TDR Interview: Coach Bob Gaudet
By Thomas Monahan | Friday, February 10, 2006
Men’s hockey coach Bob Gaudet ’81 is no stranger to Dartmouth hockey. While an undergraduate, he played as goalie for four years, helping the team capture the 1979 and 1980 Ivy League titles and make appearances in the NCAA Frozen Four both seasons. As a senior, he was named the team’s co-captain and received the Philip D. McInnis Award for spirit, loyalty, and dedication to Dartmouth hockey. He holds a Dartmouth record for most saves, with 2,129 saves over 76 games for a 0.877 save percentage. Following five years as an assistant coach for Dartmouth, Gaudet was given the head-coaching job at Brown in 1988. After transforming the Bears from annual loser to one of the top programs in the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC), Gaudet assumed the reins at Dartmouth during the 1997-1998 season. Since then, he has made Dartmouth a top contender in the ECAC and this season the team remains poised to finish within reach of the conference championship. The Dartmouth Review sat down with Coach Gaudet in his office in Alumni Gym last week to discuss this year’s season, the success of former Dartmouth players, and prospects for the future.
The Dartmouth Review : You and the team recently celebrated the centennial of Dartmouth hockey. What did it mean to you as both a former Dartmouth player and current coach?
Bob Gaudet: Well it was awesome, really awesome. We had close to eighty alumni hockey players back on the ice, just to play in the [alumni] game and that was fabulous. They had so many teammates that came back and friends and people that I’ve known over the course of time. So that was really fun, that was last Saturday then we had the introductions on the ice with some of the icons of Dartmouth hockey. To have a guy like Jack Reilly ’44 on the ice in front of a packed house waving with his hands up to the crowd and everybody standing, the students’ section and the townspeople, it was fabulous. And then of course having the All-Americans and Olympians and Frozen Four guys on the ice was really fun. We had receptions after the games, our varsity games, and then we had a banquet on Sunday that was just absolutely incredible.
TDR: But your participation in the weekend went beyond just coaching—you put on the pads for the alumni game to give your team a 9-7 win. How did it feel to be back in net?
BG: Oh.... I was so bad. But you know, I was goaded into it by I guess myself and Jim Jankowski, who was in my class and is a good friend of mine. We were the goalies for four years during the 1977-1981 seasons. So we both played, and it was fun. You know it’s definitely not like riding a bike, and you do forget some things. But it was fun to be out there— more so I think than the playing was just being in the locker room with the guys and just reminiscing. I sound like some old fossil but that was really neat to kind of laugh and talk about things and talk about families, it was really fun. The locker room stuff was great, and it was interesting on the ice. I felt like I was wearing somebody else’s legs, never mind hockey pads, but it was cool.
TDR: The team had a sluggish start this year with the four league losses to begin the season, many in tough away-game situations. What was the key to turning it around and how much of a catalyst was the 6-1 victory over #3 Cornell on November 12?
BG: Well, I’m really proud of the guys because when we started off we had some games where we weren’t ourselves and we didn’t play with quite the mentality or the presence that I wanted but it’s a process. What’s difficult is we don’t have much of a pre-season or training camp. We hit the ice officially October 15th and we have to play—when we start playing sometimes you’re great right out of the gate, and when you’re not great right out of the gate it becomes really difficult.
So, I think the character of the team is unbelievable because we played some pretty good hockey and lost some games but the guys didn’t get discouraged and we just kept on chipping away. And the Cornell victory was a good one because we were in a position where we needed to do something positive but we played an outstanding game against a great team. It showed the guys that if we stick with what we’re doing we’re going to be all right—now we are not going to win all our games but we’ve got the potential to be really really good and from that point we have just kept on chipping away. So we dug ourselves out of a hole in the league by going 8-1-1 in our next ten league games. In between we dropped some non-league games, but they have been good learning experiences for us along the way to make us better because our goal is to be playing our best down the stretch.
