The 35th anniversary season of Hockey East is about to begin.
It’s no secret that the great number of successful coaches to come through the league is a major reason why it has been widely regarded as the best college hockey conference in the country for so long.
Consider the names like Jack Parker, Shawn Walsh and Len Ceglarski. Of course, the sport’s all-time winningest coach, Jerry York, is still kicking and keeping Boston College in annual contention. Recent years also have seen the retirement of legendary New Hampshire boss Dick Umile and the emergence of some program-changing newcomers in UMass Lowell’s Norm Bazin and Providence’s Nate Leaman.
A new chapter in Hockey East’s long coaching history will be written this year as three former associate head coaches make the jump to the top slot: UNH’s Mike Souza, Boston University’s Albie O’Connell and Merrimack’s Scott Borek. The conference has not seen a trio of new head coaches in the same year since 2011-12.
All three know the ins and outs of the league, as well as the daily grind that being involved in it is and has been for years.
“It’s a league that requires the best out of you every day,” Souza said. “There are guys in our league that force you to want to be better at what you do, coaches that I have a lot of respect for and admire, and there’s nobody that doesn’t challenge you night in and night out.”
All three are tried-and-true New Englanders entering the new season with high hopes and fresh ideas for their teams as well as a high level of respect for those who coached before and taught them the right way to their jobs.
It’s hard to follow in the footsteps of a legend, but Souza (Wakefield, Mass.) knows that’s the challenge he faces as he takes over the UNH program.
He was the Wildcats’ associate head coach for three seasons before earning the promotion and played for Umile (Melrose, Mass.) from 1996-2000. For Souza or any coach, the chance to take over his alma mater as it looks to reach the levels of its storied past again means a lot.
“It’s a pretty special thing for me personally on a number of levels,” Souza said. “Any time you have the opportunity to coach at your alma mater, it’s a privilege and with it comes a lot of responsibility, representing everyone that’s worn the jersey in years past. I don’t take that lightly and try to convey that responsibility that we have as a team to our current players because we’re incredibly proud of our history and tradition.”
Along those lines, one of Souza’s ultimate goals is use an uptempo style — not unlike UNH teams of the recent past — to help make the Whittemore Center one of the toughest places to play in college hockey, as it was during his own career and even more recently. The Wildcats advanced to two Frozen Fours while Souza was in school, including the 1999 title game against archrival Maine.
Climbing back there will take some time, as the Wildcats finished at the bottom of the Hockey East standings a year ago and haven’t climbed higher than eighth since 2014, but there’s an excitement level and an energy around the team that senior forward Chris Miller (Windham, N.H.) hasn’t seen during his tenure in Durham so far.
“I’ve been telling people that the overall vibe around the rink has been different in a good way, and I think that will go a long way this season,” Miller said. “We have a saying, ‘Do your actions match your ambitions?’ You hear that a lot in the locker room now, meaning, ‘Do those small decisions you make on a daily basis fall in line with your bigger goal?’
“For us, we want to show Hockey East that we can be a top team in the league.”
Despite the recent tough times, it’s hard for a long-tenured Wildcat like Souza to not reminisce about all the successes that Umile chaired over his 28-year career, becoming the 12th coach in NCAA history to be behind the bench for 1,000 career games and only the fifth at one school. But Souza is ready to make his own mark while being joined on the bench by the returning Glenn Stewart as associate head coach and a new assistant in Nashua, N.H., native and former BC standout Jeff Giuliano.
“As much as I love Coach Umile, I’m not Coach Umile, but the values of the program that he has embedded into the fabric of not only the athletic department but UNH and Hockey East as a whole are not going to change,” Souza said. “What he was able to do here for so long was pretty remarkable.”
Wins and losses are obviously important in the coaching world because they’re the major statistical measuring stick, but the job was about much more than numbers to Umile. From the start, he simply cared about his guys.
“I’ve always said that his greatest legacy will always be the influence that he had on his players,” Souza said. “He had a tremendous influence on people’s lives, and I think anyone in this business would say the same thing. To learn from him and see the way he was able to do that is something I hope to carry forward.”
