Former Ducks coach Carvel drives UMass to NCAA championship
For hockey schools like Boston College, Denver and North Dakota, a trip to the Frozen Four is assumed.
Massachusetts couldn’t dream such dreams. It was just frozen.
From 1979 to 1993 there was no team at UMass. Not until 2007 did it make the NCAA tournament. It didn’t win Hockey East, its conference, until 2019.
But the school that gave us Julius Erving, Gary DiSarcina and Jonathan Quick got to the NCAA championship game Saturday night and seemed right at home.
That’s not the same as “comfortable,” not with coach Greg Carvel screaming at game’s end to get in the right spots and do the right things, despite a scoreboard in Pittsburgh that indicated UMass was beating St. Cloud State, 5-0, for its
first title.
“I hate to see people get comfortable,” Carvel said the other day, as the unforeseen victory had finally sunk into the pores of everyone in Amherst. “It’s the worst thing you can do.”
Folks in Anaheim were amused by the sight of Carvel sprinting across the ice and skidding his way into his team’s huddle after the Minutemen won the Bridgeport (Conn.) Regional the weekend before last. They weren’t surprised that a trophy awaited him.
Carvel was a popular, versatile face in the Ducks’ cast from 1999 through 2003. He was Mike Babcock’s assistant coach on the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. He was also the scouting coordinator and video man.
In 2004 he followed general manager Bryan Murray to Ottawa and was an assistant coach until 2011, when he became the head coach at St. Lawrence, his alma mater.
“Anaheim was where I got my master’s,” Carvel said. “Ottawa was where I got my PhD.
“Pierre Gauthier was the one who hired me and he was great to work with. Bryan was like a second father. He was all about the relationships, strong stuff that lasts a lifetime.”
Murray, who drafted Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry when he ran the Ducks, passed away in 2017.
“Lorne Henning and Paul MacLean were there, too,” Carvel said. “I just remember how awesome Orange County was. I also remember my wife (Daina) not quite believing I made her move from there to Ottawa.”
Carvel coached St. Lawrence to a loss to Yale, the eventual Frozen Four champ, in the regionals. He told coach Scott Allain, “I want our team to be like yours.”
He felt the same way when the Minutemen lost to MinnesotaDuluth in the 2019 NCAA final.
“It takes three years to be a big, heavy team, a stifling defensive team, to be mature enough,” Carvel said. “But when you’re up 5-0 with a minute to go, you’re not going to take your foot off the gas when you haven’t done that all year.”
Actually, UMass went from a puddle to a snowpiercer in only four years. Carvel’s first team, in 2016-17, lost its last 17 games and finished 5-29-2. This team was 20-5-4 and did not lose after Jan. 17.
Carvel recruited Cale Makar, UMass’ first winner of the Hobey Baker Award, the hockey Heisman.
Makar then won the NHL’s Calder Trophy last year with Colorado.
Makar is a speedy artist, but the Minutemen usually win the muscular way, with an insistence of winning loose pucks. In the Frozen Four, they killed 15 of 15 penalties and outscored their opponents 2-0 in short-handed situations.
You can’t think about college coaches without a smile and maybe a tear for “Badger Bob” Johnson. He went from Wisconsin to the Calgary Flames, where he got to a Stanley Cup Final, then won the 1991 Stanley Cup with the Penguins. The ’92 Penguins repeated after Johnson died of a brain aneurysm.
Recently, Dallas hired Jim Montgomery from Denver and the Rangers took David Quinn from Boston University.
Carvel, 51, has not thrown his helmet into that ring.
“The NHL is such an individual thing,” he said. “Selfish issues come in. People are unhappy because of contracts.
The instability is hard to live through. At the college level, athletic directors recognize what you’re doing. You don’t necessarily have to win. Your players aren’t getting traded or getting sent down.
“It used to be that the chess match between coaches was gratifying. Now it’s pushing these young men to levels they didn’t realize they could reach.”
What’s next? Carvel said he was sleeping well since the victory, which is a feeling he distrusts. Restlessness suits him.
“I just hope we get the guys back on campus this summer,” Carvel said. “And I’ll have a pretty good idea who’s stayed in shape. For those who haven’t, it will get uncomfortable pretty quick.”