TDR: The Winter Carnival match-ups against Quinnipiac on Friday and Princeton on Saturday promise to be exciting must-win games—how important a factor is home ice here especially against two teams hungry for a win? How does the Dartmouth squad match up against them?
BG: We don’t get to play here on Winter Carnival that much, it’s just the quirks of the schedule. When I played here I was lucky because it was factored in. Believe it or not we played at eleven o’clock in the morning on Winter Carnival, Cornell was usually our opponent, and that was such a fun game. This will be fun to be home for Winter Carnival. The student body will be there and will be excited so it should be fun.
Quinnipiac and Princeton, are both teams we lost to early in the season during that early stretch of losses there and they are both really good teams. They will be tough here but it’s great to be playing at home. Thompson Arena is a great home ice advantage. And I am so appreciative of the student support that we get and obviously the community support that we get. I can’t say enough about last weekend [the 100 years of Dartmouth Hockey event], because I was just blown away when those people were on the ice and the ovations that they got—I thought it was great. The students really bring energy to the building and the band was there last weekend, so that was really special. And hopefully it will have that type of atmosphere this weekend. It’s a great place to play.
TDR: The next week you go from home ice against teams in the lower half of the conference to away games against the top of the pack: first Cornell, and then Colgate. What will be the keys to a victory over such strong teams on two consecutive nights on hostile ice?
BG: It will be interesting. You go to Cornell, especially for the younger guys on the team that haven’t experienced it, it’s a fun atmosphere. Some people look at it as being intimidating or difficult, but I think it is really a fun atmosphere. It’s the type of atmosphere you want at a college hockey game. It’s kind of like what we have here at Dartmouth—you’ve got a big crowd, and it’s a little bit of an older building so it seems like they’re right on top of you at Cornell. But it’s a fun place to play, it really is, and the energy will be there in the arena. I think that infuses the guys. Even though the fans are cheering for the other team, they are good fans and I think they appreciate good hockey. So, we’ll go there and we’ll play hard, playing a very good team and a very successful team historically in this league. And then playing at Colgate, which is a different environment and a different rink than Cornell, but with an incredibly successful team and a team that has been in first place for quite a stretch this season, so they’ll present a bunch of challenges. They’re tough teams to play back-to-back, but you have to gear up for that and you really have to play 60-minute games. If you let your guard down for a minute, that can be the difference in a hockey game. It’s no different in any other game but I think it is further magnified when you play on the road against teams like that.
TDR: You’re getting great contributions from your senior role players: Sean Offers, Captain Mike Ouellette, Eric Przepiorka, Garret Overlock, and Jarrett Sampson. How important is their leadership to this team and how does that factor into the teams performance on the ice?
BG: Their leadership is great and they are just super guys. They are guys that I can count on for anything, who I trust completely and they’ve earned that—from freshman year on these guys have been fabulous. You have a captain like Mike Ouellette who works so hard and represents us really well on and off the ice. He spoke at our reception for our alumni the other day and he did a great job, and I’ve heard him speak at the Dartmouth Club of the Upper Valley where he did an unbelievable job. He speaks form the heart and is a really honest guy. You go right down the list of the older guys on that team and they are fabulous. I think that they bring a great work ethic, energy, and a confidence level, but they are really down-to-earth humble guys. They’re not cocky or arrogant guys—they’re confident in their abilities and in their team’s ability—but they are very humble and I think the world of them. We are going to miss them a lot and what I want is for us down the stretch here for us to enjoy the team. After this year, you never get this group back so with the time they have left together I want them to go out with a real bang—I want them to be very successful, and they have been. This group of seniors probably will graduate as the most victorious four-year group of hockey players in the history of this school. But I want them to go out really on a big plus and we’ll see what happens because I think the world of them and hopefully we can get it done as a group.
TDR: Goalie Mike Devine ’08 is playing out of his head this season: as a former netminder, how have you helped him develop his skills and allow him to come into his own as a younger player?
