Brown University announces Women's Ice Hockey Head Coaching Search

On March 15, Brown University announced their women's ice hockey head coach will not be back next year. They also announced they are doing a national search to fill the vacancy. Head coach Bob Kenneally is leaving after three years and a dismal 12-72-3 record. It’s been tough times at Brown, as the once dominant program has not had a winning season since 2005-2006, and their lone Frozen Four appearance dates to 2002.

In NCAA Division 1 women's college hockey, head coaching jobs don’t come up often: anywhere from 1 to 5 in each of the years since 2001, for the now 34 programs. Last year there were three programs that replaced their coach: After a multi month search, Penn State hired long time head coach Jeff Kampersal away from Princeton. Twelve days later Princeton announced the promotion their associate head coach Cara Morey to head coach. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) also replaced their women’s head coach last year, appointing Bryan Vines to a one year interim head coach role. Vines was appointed after a restricted three day search, and is a former men’s assistant hockey coach at RPI. The other 31 programs had no head coaching changes last year.

The above are typical sources of head coaches in women’s hockey – hiring an existing D1 women’s head coach, promotion from within the women’s program, and hiring across programs at the same school. Last year all the head coach placements went to people with lengthy hockey resumes. Vines’ appointment raised some eyebrows as he did not have experience coaching women’s hockey but his hockey and coaching resume is otherwise impressive, including time as a video coach for the Colorado Avalanche among other experiences.

The vacancy at Brown is intriguing because it invites the question of how good of a coach Brown will seek to hire. Exiting head coach Kenneally did not list any prior hockey coaching experience on his bio that was posted on the Brown website. He may have had relevant prior experience and not listed it, but that would be unusual. Most Division I head coaches have extensive coaching resumes, many of them with Hockey Canada or USA Hockey coaching experience. While I don’t know the circumstances of the hire, it just wasn't inspiring for fans of women's hockey, nor were the on ice results. Kenneally is a 1990 Brown graduate and former ice hockey player and had most recently been the Executive Associate Director of Athletics at Brown, prior to taking on the coaching job at Brown in 2015. 

But that era is now in the past. With the announcement that they are doing a national head coaching search, Brown can make a positive statement about their commitment to women’s hockey by doing an exhaustive search and hiring an experienced hockey coach, full of potential to restore the program to its once winning ways.

Aspiring head coaches or active head coaches looking for a change of scenery will now need to decide if this is a job they are interested in. In college sports, some places are harder than others to win at. Winning at an Ivy is tough because they don’t give athletic scholarships, so students may need to have financial resources if they do not qualify for financial aid or academic scholarships. Additionally, the admission requirements are going to be stricter than most schools. Both these factors limit the talent pool an Ivy league head coach can recruit from. On the flip side, players are attracted to getting an Ivy league education, and Meehan Auditorium is a quality venue to play at, two factors which increase the pool of recruits wanting to play for Brown. Brown is not the easiest program to recruit to, but it’s far from the worst. A good coach can win there, especially if he or she wins over the administration and gets the support needed to run a winning program.

To me, this is a desirable job opening, especially if the administration makes a case during the interview process that they will support the new head coach in his or her efforts to bring a winning culture and Ivy, ECAC and National Championships to the program.

In terms of potential coaches, well its anyone’s best guess. Here are some coaches that came to mind for me:

Rob Stauber: Most recently coached the US Women’s National Team to gold at the Olympics. I am not sure how contracts with USA Hockey work, but presumably he will be under consideration to coach the Olympics in four years’ time. If a school can hire a guy who is on track to coach future national teams, that would do wonders for recruiting and winning. It would be fascinating to watch Stauber try to turn a program around; we’d see what his coaching chops are really made of. At the same time we would get to see him coach in the same league as Laura Schuler (Canada’s Olympic coach) who returns to Dartmouth for her second year of head coaching another struggling Ivy.

Delaney Collins: Most recently coached the Canada U18 Women to a bronze medal at the Under 18 World Championships in January of 2018. Prior to that she was an assistant coach at the high school level for the Okanagan Hockey Academy for one season. Her coaching career began as an assistant coach at Mercyhurst college from 2011 through 2016, going to the Frozen Four twice in that span. Prior to that Collins was a longtime member of the Canadian Women’s National Team, winning 3 gold and 2 silver medals in world championships. I think Collins’ resume is as beefed up as it is going to get. If she wants a head coaching job at an NCAA or USports school, she has the resume to do it.

Jess Koizumi: Has one year of experience as the Associate Head Coach for the Vermont Catamounts. Prior to that Koizumi was at OSU for one year as Associate Head Coach. Prior to that she was an assistant coach at Yale for six years. Koizumi played for Team USA, winning a gold at the world championship in 2008, among other National Team experience. She played at UMD from 2003 – 2007. Jess is experienced in coaching NCAA hockey, has national team experience and Ivy League recruiting experience, all attributes that make her a strong candidate for this role.

Brian Idalski: Former UND head coach, with a lifetime D1 record of 169-156-39. Idalski did not coach this year that I am aware of. UND cut their women’s ice hockey program at the end of the 2017 season.

My guess is that Brown wants to get the hire right. They were once a dominant, winning program, and are a program that has been home to several Olympians. Former Head Coach Digit Murphy is an icon in women's hockey, currently coaching the Kunlun Red Stars in the CWHL. Brown holds the distinction of being the first college to ever have a women’s ice hockey team, with their first team lacing up their skates in 1964, something to be incredibly proud of. There is a pool of talented, experienced coaches out there, and here’s hoping Brown will find one.

Whether there will be other head coaching changes this year or whether this is the only one, we’ll just have to wait and see.