Ennovate’s Nick Roy faces Equipe’s Bob Herrick while Don Boc from Lucent Technologies referees. Adam Bezanson of Ennovate is in goal. Ennovate went on to win this game.

Ennovate’s other cutting Edge

While some companies give free coffee to keep their employees content during the long New England winter months, Ennovate Networks also offers them the opportunity to gather in a refrigerated building and, wearing skates and a helmet, chase a puck across the ice.

In fact, by the time most Massachusetts technology employees have had their first coffee of the day, engineers at Marlborough-based Ennovate are probably already into the second half of an inter-company ice hockey game.

Working for a networking startup is, in many ways, like an ice hockey game. You have to play as a team. You must be intuitive enough to see the play unfold ahead of you. You need to be nimble, able to adapt quickly and change direction if it will improve your position. And in such a fiercely competitive arena, you must have the passion to win.

It also helps that the chief executive officer, John Glazik, is an ice-hockey fan. Glazik, who was previously with ADC Telecommunications in Texas, even helped name the team “The Ennovate Edge” in a play of words on the company’s family of IP edge switches.

Recently, Ennovate has challenged other local networking firms, including Equipe Communications, Integral Access and Network Engines, to meet on the ice.

“Equipe has an 11-to-15 player hockey team and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to lace-up the skates and compete against other telecommunications companies in the area,” said Bob Herrick, senior buyer and planner for Equipe Communications, as well as the company’s hockey team manager.

He continued: “After our first two games, with Ennovate and Rational Software, I am happy to report that we’re full-time engineers and not full-time hockey players . . . we plan to keep our day jobs!”

If anyone else is interested in pulling a company team together for some chilly pre-dawn fun he should contact the event organizer, Ben Forgrave of Ennovate Networks, at 978-263-2002. The games take place at the New England Sports Center in Marlborough.

— compiled by James Carter of Ennovate Networks and Anne Taylor