BG: I’m really proud of Mike. He is such a really quiet guy, a very unassuming guy who doesn’t call a lot of attention to himself, but he is unbelievably competitive and really athletic. What I really like about him is what I saw last year at the UNH game at the Verizon Center in Manchester, the only appearance he made. So whether it was thirty minutes or whatever, he played in that game and I believe they had five goals at that point and he got beat between the legs on one of the first shots when he got into the net. And it wasn’t like he was petrified out there or anything, he was really upset actually that the puck got by him. So it wasn’t like he was hanging his head: “you know,jeez, the coach is putting me in this tough position and they just beat me.” He was mad that they had scored on him. And from there on in he let in just one more goal and he gets the win. So, his first college win is against UNH in front of 10,000 people in a pro building and it was just fabulous. You know we weren’t able to get him into action because there were two veteran goalies ahead of him. But this year, he battled and found a way and when he got his chance he really made good of it, so I am really proud of him. He has done a real nice job for us—he has been very solid, and he is not flashy.
If you talk to Mike he’ll tell you that his job “is to make the save that I should and to steal the odd one.” And that’s basically what he does and that is a great mentality, make those saves that you should and he has stolen some pucks that are the difference in games. If you watch the game, there are games where we have won, and maybe there is a game where we win 4 – 1 something like that or even 5 – 1 and people ask what does a goalie have to do with it. But there were plays—I can remember at RPI recently, where we won the game 4 – 1, that’s what it says in the final, but there were times in the first period of that game where they could have been up by three, but instead were tied at one at the end of the first period. How does that happen? Well, Mike is pretty good. He does his job and he really goes about it in a humble kind of quiet way. He reminds me a lot of Lee Stempniak. They’re from the same background, they played on the same team and they have kind of a similar mentality where you could never know. You could run into them at the rink or on the street and Mike Devine is just a regular guy but when he comes down onto the rink he’s a guy who wants to win. No question about it.
TDR: Dartmouth is really building a name for itself in the professional ranks as Lee Stempniak ’05 has started his career with the St. Louis Blues in spectacular fashion. Hugh Jessiman ’06 looks to head up to the New York Rangers soon, and Mike Ouellette and Tanner Glass show serious potential. What does this mean for Dartmouth hockey and how proud are you of these guys for really taking their games to the next level?
BG: It’s fabulous. I spoke to Lee two nights ago and he has left college hockey, he’s graduated and he was a two-time all-American, academic all-American, all-Ivy, all-everything, male athlete of the year last year, and he is just the most humble guy. He called, because opening night in St. Louis he was in the lineup and you could tell that he was nervous. Then he plays a bunch of games, goes down to Peoria, then he calls me the other night and he says, “Coach I’m up with the Blues but I think I’m just up because of the All-Star break and you know I’ll probably be back down.” Then I turn on the T.V., and the next night he is in the line up scoring the game-tying goal, followed by the game-winning goal in the shoot-out, and then they have an interview with him. In the interview, he just comes across as the most nice regular guy, just so honest, sincere, and humble—just happy to be there. And I think the world of him. He epitomizes to me what Dartmouth is about, and quite honestly, what college hockey is about. But I think he is a really fine representative of Dartmouth.
With regards to Hugh Jessiman, I’m really pleased with how he has come along, and he is really a good kid. As you know he left a year early and I wish we had him here this year because I would love to have had him graduate and get his degree before he went on, but those are personal decisions. He’s part of the family and he is a great guy. It’s nice to see him up with Hartford, he scored a big game-winning goal last week and seems to really be coming along well. He didn’t play much hockey last year [due to an ankle injury] and I think that really set him back, but now he’s getting back into the swing of things. It’s not like developing pro hockey is our main objective—it isn’t—but it’s a nice thing when you have guys that are academically very sound but also want to be great athletically and have the potential of playing professionally. You mentioned Tanner Glass, and David Jones is playing great hockey for us, Grant Lewis is a fabulous player, a second-round draft choice, and Nick Johnson another NHL draft pick, and then you go down the list of guys. J.T. Wyman is playing great for us, another draft pick. So I think these guys all have the potential to play professionally, but my hope is that they are going to have a Dartmouth degree so they won’t have to rely on playing hockey for a livelihood. But it’s nice, and it brings good exposure to our program, and I think it’s a positive because it is about excellence and that is what Dartmouth is about.
