Saint Anselm College
Year Inducted: 2016
The hockey program at Saint Anselm College started unofficially in the spring of 1968 as a result of a chance meeting between Jim Dooley ‘70 and Frank Harrington. Hockey at Saint Anselm up to that point was largely a loose-knit club operation with few practices or games and without official uniforms or a coach.
Dooley was president of his class and in this role had responsibility for ordering class rings. The salesman for the ring company was Frank Harrington and, during conversations between the two, hockey came up.
As it turned out Dooley and Harrington had some mutual points of contact. Harrington grew up in Norwood, Mass. and played hockey and baseball at Boston College. Dooley was a high school hockey player at Catholic Memorial High School, his father was a Boston College grad and his girlfriend was a graduate of Norwood High School.
Harrington, upon learning that there was a club hockey team in place, offered to formally create a team and serve as the coach. In Harrington’s words, “Hockey will put Saint Anselm on the map” and was worth his time, money and effort.
Members of the 1969-70 Men’s Roster included: Kevin Palanski, Andy Manning, Mark Norwell, Curt O’Brien, Rick Morano, Bob Lond, Pat Grasso, Bob Donahue, Phil Pietras, Jim Cerbo, Al Parbisz, John Burns, Curly Burke, Jay Hayes, Bob McCarthy, Jim Dooley (Captain), Jack Hines, Ed Johnson, Mark Citroni, Frank Harrington (Head Coach).
Dooley met with a number of players on the club team and laid out Harrington’s vision. Interest in moving forward was unanimous among the players and the next step would be to set up a meeting with Harrington and Fr. Placidus Riley O.S.B., president of Saint Anselm College, to discuss Harrington’s proposal. The meeting went well from a macro sense but the mechanics proved a little problematic.
There was no money in the budget for a new athletic team, especially an expensive undertaking like ice hockey. There was also no rink on campus, no schedule, no equipment and no coach, among other issues. Harrington told Fr. Placidus that if the school could partially fund the team, he would personally take care of the rest.
Fr. Placidus agreed and hockey became the second major sport at Saint Anselm College. The team continued as a club for the 1968-1969 year and became a recognized varsity sport for the 1969-1970 season.
In its first season as a varsity sport, the team went 3-8 but quickly improved to 10-8 the following season. The 10 victories marked the first of six consecutive double-digit win seasons for the Hawks.
In 1971, Harrington hired Steve Cedorchuk, a former Boston College hockey player, to be an assistant coach and ultimately turned over the head coach position to him for the 1973-74 season.
Cedorchuk recruited the program’s first modern day All-American, Jim Morris. Morris and Mike Gavin each compiled over 200 points in their careers from 1971-75 and Gavin’s 117 assists remain a program record.
Cedorchuk also continued with Harrington’s plan of “you only get better by playing the best “ and scheduled teams such as Army, Princeton, Boston College, Boston University, Vermont and the University of New Hampshire. After two seasons as the head coach, Cedorchuk turned the program over to Alan Davis and Tom Birmingham for 10 seasons in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the 1980s, Saint Anselm made three appearances in the ECAC postseason (1983, 1985, 1987). The 1983 and 1985 ECAC tournament teams were led by NH Legends of Hockey Hall of Famer Hubie McDonough, the program’s all-time leading scorer with 124 goals and 210 points and a four-time All-American. In his junior season of 1984-85, McDonough set single-season program records in points (71) and goals (41) and won the College Division Hobey Baker Award, before going on to the NHL.
Ken Kuzyk took over the program as head coach in 1985-86 and guided the Hawks for 17 seasons until 2001-02, making him the program’s longest-tenured head coach. Kuzyk’s 1993-94 team went 15-6-4 overall and 11-3-3 in the ECAC and the team’s 15 wins were the second-most in program history. In 1999-2000, Kuzyk led the Hawks to the first of back-to-back ECAC Division II Championships.
After Kuzyk’s departure following the 2001-02 season, current head coach Ed Seney took the reins and his second team went 20-7-0 in 2003-04 to set a program record for wins in a season that still stands. Since 2003-04, the Hawks have won at least 10 games in 13-straight seasons under Seney, the program’s winningest coach with a career record of 190-150-34. Saint Anselm has won seven Northeast-10 titles since 2004-05, including four in a row from 2009-2013.
In addition to the success Saint Anselm has had as a team, several Hawks have received major individual honors during their time on the Hilltop. Most notably, Coleman Noonan was selected to the Division II/III All-America Second Team and joined McDonough as the only Saint Anselm player to win ECAC East Player of the Year, after tallying 23 goals and 24 assists to rank fourth in the country in goals in 2009-10. That same year, Noonan was honored with the Joe Concannon Award, which is given to the best American-born Division II/III hockey player in New England, becoming the first Division II player to earn the award since its inception in 2001.
