In a news release announcing Northeastern’s incoming freshman class, the Huskies also announced Wednesday that sophomore defenseman Dan Cornell, junior defenseman Jake Hoefler and sophomore defenseman Ben Oskroba will not return for the 2013-14 season. Reasons were not disclosed.
At Maine, Gendron finds another challenge he willingly accepts
That thick thatch of snowy white hair atop Dennis Gendron’s head may have been a bright crimson shade when he first started coaching over three decades ago.
Even so, he is still known to all as “Red,” and appropriately so, for the fiery competitive burn in his gut.
Which goes a long way to explaining why Gendron, a 55-year old hockey lifer, would leave behind the tweedy Ivy League life as an assistant coach at Yale for the rigors of a rebuilding project at Maine.
Even if he could rest on his laurels after helping the Bulldogs to their first national championship, he wouldn’t.
That’s just not Red.
“Oh, sure,” he said moments after being introduced as the fourth head coach in Maine’s history. “I could have retired at Yale, barring some unforeseen circumstances. That would have been easy to do. Most people who know me find me to be pretty passionate and unafraid to accept a challenge.”
Gendron is plenty familiar with challenges.
Among the toughest nut to crack will be winning over the hardcore Maine fan base.
It was the clamor emanating from Black Bears Nation for the head of former coach Tim Whitehead, who had taken Maine to a pair of Frozen Four title games during his 12 year tenure, that helped lead to Whitehead’s dismissal in April.
Thus, in the wake of last year’s 11-19-8 mark, just the third losing season in Whitehead’s term, the school’s first open search for a head coach since 1984, which netted it the legendary late Shawn Walsh, was set in motion.
Gendron, who was hired after an extensive search, said he is well aware of what the Black Bears mean to the hockey-mad Pine Tree State.
“There’s no place in the East,” he said, “where a whole state is as passionate about a program as the folks in Maine. That’s something that ‘Walshie’ created while he was here. He made it ‘Maine’s Team.’ I understand that. I came into that with eyes wide open.”
Then again, he’s seen that all that passion firsthand.
Plucked out of obscurity back in 1990 from behind a Vermont high school bench by Walsh, Gendron has tasted great success at both college and pro levels.
That includes two national championships — including Maine’s 1993 title — and three Stanley Cup rings from his time as an assistant with the New Jersey Devils.
Along the way, he’s coached in the AHL, the USHL and, before his recent two-year stint at Yale, spent six seasons as an assistant to former Massachusetts coach Don “Toot” Cahoon.
Yet if you ask the Boston-born Gendron, all that success stems from Walsh’s willingness to take a chance on an unheralded high school coach whose desire far outweighed his resume.
“Shawn Walsh always wanted to hire the best people he could find,” said Gendron, who earned his master’s degree during his three-year stay at Maine. “It didn’t matter who you were or what your background was. He just wanted hungry people. I owe him for that. And quite frankly, none of the other magnificent things that have happened to me [since then] would have been possible if I hadn’t parachuted into Orono 23 years ago.
“The place and the people who were there meant a lot to me. My time at Maine [then] will pay huge dividends for what we will be doing [now].”
Gendron’s vision for the Black Bears includes hanging some newly-won banners in the Alfond Arena rafters and producing alums who go on to NHL glory.
In other words, a tap of the refresh button on Maine’s storied past, one that could include a return of semi-retired legendary assistant coach and ace recruiter Grant Standbrook.
“If Grant wants to come back to Maine, Grant can come back to Maine,” Gendron said. “It’s up to him. It’s as simple as that. I will wait for him to decide what he wants to do.”
In the process, Gendron vows, in time, to make the Black Bears well worth the watching, and perhaps even the toughest ticket in the state.
“I don’t know how good we’re going to be as a program,” he said. “But we’re going to be long-term greedy and we’re going to build for the future. We’re going to play fast. We’re going to train to play fast. And that’s it. That’s not something that I invented, that’s for sure. We think it’s a fun way to play. I’ve seen it work. It’s going to be great.”
And you can write that in “Red.”
With lessons from York, Cavanaugh sets off on his own head coaching path
The year was 1992 and email blasts were still a thing of the future.
To get your resume in front of the eyes that matter, one actually had to stuff a bunch of envelopes and lick a lot of stamps.
And Mike Cavanaugh licked plenty of them.
Bitten hard by the coaching bug after winding up his playing days at Bowdoin, Cavanaugh mailed out a hand-addressed offer for his services to dozens of Division I coaches.