While O’Connell (Watertown, Mass.) was David Quinn’s right-hand man as associate head coach for the last three of his four seasons back at Boston University, his time at Agganis Arena and around the office was much less.
Things certainly have changed since he took over the head job from Cranston, R.I., native Quinn, who was hired to lead the National Hockey League’s New York Rangers in May.
“As an assistant, you’re spending a lot of September on the road recruiting and trying to find the next guy,” O’Connell said. “I’ve spent more time in the office over the last three months than, maybe, the past year, just because of the differences of the job.”
O’Connell knows this area’s hockey landscape as well as anyone, as his coaching career hasn’t taken him out of New England for long since beginning at Berkshire School in 2002. He joined the college ranks at Colby the following year, left the region to spend two years at Niagara, before working at Holy Cross, Merrimack, Northeastern and Harvard, then landing back at his alma mater.
He established himself as a top recruiter in the college game in that time, most recently bringing the likes of Buffalo Sabre and former Hobey Baker Award winner Jack Eichel (North Chelmsford, Mass.), Bruins defensemen Matt Grzelcyk (Charlestown, Mass.) and Charlie McAvoy, and 2017 National Rookie of the Year Clayton Keller to BU while working under Quinn.
O’Connell has been an important presence around the team despite his tireless efforts on the road. Just like for Souza, the relationship he’s developed with the majority of his current roster is an advantage in beginning the head coaching job. And it helps the players, too.
“When you have a relationship with someone for so long like a lot of the guys have with him, it was kind of a sigh of relief for everybody because we know what he’s all about,” junior defenseman Chad Krys (Ridgefield, Conn.) said. “I think guys are definitely a little bit more confident than they would be if we’d gotten a completely new face.”
Following the path that Quinn blazed is important as he largely did it with O’Connell at his side. The duo led BU to four straight NCAA tournaments, a Hockey East championship and a Beanpot title.
“I think Coach Quinn did a great job. It was not easy in any way to follow Jack Parker (Somerville, Mass.),” said O’Connell, who is the only current Division 1 head coach who has won a conference regular-season title, conference tournament championship and reached the NCAA title game as both a player and a coach. “For me, it’s just maintaining what he’s done over the last few years and the high standard he helped set with these guys on and off the ice.”
Former Holy Cross head coach Paul Pearl (Winthrop, Mass.) joins O’Connell’s staff from Harvard, where he was Ted Donato’s (Dedham, Mass.) associate head coach for the past four seasons. Len Quesnelle returns for his second year as an assistant after working alongside Quinn and O’Connell last year as BU won its first Hockey East title since 2015 and advanced to within a game of the Frozen Four.
Despite Quinn’s departure, O’Connell was able to build an experienced staff that will go a long way in BU’s hopes of maintaining its consistency among the elite and adding to the foundation that was built. Krys and his teammates have a good feeling about what they can help the group achieve.
“We’re very fast this year and this is the deepest we’ve been at forward and the oldest core group of guys we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Krys said. “It’s a different feeling than my first two years and a good feeling.”
O’Connell is the fifth BU alumnus out of the Terriers’ past six head coaches, as one has held the position for 72 of the last 73 seasons. His career path, though, has taken him through all three Division 1 conferences that have a New England presence, but it was his stint under first-year Harvard assistant Jim Tortorella (Concord, Mass.) at Colby — which followed a four-year professional playing career and a year coaching prep school — that he feels set him up for success in the coaching ranks.
“I didn’t really fully understand the college game or recruiting, but he gave me an opportunity,” O’Connell said of Tortorella, who is still Colby’s all-time winningest coach. “I went up there for not a lot of money but a lot of hours of work, growth and development.
“I probably learned more in that job than any other job I’ve worked. Just about how hard you have to work, the details that go into it, being prepared and going the extra mile to make things happen and try to, at that time, just help Colby get better every day.”
In this group of three, Borek (Swampscott, Mass.) is unique as he’s done the whole head coaching thing at the D-1 level before.
