After turning his undergraduate alma mater into an annual conference contender, Greg Carvel will try to do the same with his grad school.
UMass sources confirmed an ESPN report that the St. Lawrence coach, who has his masters in sports management from UMass, will become the Minutemen’s fourth hockey coach since the program was reinstated in 1993. ESPN’s John Buccigross reported Carvel will receive a five-year deal. UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford is expectecd to announce the hire shortly.
Carvel amassed a 72-63-15 record in four seasons at his alma mater, including a 19-14-4 record in 2015-16.
Carvel, who spent seven seasons as an NHL assistant coach with Anaheim and Ottawa, has been the St. Lawrence head coach since 2011-12.
Carvel has local ties. While earning his master’s degree at UMass, he worked as an assistant at Amherst College in 1996. His wife Daina (formerly Gettier) is from Amherst.
The Saints were 27-41-8 in the two years before he arrived, but he’s built them into an annual contender in the ECAC. He was the league’s 2014-15 coach of the year. Bamford’s father Steve is a long time ECAC administrator, so the UMass AD almost certainly has a good feel for Carvel.
UMass will likely introduce Carvel, Wednesday at two events, a morning press conference in Amherst in the morning and one in Boston in the evening.
The announcement ends a week of furious speculation. Several people reported over the weekend that former Holy Cross coach and current Harvard assistant coach Paul Pearl had emerged as the likely candidate, but those rumors died down by Monday.
Carvel inherits a team that went 8-24-4 in 2015-16 under former coach John Micheletto.
Carvel could end up facing his former team in November, St. Lawrence is in the Friendship Four along with UMass in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
UMass still has an ongoing search to hire a women’s basketball coach.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage