Blaise MacDonald is a new assistant hockey coach at UMass.
AMHERST – With the departure of assistant coach Red Gendron to Yale University, former UMass-Lowell head coach Blaise MacDonald will become his replacement at the University of Massachusetts.
MacDonald spent the last 10 years as the head coach at UMass-Lowell, stepping down in March. During that span, the River Hawks enjoyed three 20-win seasons, and another of 19. In 2009, he took Lowell to the Hockey East championship game, falling 1-0 to Boston University. He previously served as the head coach at Niagara University, where he led his team to a 30-8-4 mark during the 1999-2000 season, its second season in Division I.
For Gendron, an assistant coach the past six years at UMass, it is a move up since he will be the associate head coach under Keith Allain.
"There were three reasons for the move," Gendron said. "First, Yale has a great hockey program, as everyone knows. Second, the head coach is a long-time friend who is a terrific coach. We worked with four U.S. teams together. And third, the opportunity to be the associate head coach."
Gendron, who was an assistant coach at Maine from 1990-93, including the NCAA championship season of '93, emphasized that his stay at UMass was extremely positive.
"I had a fabulous experience at UMass," Gendron said. "Everyone was great – the players, the alumni, the coaching staff, the off-ice staff. I'm not leaving because there's anything wrong; it's just a cool opportunity."
The addition of MacDonald gives the Minutemen three coaches with collegiate head-coaching experience. Len Quesnelle, the other assistant coach, formerly was the head coach at Princeton.
Ironically, UMass head coach Don "Toot" Cahoon was responsible for bringing MacDonald in as an assistant coach at Boston University during the 1990-91 season when Cahoon was an assistant there.
"(BU head coach Jack Parker) was looking at a couple of guys to bring in," Cahoon said.
The Terriers had lost two assistants. MacDonald remembers the situation well.
"Toot's been my guardian angel," MacDonald said.
They were there together one year, collaborating on a tremendous recruiting class that would go on to win a national championship a few years later. Cahoon then took over as the head coach at Princeton while MacDonald stayed on at BU through the 1995-96 campaign before leaving for Niagara.
In another ironic twist, MacDonald was on a short list with Dick Umile and Cahoon when the UMass coaching job became open following the firing of Joe Mallen after the 1999-2000 season. He flew in for an interview with the search committee. Additionally, when MacDonald was an assistant at Princeton in 1986-87, he coached Quesnelle, who was a star defenseman for the Tigers.
"It's so great that we can all be back together," MacDonald said. With 15 years of head-coaching experience, MacDonald doesn't see a problem not having the final say.
"The way the game has changed, everyone's a coach," MacDonald said. "It's not like 20 years ago when it was more of a hierarchy.
"Being an assistant, you can detach a bit, knowing the process of the emotions of being a head coach, and that way I can be of help to Toot."