Posted: 04/04/07

Leaving the rink
Lou DiMasi retires as head coach of St. Michael’s men’s hockey team after 25 years

Andrew Parise | contributing writer
aparise@smcvt.edu

Coach Lou DiMasi entered the locker room fuming; after yelling at the players, the destruction began.

Although DiMasi is resigning as the men's hockey coach after 25 years, he plans to keep his position as the assistant dean of students. (Andrew Parise, photo)

When frustrated, he was known for taking various items, such as a hockey stick, and smashing them into the trash can in the locker room, says '87 alumnus and former hockey player Matt Higgins. This time, however, DiMasi went for it with his bare hands and after lifting it over his head, he threw it against the wall.

This tactic was meant to fire up the players into playing better hockey during the next period, but the players couldn’t help but laugh as the barrel bounced off the wall, narrowly missing DiMasi’s head. That day he learned his lesson, DiMasi says.

Now, 25 years later, the first varsity head coach of the St. Michael’s College men’s ice hockey team, since the reinstitution of its status in 1982, has hung up the whistle and retired.

DiMasi may be stepping off the ice, but he will continue to be part of the St. Michael’s community by remaining assistant dean of students and director of resident life, according to a press release by Seth Cole on March 22, 2007.

Next year’s team will be led by the former assistant coach, Chris Davidson, as an interim before St. Michael’s begins a national search for a new coach, DiMasi says.

A career on the ice

Not only did DiMasi coach hockey for 25 years, he also grew up playing the sport, he says.

“I started playing down by the park as a kid and it was eighth grade when I started organized hockey,” he says.

He spent his high school years playing hockey at Christopher Columbus High School in the North End of Boston, Mass. where he eventually became captain. After, he played for one year at a prep school and enrolled at Norwich University. Once there, he would eventually be enshrined in their Athletic Hall of Fame, according to the press release.

After graduation, DiMasi says he began to play hockey at the professional level and was brought by the Islander’s system, to Muskegon, Mich. to sign with the Muskegon Mohawks.

Later he played in the United States Hockey League in Iowa and soon started playing in the International Hockey League, one level higher in American professional hockey, he says.

“In this time I only reached the middle level of play,” DiMasi says with a chuckle. “There was no NHL in my future.”

After getting married and starting to teach elementary school, he became the coach of two Vermont high schools, one of which he won a State Championship at. DiMasi says he wanted to try playing one more time, but came down with mononucleosis right before he was supposed to move.

“It was actually the best thing because it was like ‘hey, what’re you doing?’” he says.

Since then, DiMasi has been at St. Michael’s for 25 years.

According to the press release, his time as coach yielded many award-winning players and even some awards for himself, including the 2003 ECAC Division II Coach of the Year.

Throughout his years as a coach, DiMasi has been seen as a father figure to his players, including his son Andy, who played under him for four years. (Andrew Parise, photo)

His career record is 264-308-21 including 10 Easter College Athletic Conference (ECAC) playoff appearances and one NCAA Division II Championship against Southern New Hampshire State University, the only NCAA championship in the college's history, according to the press release.

The Purple Knights' soon-to-be head coach, Davidson, was on the winning champsionship team.

Swiftly shifting ice

DiMasi says that as a coach he has had to adapt to the many changes in hockey over the past 25 years.

DiMasi started his St. Michael’s coaching career by trying to learn as much as he could about the players before teaching them what he knew, but he realized that eventually this strategy would have to evolve he says.

“I soon realized that if you don’t demand more, you’re not going to get more,” DiMasi says, “and if you just accept where people are, that’s all you’re going to get.”

After that, he says, he became too demanding and had to pull back to find a happy medium. This included trying not to throw trash cans at locker room walls.

DiMasi isn’t the only one who’s noticed changes throughout his career. Assistant coach Davidson says over his seven years under DiMasi he has definitely noticed a serious growth.

“It’s always been his way or the highway,” DiMasi says, “but when I came around the game had changed and the kids have changed and he was able to adapt to that.”

The main changes Davidson says he noticed were in offense.

“We had to let the kids be more imaginative and give them the opportunity to be so, instead of being so structured that they turn into robots,” he says.

Davidson, who graduated from St. Michael’s in ’99, says that during the time he played and worked with him, DiMasi’s changes have always been positive.

The players have responded well to the change because it gives them a little more ownership of the team and makes them more involved in the play, Davidson says.

A father figure retires

He may have been quick to throw a trash can, but DiMasi was like a father to many over his years of coaching, on and off the ice, says first year Jon Silver.

“If you ever need anything he’s always there and it’s really comforting to have a role model like that coming into school,” he says. “It was always like family first.”

Having only played one year under DiMasi, Silver says he’s sad to see him go but not shocked by the announcement. He says he was told by some of the upper-classmen that for the last few years there had been rumblings throughout the team about his retirement.

Silver says the team is losing a great coach, but the team seems to be pleased because DiMasi is happy.

Former assistant coach Chris Davidson has been named as the interim head coach of the men's hockey team. (Andrew Parise, photo)

“We had a dinner at his house when he told us, but the atmosphere was good and we decided not to dwell on it,” Silver says.

DiMasi was a father figure to all his players, including his son, senior Andy DiMasi, who has been on the team for four years.

Andy says they keep a very professional relationship on the ice, but playing under his father has brought them closer together.

He also suspected DiMasi would retire and he admits that he and his family knew before everyone else and never let it leak. He says as long as his father is happy, he is too.

“Twenty-five years is a long time so I agree that it’s time to move on,” Andy says.

DiMasi’s friendship and guidance hasn't been limited to current players. He has kept in contact with many alumni like Matt Higgins, who was a freshman the same year DiMasi joined the program.

“Honestly, I learned more from him than any of my professors,” Higgins says.

Higgins is currently coaching youth hockey in Vermont and admits that he has had to ask DiMasi for pointers on more than one occasion.

DiMasi will step down as head coach, but he says stepping out of hockey doesn’t mean stepping out of St. Michael’s. If he has the opportunity to influence 1,900 people in one way or another, then that’s an amazing thing, he says.

“In that light it’s about making people feel great about themselves and that’s what coaching’s all about," he says. "So I’ve been able to coach on the ice and in the halls."