{"id":99501,"date":"2019-09-27T10:32:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T15:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=94629"},"modified":"2020-08-24T11:42:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T16:42:16","slug":"providential-connections-visible-across-holy-cross-coaching-staffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/09\/27\/providential-connections-visible-across-holy-cross-coaching-staffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Providential connections visible across Holy Cross coaching staffs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<\/a>
Meredith Roth, David Berard and Katie Lachapelle are enjoying their time coaching at Holy Cross (photo: Holy Cross Athletics).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Berard did not mean to be Davey Downer.<\/p>\n

He was just being realistic to one person he knew well about someone else he knew well.<\/p>\n

The Holy Cross men\u2019s head coach was starting his sixth offseason at the Hart Center. Katie Lachapelle was launching her third year there, and replacing the retired Peter Van Buskirk as the women\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n

To fill Lachapelle\u2019s old position as associate head coach, her one-person poll yielded a clear frontrunner: Meredith Roth.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you even get her?\u201d Berard remembers asking.<\/p>\n

\"\"
ROTH<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was coming from someone who had worked down the hall from Roth for nine nonconsecutive years at Providence College. Since their last overlap, Roth had taken her first collegiate head coaching job in the Midwest. She was approaching her fifth season with St. Norbert.<\/p>\n

But Lachapelle, another former Friar, knew Roth well enough herself. In the former\u2019s formative coaching years and the latter\u2019s playing days, the two opposed each other eight times. They stood behind competing benches off and on for a decade and a half thereafter.<\/p>\n

Over that time, Lachapelle said in a Monday conference call featuring all three coaches, she was sold on Roth by \u201cJust watching how she always carried herself. Obviously the hockey part, but everything else about her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roth\u2019s addition would give HC three of the nine Division I hockey coaches with a Providence degree, but the colleges\u2019 common threads run deep beyond the rink<\/p>\n

Cooperation between New England Catholic schools means Holy Cross graduates are eligible for a PC-hosted two-year teaching program. Meanwhile, several other HC employees previously studied or worked at Providence. That includes first-year athletic director Marcus Blossom, who was hired six weeks after the dogged Lachapelle secured Roth on her staff.<\/p>\n

Roth answered a sell similar to the one that brought the other PC-educated puck professors to Worcester\u2019s \u201cHill.\u201d From academics to athletics to aesthetics to the doorway downtown, Holy Cross exudes resemblance to Providence. For the women\u2019s staffer who would be tasked with spearheading recruitment, it was easy to place herself in prospective players\u2019 skates this past spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour student-athletes are going to be in a good place,\u201d she said of the HC experience. \u201cThey\u2019ll have a formative challenge in a smaller environment\u2026you want them to be comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three know what constitutes comfort in a college experience, so much so that two repeatedly returned to their old haunts as professionals. For 24 out of 27 years between 1988 and 2015, at least one of Berard, Lachapelle, or Roth graced PC\u2019s campus. Besides a dozen seasons as student-athletes, they combined for 19 as assistant\/associate coaches.<\/p>\n

Berard, a former goaltender, graduated in 1992, and was back by 1994 as part of Paul Pooley\u2019s inaugural staff. After a surprise 1996 Men\u2019s Hockey East championship, he went to Lake Superior State for two years, then logged another 13 at Schneider Arena. He later served as PC\u2019s director of hockey operations in 2013-14 before the Crusaders summoned him.<\/p>\n

\"\"
David Berard enters his sixth season at Holy Cross in 2018-19 (photo: Holy Cross Athletics).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Monday\u2019s chat, the word evolution came from multiple mouths in multiple contexts. Among other topics, it applies to how Lachapelle and Roth alike saw Berard build his resume.<\/p>\n

Lachapelle\u2019s undergraduate days also coincided with the Providence Renaissance. Downcity developments such as the Providence Bruins, Rhode Island Convention Center, and WaterFire established their cultural moorings. She mildly laments graduating in May 1999, three months too soon to visit the Providence Place Mall.<\/p>\n

Roth came a year later as one of the first crucial recruits in Bob Deraney\u2019s 19-year tenure. Her tenacity on the blue line keyed PC to its last ECAC pennant in 2002, then the first two Women\u2019s Hockey East titles.<\/p>\n

Like Berard, Roth came back two years post-graduation for her first Division I coaching job, and first of multiple stints there. As coaches, Berard and Roth overlapped from 2006 to 2010, and again in 2013-14. The last of those seasons was Schneider\u2019s first after a comprehensive round of renovations.<\/p>\n

In between, Roth pursued her master\u2019s at Cortland and volunteered with the program at Cornell. That move had her crossing paths with Lachapelle\u2019s Boston University Terriers in back-to-back NCAA tournaments. In her second stint at Providence, the Friars fell to BU in two conference playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cKatie\u2019s had tremendous success at BU and everywhere she\u2019s been,\u201d said Roth, referencing a 20-year career at five schools. \u201cIt\u2019s way more fun to work together to build this type of program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Holy Cross women’s coach Katie Lachapelle gives instructions to her squad during the 2018-19 season (photo: Holy Cross Athletics).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Crusader women have commenced their second season in Division I, joining PC in Hockey East. Around town, Lachapelle senses a budding regeneration of Worcester\u2019s own, highlighting the city\u2019s growing culinary scene. Worcester will also gain a high-end minor-league sports entity in 2021, ironically pilfering the Pawtucket Red Sox from Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

Like PC, HC grants its residents the power to indulge in or ignore the locale\u2019s louder establishments,<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get around anywhere on campus in 10 minutes,\u201d said Berard, \u201cand you just need to walk.\u201d Depending on where you walk, distinctive features of the city\u2019s skyline come into view.<\/p>\n

With populations each hovering around 180,000, Providence and Worcester wage a perpetual footrace for New England\u2019s second-largest city. But their compact Catholic campuses with undergraduate enrollments below 4,000 are conducive to community bonding and more meaningful exploration beyond one\u2019s niche.<\/p>\n

And then there is the precedent the three former Friars want their Crusaders to emulate in the arena. PC hockey is a strong second to basketball on the school\u2019s sports hierarchy, and in the 1950s and \u201960s, former Holy Cross hoopster Joe Mullaney coached the Friars to the national name recognition they have sustained since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Providence grad, but I bleed purple now,\u201d said Berard, affirming his desire to reverse the school\u2019s roles in another winter venue.<\/p>\n

As he seeks HC\u2019s first NCAA tournament bid since 2006, Berard cites Nate Leaman\u2019s little-school-that-could storybook at Schneider as influence. Lachapelle and Roth have their roots and their live-in neighbor alike to ape.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the season goes on here, we\u2019ll be picking each other\u2019s brain a little bit more,\u201d Lachapelle pledged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Berard did not mean to be Davey Downer. He was just being realistic to one person he knew well about someone else he knew well (photo: Holy Cross Athletics).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":108739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[812,819],"coauthors":[901],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nProvidential connections visible across Holy Cross coaching staffs - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Berard did not mean to be Davey Downer. 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