Gary Bishop
Year Inducted: 2016
Birthday: February 12, 1949
City/Town: Detroit MI
Gary Bishop, a former standout player at Lowell Tech who has enjoyed a tremendous career as a high school coach in New Hampshire, winning fi ve state championships at Bishop Guertin, is being inducted into the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey Hall of Fame as a coach.
As a player, Bishop skated for Lowell Tech (now UMass-Lowell) from 1967-71. He led the team in scoring three of his four years there, totaling 156 points in 62 games. He was twice named team MVP and was the captain his senior year in 1970-71.
He was inducted into the UMass-Lowell Athletic Hall of Fame in 1977. In 2009, the first year of its existence, he was inducted into the UMass-Lowell Hockey Hall of Honor.
He graduated from Lowell Tech in 1971 with a B.S. in business management and was inducted into the school’s Hockey Hall of Honor in 2009 along with his mentor, coach Bill Riley.
“Bishop was always hanging around the athletic department, making sure the school didn’t kill varsity hockey or make it a club sport again,” recalled Riley.
But it is as a coach where Bishop has made a greater impact.
He coached varsity hockey and junior varsity lacrosse at Lehigh (Pa.) University from 1971-73, He then moved back to Massachusetts and was hired at Austin Prep in Reading, Mass. where he developed a varsity program that would become one of the best in the Merrimack Valley Conference. From 1973-78, he compiled a record of 79-23-7, reaching the Division 2 final in 1975.
Bishop left Austin Prep in 1978 to become a full-time assistant to Riley at Lowell. During his time there, the team won the Division 2 championship three times, in 1979, ’81 and ’82.
But it was in 1991, when he was hired at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, that Bishop found the job that remains his today. Under his leadership, the Cardinals have won the Division 1 state championship five times, including back-to-back championships twice — in 2000 and ’01, and again in ’07 and ’08. The team’s most recent title came in 2015, a season where he was honored as Division 1 Coach of the Year.
At BG, he has compiled a career record of 342-130-13. Only two New Hampshire men have coached their teams to more state championships — Barney LaRoche (12 at Notre Dame) and current Concord coach Duncan Walsh (6).
Bishop was also a teacher and administrator at Billerica Memorial (Mass.) High School until retiring in June 2009. In 1997, he was voted into the school’s Hall of Fame.