Borek led both Lake Superior State (1996-01) and Division 3 New England College (2001-02) before spending the past 16 years as an associate head coach for a pair of Hockey East programs, working alongside Umile and Leaman.
But taking a Hockey East position is a new, unique challenge that has been made a whole lot easier by the leadership of five seniors, including a pair of Massachusetts natives in goaltender Craig Pantano (Bridgewater) and forward Derek Petti (Tewksbury).
“I’m excited to get started and move the program in a good direction,” said Borek, whose Merrimack team opens the season Oct. 6-7 against Lake Superior State. “It’s been a bit of a learning process, but the one thing I can say is that the effort from the guys and the care factor have been extremely high.”
Borek takes over for Mark Dennehy, who was let go in March after 13 seasons behind the bench in North Andover and is now skippering the New Jersey Devils’ American Hockey League club in Binghamton, N.Y. Dennehy (Dorchester, Mass.) brought the program a long, long way in that time, as his second team finished 3-27-4, while two of his last earned home ice for a Hockey East postseason series.
Lawler Arena itself and the current status of the Merrimack program simply would not be without Dennehy’s decade-plus of hard work. Borek sees all that when he walks into the locker room each day.
“I have a world’s respect for Coach Dennehy,” Borek said. “The great group of kids and culture here are a tribute to him. They’ve had a couple disappointing seasons and that happens. Hopefully a bit of a different approach will be helpful, though I’m very respectful of what happened before I got here and I think it’s important everybody is that way.”
Change is good. This group of Warriors will have to replace a chunk of goal scoring, but Borek sees the potential for a fast-skating, hard-working team and excitement for what this season and the future could hold.
“No matter what has happened in the past, he’s expecting the best out of us and he wants to win right now,” Pantano said of Borek, who retained ninth-year associate head coach Curtis Carr from Dennehy’s staff. They welcomed in Josh Ciocco, a UNH alum who was most recently at Brown as assistant coach. “He’s not trying to build anything up or hold anything back and wants us to be as competitive as possible right away.”
Success doesn’t come overnight, Borek said, but it will come. And that’s nothing new, as he was heavily involved in two programs as they rose to and maintained elite national status prior to taking the job at Merrimack.
Borek has been on staff for Hockey East teams that have won five league regular-season championships and one postseason title and qualified for NCAA play 13 times. He most recently worked with three of the five consecutive Providence clubs to reach NCAAs, beginning his tenure under Leaman the year following the Friars’ national title in 2015.
Borek knows that both Umile and Leaman contributed greatly to the coach he is today.
“From Coach Umile, I learned the value of connection with the players and making sure that the players felt like they were part of something bigger than themselves,” Borek said. “From Nate, I realized just how high you could raise the bar and that, if you hold people accountable to a set of standards, you have a real chance to achieve something really special as Providence has over the last few years.”
Borek’s Hockey East coaching tenure to this point, too, is a perfect example that there is no such thing as a perfect teacher in this business. Different styles have led to the same results.
“They both won a lot, but they won in different ways,” he said of Umile and Leaman.
Though Borek’s previous D-1 head coaching experience came halfway across the country, he’s as qualified as anyone to speaking of the tremendous coaching legacy that has been carried out in this region for decades.
He’s worked with and coached against some of the best guys college hockey has had to offer — more numerous than those listed within. As Umile taught him, the sport is about so much more than the current players and practice or game at hand. There is always plenty more to consider.
“I’m so fortunate to have been around Joe Marsh, Mike Gilligan, ‘Toot’ Cahoon, and obviously Richie, Jerry and Jack,” Borek said. “One thing all of those guys never lost sight of is, ‘Yeah, we’re going to compete on Friday and Saturday nights and we’re going to try to knock your head off,’ but we are a coaching body and basically a group of friends. We have to keep it in perspective on what we’re doing and what our real job is; we’re in education and here to try to grow people’s lives.
“When you think about the people who have coached in Eastern college hockey, they’re pretty special.”
