stevens Point and graduated with a degree in Sociology.

Eichert said that she was looking for a coaching job at the best location.

“New Ulm was hiring coaches so I talked to them,” Eichert said. “I really liked their program and wanted to get involved. I coached here in New Ulm for about a year before I became the Skating Director and saw some things I really wanted to change with the program here. I really loved the community and I knew this was where I wanted to be.”

That was when fate stepped in for a second time.

“One day after practice, we just ran into each other at the Civic Center,” Kolb said. “I had no idea who she was and she had no idea who I was. Last year was my first year in New Ulm and I basically lived at the rink and on the ice with youth hockey and watching and helping the program.”

“She was up by her office doing some things and I was at my office doing some things and we started making small talk,” Kolb said. “That is where all of these things came up as to where we both grew up — we started talking.”

That talking has grown into a relationship that has marriage plans between Kolb and Eichert for next July.

“I am a huge believer that everything happens for a reason,” Eichert said. “I believe that God put Andrew in my life. The first day we started talking — and he said he was from Toledo and I said I was born 45 minutes from there. All his family are in Ohio and all of my family are in Ohio. It just seemed like the skies kind of aligned and put us together. My parents live 30 minutes from his parents now. It is pretty cool.”

“The thing that was weird is that she was born 30 miles from me in Ohio,” Kolb said. “And both of us being together means that we can both get home to visit our families.”

Eichert’s family now lives in Adrian, Michigan, 35 miles from Toledo, Ohio.

Kolb said that the two talk about what the odds are that they both met in the same city coaching sports that they love.

“She is a figure skating coach and I am a hockey coach and we are both very passionate about what we do,” he said. “We both love doing it and would not trade our jobs in for anything. In the end, it is about each of us helping our people and watch them grow.”

Eichert said they both have set a goal for their coaching careers here.

“We want to build the hockey and figure skating community here in New Ulm and do it together,” she said.

The couple will be married next July in Michigan.

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