In 2012-13, senior Tucker Mullin was selected as the BNY Mellon Wealth Management Hockey Humanitarian Award winner at the NCAA Frozen Four Championships in Pittsburgh, Pa. The award is given annually to college hockey’s finest citizen and seeks to recognize college hockey players at all levels who give back to their communities in the true humanitarian spirit. Mullin co-founded the Thomas E. Smith Fight to Cure Paralysis foundation, was a student ambassador for Team IMPACT and played a big role in the team adopting nine-year old Benjamin Roy, who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia pre-B cell in 2007 at the age of four.
In total, Saint Anselm, has had 5 different players receive All-American honors. Jim Morris (1974-75), Steve Murphy (1982-83), Matt DelGuidice (1986-87) and Coleman Noonan (2009-10) while Hubie McDonough received the honor four times (1982-86).
In 2004-05, the women’s program joined the men’s as a varsity sport. The women have compiled an impressive record of 241-66-13 (.773) over 12 seasons and have won six conference championships.
The Hawks won their first-ever game against Salve Regina by a 5-0 score on November 5, 2004. After a loss the next day, Saint Anselm rattled off 12-straight wins and eventually claimed the ECAC Open Championship with wins over Saint Michael’s and Holy Cross to finish its first season 21-3-1 overall.
After the highly-successful opening season under David Flint, the Hawks posted three more 20-win seasons from 2005-06 to 2007-08. Saint Anselm won ECAC East regular-season and ECAC Open championships in both 2006-07 and 2007-08, while posting a combined record of 47-5-1 over the two seasons. In four years as head coach, Flint led the Hawks to an 88-15-2 record and a winning percentage of .848, before departing for Northeastern.
NH Legends of Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Kathleen Twomey spearheaded the Hawks in Flint’s final three seasons. After scoring 24 goals and recording 33 points as a freshman in 27 games, Twomey tallied 42 points on 25 goals and 17 assists as a sophomore to lead the Hawks to the ECAC Open title. To date, Twomey is one of just five Hawks to reach the 100-point mark and sits third all-time with 124 points, while her 75 career goals still stand as a school record.
Following Flint’s departure, current head coach Kerstin Matthews became the program’s second head coach in August of 2008 and has guided Saint Anselm to a record of 153-51-11 (.737), while winning at least 15 games in all eight of her seasons.
After her first two teams went a combined 31-20-3, Matthews’ Hawks posted identical 20-6-1 records in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The 2010-11 team was led by Rosemarie Giarrusso’s school-record 43 points, a mark that was equaled two
years later by Courtney Winters. Giarrusso finished her career as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 140 points on 72 goals and 68 assists.
The 2011-12 team went on to win the first of three-straight ECAC Open titles for the program by routing Holy Cross 7-3 in the championship game. The Hawks and Crusaders met in the title game the next two seasons with Saint Anselm winning 4-3 in overtime in 2012-13 and 2-1 in 2013-14. Goaltender Lindsey Brown anchored the back-to-back-to-back championship teams, posting a 43-6-3 record and a 1.30 goals-against average with 17 shutouts from 2011-15.
After a one-year absence, Saint Anselm returned to the NEHC Open championship game this past season, falling to Holy Cross 4-3 in overtime. The Hawks finished the season 21-6 for their eighth 20-win season in the 11-year history of the program.
Like the men, the women’s program has had eight players recognized as All-Americans: Cindy Lebel (2005-08), Kelsey Johnson (2007-08), Courtney Winters (2012-13), Lindsey Brown (2014-15), Martha Findley (2015-16) and Alex Starzyk (2015-16).
Members of the 2004-05 original Women’s Roster included: Andrea Berlin, Rachel Cooke, Danielle Campbell (Co-Captain), Bevin Padgett, Melissa Jubinville, Julia Messing, Emily Lapworth (Co-Captain), Moraghan McKenna, Meriah Magri, Lindsay Snow, Krystle Murphy, Tiea Kurlowecz, Aislinn Doherty, Brittany Kretzman, Janine Darling, Cindy Lebel, Kelsey Hunt, Jenna Brown, Lauren Struzik, Ingrid Mintautas, Shellie Swan, Mollie Welch, Arden Lyons, Olivia Nuzzo, Kaira Ellis, David Flint (Head Coach), Trina Bourget (Assistant Coach), Megan Healey (Assistant Coach).