TDR: Your freshmen all seem to be stepping into their roles quite nicely participating in offensive production and having real physical presences on the ice. Who are the ones to watch in particular and how does the future of the team look?
BG: Well, I think these guys are doing just a super job for us. It’s funny how freshmen seem to mature during the second half of their freshman year, and I think we’re seeing that when the guys start to play almost like upperclassmen. In the last game, when Kevin Swallow had a couple of goals that freshman line played superbly. Bellows, Connor Shields, and John Gibson all did a super job for us on defense. There are guys like Brandon Harrington who is a really super player, hasn’t played as much, but he’s going to be a good player here. And Rob Pritchard has done a very nice job for us up front and been a very solid center, winning a lot of draws, really sound defensively and again a good offensive player. Dan Goulding, the goalie, and another defensemen Chris Johnson, you just haven’t seen much of them mainly because of the strength of the upperclassmen. I think it’s a great class, it really is. Brendan Whittet and Dave Peters, my two assistants, are to be credited because they really do all the recruiting and the evaluation of ability. So when I look at the future of our program, I see a really bright future. We didn’t come here to just be mediocre; we want to excel. We want to represent Dartmouth extremely well on the ice. Dartmouth is about excellence and that is where we want to go, to bring this program to the heights, as high as we can bring it. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but I think these young guys are going to put us in good shape for the future, and we have a really good class coming in next year too. So we’re very excited about it, and the support here has been excellent.
TDR: So now four points out of first place, how crucial are home ice wins this weekend?
BG: We continue to focus on playing hard each and every game. The league is so tight and every team is fighting for points. Both teams we play this weekend won both their games last weekend. So these should be great games, and we are excited to be playing at home during Winter Carnival. The student support that we receive is a huge help to our team. Saturday’s game time has been changed to 4:30PM to accommodate ESPN-U. I’m looking forward to showing a national TV audience the great environment at Thompson Arena.
TDR: What do you make of the shift in power at the top of the ECAC, as Cornell sweeps Colgate last weekend?
BG: Those were huge wins for Cornell last weekend. It will be a battle right down to the last game for the ECAC Championship.
TDR: Finally, Winter Carnival is coming up. As a player, then an assistant, and now head coach what does this mean to you? How does the tradition and the excitement surrounding Carnival transfer to the ice? Care to share any great memories or stories from your time as a student and player? And how does it feel to be coaching the team you played for, especially for big games in front of home crowds?
BG: Winter Carnival is always such a special time and when I played here we were always at home. I don’t know if that was by design by the school or by the hockey coach at the time, but it’s much more difficult to do now because our league schedule puts us different places and it’s just by quirks that we end up at home. I think it’s fabulous to be at home. It’s such a great environment and I remember playing early morning games (they tended to be earlier in the day) and you can imagine the student body showed up, and the place was just nuts. Invariably the sculpture in the middle of the Green when we played Cornell would have a red “C” right on the front of it, no matter how many people tried to keep an eye on it. So when daybreak came around on Saturday, someone fell asleep or something. But it became such a great event. Playing at home is always nice and playing Winter Carnival at home is a real treat for our guys. There’s so much energy here and people everywhere know about Winter Carnival at Dartmouth, so it’s really special for our men’s hockey team to be home this year. The Saturday game will be a 4:30 PM game because of national television with ESPN-U, so my hope is that we really can pack the place because it will be a great representation of Dartmouth in front of a big television audience and the boys certainly will play hard.
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