On Monday, Holy Cross announced that head coach David Berard was stepping down to explore other career opportunities.
Berard has been head coach of the Crusaders since the 2014-15 season. The Coventry, R.I., native went 84-116-34 during his seven seasons at Holy Cross. He guided HC to top three finishes in the Atlantic Hockey standings in both 2015-16 and 2017-18.
Berard, 50, played for Providence College from 1988-92. His coaching résumé includes stints as an assistant coach at his alma mater as well as Colby, Lake Superior State and UConn. Outside of a brief stint as interim head coach at UConn, his only head coaching experience came during his time at Holy Cross.
What’s next for Berard?
The next destination for Berard seems all too obvious. Providence College is searching for a new associate athletic director for men’s and women’s hockey after Rico Blasi left the position to become the next head coach at St. Thomas University, a fledgling Division 1 program in Minnesota.
The connections to Providence College are abundant. Between playing and coaching, he’s spent 20 seasons with the Friars’ hockey program. He’s from Coventry, a town about 30 minutes northwest of the campus. He currently lives in East Greenwich, about equidistant to the southeast.
His wife, Lynne, also is a former student-athlete at PC, playing field hockey. His son, Brett, just finished his freshman season playing for the Friars, and his younger son, Brady, is committed to PC for 2022-23.
By taking the job at Providence, he’d be able to watch his two sons play college hockey while cutting his commute in half. It would provide more job security and he potentially could jump back into coaching if he was so inclined at a future date.
Who’s in line at Holy Cross?
As is the case anytime there is a job opening in Division 1, there will be plenty of interest in the head coaching gig at Holy Cross. It is a great school in a hockey-rich geographical region, and there are only 63 Division 1 head coaching positions.
There are drawbacks. The school has been reluctant to spend money on athletics in the past. The assistant coaches are some of the lowest paid in Division 1, and the facilities certainly don’t hold up to many others in the league or region.
The most obvious candidate is associate head coach Paul Pearl, who played for the Crusaders from 1985 to 1989 and previously spent two stints as a head coach there. He was bench boss from 1994-96 and then again from 1997 to 2014.
He left HC in 2014 to become associate head coach at Harvard. He spent four seasons with the Crimson and has been Albie O’Connell’s right-hand man at BU the past three years. He left Holy Cross in part due to a lack of resources, but also due to wanting to spend more time and work closer to family.
Pearl, 54, is a good coach and recruiter and knows what it takes to be the coach at a school with high academic standards such as Holy Cross. Another feather in his cap is he was an assistant at Brown during the one season between his first two stints at HC.
By taking the Holy Cross job, he would be increasing his job security. The position at BU is tenuous at best with the Terriers having underachieved for much of the O’Connell era. The team did make the NCAA tournament in 2020-21 but was ousted by St. Cloud State in the first round.
Pearl is the best and most likely candidate, but there certainly other are viable potential applicants. Trinity College head coach Matt Greason should be considered for the job. Greason is 169-58-18 as head coach of the Bantams. He made four NCAA tournament appearances from 2015 through 2019, including winning it all at the Division 3 level in 2015.
Greason was a standout at Trinity during his playing days and spent a year coaching USA Hockey’s NTDP. His background in prep hockey as a player also would benefit him as head coach at HC.
Norwich head coach Cam Ellsworth also would be a strong candidate. The Leamington, Ontario, native is 54-8-5 in three seasons at the Division 3 powerhouse. Previously, he was the top assistant for Norm Bazin at UMass Lowell. His recruiting and coaching efforts helped the River Hawks to a Frozen Four and three Hockey East Tournament championships. Ellsworth, 40, was a goaltender at Michigan Tech during his playing days.
Both Quinnipiac assistants could land the gig. Bill Riga, 46, grew up in nearby Westboro, Mass., and played prep school hockey at St. Mark's and college hockey at UMass Lowell. He went on to be an assistant coach with the Junior Bruins before his stints as an NCAA assistant. Riga spent five seasons as an assistant at Union before coming to Quinnipiac in 2008. He's been on Rand Pecknold's staff since.
Joe Dumais has had a similar career. He was an assistant at Union from 2011-16, including being on staff for the school's national championship in 2014. The Auburn, Maine, native joined Pecknold's staff for the start of the 2016-17 season.
New Hampshire associate head coach Glenn Stewart could be of interest to the Holy Cross administration. He has experience as an assistant coach in the league with AIC and UConn. Prior to the past six seasons at his alma mater, Stewart spent six years at Merrimack. Stewart, 50, was a solid player at UNH before embarking on a long minor pro career. Stewart is one of the nicest people in the college game and would be a terrific representative for the HC program.
Kimball Union head coach Tim Whitehead, the former bench boss of UMass Lowell and Maine, would be a solid candidate. The 57-year-old had plenty of success with the Black Bears and his teams have been dominant at the prep level. He played at Hamilton College and is familiar with schools such as Holy Cross from that aspect.
A lot of the usual candidates when coaching opportunities come up likely would not be inclined to pursue the Holy Cross gig. I can’t see Northeastern associate head coach Jerry Keefe, UMass associate head coach Ben Barr, American International head coach Eric Lang or former Merrimack head coach Mark Dennehy being interested.
