St. Lawrence University Athletics

The 2014-15 hockey season was both a highly successful and very long one for St. Lawrence University Oliver D. Appleton II Men’s Hockey Coach Greg Carvel.

Carvel took a 2014-15 Saint team which was picked to finish 11^th in the ECAC to a

second place regular season finish and its first ECAC semifinal appearance since 2010, earning the Tim Taylor Award as ECAC Coach of the Year. But, his year wasn’t over with the end of the collegiate season. The Saint coach was selected as an assistant coach for the 2015 U.S. Men’s National Team and spent the better part of May in the Czech Republic, joining Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Todd Richards and Buffalo Sabres head coach Dan Bylsma in leading the US squad to a bronze medal finish. And to finish off the year, he took his Saint team on its first-ever foreign tour, going 3-0 in games against teams from Switzerland and Italy on a 10-day excursion.

Carvel was named Saint head coach in the spring of 2012, the second St. Lawrence graduate and Canton native to be head hockey coach at the University. He took over for his former coach, Joe Marsh, who retired after a stellar 26-season career. Carvel joined the Saint staff as an assistant prior to the 2011-12 season, but served as co-coach with Associate Head Coach Mike Hurlbut for the 2011-12 season while Marsh was on medical leave. He is the first coach to join the Saint staff following a professional coaching career, having spent 15 seasons in the pro ranks.
 

He went 18-16-4 in his first season as head coach in 2012-13, the best first year record for a Saint head coach since 1955-56. He enjoyed his first 20-win season in 2014-15 and takes a 53-49-11 record into the 2015-16 campaign.

A former Saint captain and the first CoSIDA Academic All America in program history, Carvel is the first ECAC Coach to have won a major league award as a player and its Coach of the Year Award. He was the 1993 Outstanding Defensive Forward award winner. He joins Bernie McKinnon ’58 as an alumni coach, and Paul Patton, who coached from 1947-50, as the second coach in program history who was born and raised in Canton. An outstanding hockey and soccer player at Canton High School, Carvel was All-Northern in both sports prior to prepping at the Hotchkiss School where he had 35 goals and 75 points for the league championship team. He was first-team All New England, MVP at Hockey Night in Boston, Hockey Night Offensive Player of the Year and Hotchkiss MVP among his many awards in his prep year.

His hockey and academic success carried over to his collegiate career. He was a three-time winner of the Brian McFarlane Award for excellence in academics and hockey, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the national academic honorary, and won the Kevin Dougherty Memorial Scholarship and the Brian P. Doyle Memorial Trophy for leadership, character and athletic ability. He captained the Saint team as a senior, the second Canton native to wear the “C” for the Saints, and at the time of his graduation was ninth on the Saint career assist list with 85. He had 38 goals and 85 assists for 123 points in 131 collegiate games.

Carvel played one year of professional hockey in Sweden and then became assistant athletic director and assistant hockey coach at Canterbury Prep. He went on to earn a master’s degree in sports management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1996 and was an assistant coach at Amherst College while pursuing his degree.

He began his professional coaching career as director of hockey operations for the Lowell Lock Monsters of the American Hockey League. He joined the Anaheim Ducks as scouting coordinator in May of 1999, adding video coordinator to his duties in 2002 and earning a promotion to assistant coach in 2003. He joined the Ottawa Senators as an assistant coach in 2004 and was on the staff of that team until the summer of 2011. Both the Ducks and the Senators made it to the Stanley Cup finals during his time as an assistant coach with those teams.

Player Achievements Under Head Coach Carvel – 3 Seasons
 

• 3 Players Signed to NHL Free Agent Contracts
• 4 All-Americans
• 3 Hobey Baker Finalists
• 1 Hobey Hat Trick Finalist
• ECAC Player of the Year
• 2 ECAC Rookies of the Year
• #1 Ranked Power Play in the Country
• #1 Goal Scoring Forward in the Country
• #1 Scoring Defenseman in the Country
• 6 Players Chosen as 1^st or 2^nd Team All-Conference ECAC
• 6 Players invited to NHL Development Camps in 2015