“I said, ‘I’d like for you to consider me as a graduate assistant,'” Cavanaugh said.
And then he waited for the responses to come rolling in.
Only two of them did, but one — from Bowling Green’s Jerry York — was the one that changed his life and set him on a coaching track that has now led him to Connecticut.
“I’m sure glad he [York] returned that letter,” said Cavanaugh, who is UConn’s newly minted head coach after a 21-year apprenticeship as a college assistant coach. That includes 19 seasons under York, the last 18 of them at Boston College.
“Jerry took me as an infant in this business,” Cavanaugh said. “And now he’s kicking me off to college. Telling me to go do my own thing now.”
Indeed.
After putting his fingerprints on four BC national championships and the careers of countless Eagles players who made good in the pros, it’s time for Cavanaugh to wrap his hands around his own team.
“I think it’s really exciting,” Cavanaugh said, “to take a program that hasn’t had scholarships for a number of years [but] is making the commitment to elevate its program. If I was going to leave Boston College, and essentially build a program at an outstanding university, [this] is more than I can ever ask for.”
Cavanaugh, who hails from North Andover, Mass., takes over from interim coach David Berard, who led the Huskies to an Atlantic Hockey semifinal berth last year.
He reportedly beat out two other finalists — Berard and former Denver and Miami coach George Gwozdecky — for the job.
(Ironically, Gwozdecky was the other coach who responded positively to Cavanaugh’s letter-writing campaign, way back when.)
With UConn set to move into Hockey East in 2014-15, and with a new on-campus rink in the early planning stages, Cavanaugh has a chance to turn the hockey Huskies into a major player in Division I, which for him, is the chance of a lifetime.
“I always wanted to be a head coach,” he said. “[But] I always stayed away from looking into the future. My philosophy is the job I have now is the one I’m going to commit 100 percent to. I never got caught up in saying, ‘If I’m not a head coach by this point,’ or whatever. I just worked as hard as I could as an assistant coach at Boston College every year I was there.
“I didn’t focus on whether I was going to be a career assistant, or a head coach at ‘X’ school. I’ve always focused on whatever job I’ve had at the time. Right now, I’m the head coach at the University of Connecticut.”
Which for the moment, means he’s doing double duty.
First off, he has to prepare the Huskies for the ultimate swan song, a run at an Atlantic Hockey crown (which would be their first) in their final year there.
And then there is task of getting UConn ready for the transition to Hockey East, where Cavanaugh’s long history and intimate familiarity with that conference are bound to be helpful.
Needless to say, Cavanaugh has plenty of work ahead of him. And for him, it’s first things first.
“Hockey East can wait,” he said. “I’m not really focused on Hockey East. I’ve gotten calls asking me about scheduling two years down the road, and frankly, that’s very low on my priority list. I’m really focused on winning an Atlantic Hockey championship. I think the seniors on our team deserve that kind of commitment.
“Now, recruiting will be a different issue. Recruiting will be focused on Hockey East.”
And that means he’ll be often be mucking it up in the corners with his old boss York for prime recruits, including those in his own, new backyard.
Pat Mullane, Tommy Cross, Ben Smith, and Cam and Tommy Atkinson are all recent Eagles standouts who were harvested from the Nutmeg State.
No doubt Cavanaugh will win a few and lose a few of those living room visits that lay ahead.
What will always stick with the new head Huskies coach is the stamp he bears from York, who amassed 476 of his record 935 wins with Cavanaugh by his side.
Working with York day in and out for two decades was akin to an immersion coaching clinic.
But if you ask Cavanaugh, the most important lessons gleaned from the York curriculum had nothing to do with power plays, line rolls or OKing championship ring designs.
Instead, he said, it’s York’s fourth-line humility, which overshadows his Hall of Fame credentials, that stands out the most.
“I just think it’s his modesty,” Cavanaugh said. “How humble he is. It’s really unique for someone in his position. He is the all-time winningest coach. I remember when he broke the record [last season], [Boston Celtics coach] Doc Rivers sent him an email saying that when you’re the all-time in anything, it’s pretty neat.
“If he sat down with you at Dunkin’ Donuts, he’d talk with you for 10 minutes. Maybe 20. He doesn’t have any airs about him, and if there is one thing I can take with him, it’s how modest and humble he is. I’ve said on many occasions that in my career, if I can be as modest and humble as Jerry York, then I’ll be doing OK for myself.”
Cavanaugh is now assembling his own staff, and hopes to make those hires soon.
Who knows? Maybe there’s a resume sitting in his mailbox worth opening.
