The unprecedented success of the Yale hockey program since Keith Allain ‘80 took over in 2006 has elevated the Bulldogs to be recognized among the nation’s perennial powers. The numbers tell the story of Yale’s ascension in the Allain era.

 

THE NUMBERS

• 138-84-19 in seven seasons as Yale head coach
• 2013 National Championship
• 4 NCAA Tournament appearances (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 - 6 wins)
• 2 straight regional finals (2010, 2011)
• 2 ECAC Hockey Tournament Championships (2009, 2011)
• 2 ECAC Hockey Regular Season Titles (2009, 2010)
• 5 Ivy League Championships (3 straight)

 

MOST RECENTLY

Allain, Yale’s Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Hockey, took a team that was seeded 15th overall in the NCAA Tournament to a 2013 Frozen Four title after wins over three top seeds and a No. 2 seed. His Bulldogs won twice in OT (Minnesota, UMass Lowell), came from behind to beat North Dakota, and beat No. 1 Quinnipiac 4-0 at Pittsburgh for the national title.

Prior to that, he led the Blue to the best win percentage (.752) among Division I teams from 2008 to 2011 while coming within a game of two straight Frozen Four appearances.

The 2010-11 campaign had been the program’s best. Allain’s squad set the school record for wins (28-7-1), became the first Bulldog team to be voted No. 1 in the national polls (2 straight months), held the top PairWise Ranking for most of the year, won four straight conference playoff games to capture the ECAC Hockey Championship and beat Air Force in OT at the NCAA East Regional as the top seed in the 16-team field. In addition, the Blue ended the season with Division I’s top offense, defense and winning percentage.

Allain's 2009-10 team became Yale's first to take consecutive ECAC Hockey regular-season titles and have 20-win seasons. The Elis, who led the nation in scoring and finished with a No. 5 ranking in the polls, capped it off with the greatest win in school history, a 3-2 decision against North Dakota in the NCAA Northeast Regional at Worcester, Mass. Yale fell to eventual national champion Boston College the next day despite scoring seven times.

The 2008-09 Tim Taylor Award as ECAC Hockey’s Coach of the Year went to Allain after he led Yale to a 24-win season, Yale’s first ECAC Tournament Championship and a No. 5 national ranking. That season College Hockey News named him national coach of the year.

 

FOLLOWING LEGENDS

The current Yale head coach replaced his original mentor, Tim Taylor (1976-2006), whose first team included Allain. Taylor hired Allain to be his assistant from 1982 to 1985 before the prized pupil left the collegiate game to coach and scout in Sweden. He just completed his 13th overall year at Yale: four as a student, three as an assistant coach in the early 1980s and six as head coach. Only Taylor (337, 28 years) and Murray Murdoch (278, 27) have more wins at Yale than Allain, who owns a 17-12 post season record. 

 

YALE CONNECTION

Allain, a former NHL and Olympics assistant, was named the 11th head coach of the Yale men's program on April 15, 2006. Allain is the third Yale graduate to take the position and the first since Holcomb York '17 led the Bulldogs from 1930 to 1938 (Lawrence M. Noble '27 coached the Elis from 1928 to 1930).

 

FORMER GOALIE

The starting goalie on four Bulldog squads, Allain owns the fourth-most (31) wins for a Yale netminder and ranks fourth at the school with 2,337 career saves. He owns four of the top 10 Yale single-game save totals, including 55 stops in a 7-3 loss at Minnesota on Dec. 28, 1978. Allain played two years (1980-82) of professional hockey in Sweden before suffering a career-ending injury.

 

NHL

Allain, the goalie coach for the St. Louis Blues from 1998 to 2006, watched his netminders give up the fewest goals in the NHL in 1999-2000, claiming the William M. Jennings Trophy. That season the Blues captured the President's Trophy for the best regular-season record in the league.

His professional hockey coaching experience also includes serving as a scout for the NHL's Nashville Predators in 1997-98 and a four-year (1993-97) stint as an assistant coach for the Washington Capitals, where he helped Jim Carey win the 1996 Vezina Trophy.

 

TEAM USA

His extensive international coaching career includes serving as an assistant coach for the United States Olympic Team at the 1992 (Albertville) and 2006 (Torino) Games. He was an assistant for teams that played in the 1996 (won championship) and 2004 World Cup of Hockey. His involvement with USA Hockey includes guiding the U.S. as head coach at the 2001, 2002 and 2011 IIHF World Junior Championships. He also assisted with the 2005 and 2006 U.S. National Teams at the world championships.

 

FAMILY

Allain is a Worcester, Mass., native who has six brothers (five of them played college hockey) and a father who had played professionally in the old Eastern League. He and his wife, Mi, have three children: Josefine, Julia and Niklas.

 

ALLAIN TIMELINE

YEARS: Position/Team

1976-80: Attended Yale

1980-81: Professional player in Sweden

1982-85: Yale Assistant Coach

1985-86: Professional player/coach in Sweden

1986-89: Worked in the investment business

1989-91: Head Coach Jarfalla Hockey Club Sweden

1989-93: European Scout for Washington Capitals

1989-94: Assistant Coach Washington Capitals

1997-98:Professional Scout for Nashville Predators

1998-06: Assistant Coach St. Louis Blues

2006-07: Became Yale Head Coach

 

ALLAIN'S INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Years: Position, Team, Tournament

2011: Head Coach, U.S. Junior National, World Championships (Bronze)

2006: Assistant, U.S. National, World Championships

2006: Assistant, U.S. National, Olympic Games (Torino)

2005: Assistant, U.S. National, World Championships

2004: Goalie, U.S. National, World Cup

2002: Head, U.S. Junior National, World Championships (4-1-2)

2001: Head, U.S. Junior National, World Championships (5-2)

1996: Assistant, U.S. National, World Cup (1st)

1995: Head, U.S. National 17, Mexico Cup (2nd)

1994: Head, U.S. National 17, Pacific Cup (2nd)

1991-92: Assistant, U.S. National, Olympic Games (Albertville)

1990: Assistant, U.S. National 17, Summer Challenge

 

Articles on Allain

• Allain Named New Haven Register 2010 Sports Person of the Year
• New York Daily News Feature on Jan. 1, 2011
• New York Times Feature on Jan. 11, 2011

• NHL.com: Allain's arrival rejuvenates Yale
• New Haven Register: Allain Era Starts With Fond Memories
• Hartford Courant: Allain's Allegiance Brings Him Back as Yale Coach
• CSTV.com: True Blue, and a Dream Come True
• ESPN.com: Blues Assistant Allain Named Yale Hockey Coach

Keith Allain/USA Hockey Feature on Versus:

 

Dennis "Red" Gendron completed his second season at Yale with his second national championship as a coach. Helped Maine win the 1993 title as an assistant before serving as associate head coach of the 2013 Frozen Four Champions.

He joined the staff after six seasons as an assistant at the University of Massachusetts (Hockey East).

Gendron, a three-time hockey captain and 1979 graduate of New England College (Henniker, N.H.), spent the last 23 years coaching the sport. Eleven of those seasons were with the New Jersey Devils' organization as a scout and assistant coach, including Stanley Cup Championships in 1995, 2000 and 2003. Part of his duty with the Devils included serving as head coach of the AHL affiliate in Albany for the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons.

Gendron was in Orono, Maine, with the Black Bears from 1990 to 1993 before moving into pro hockey. 

He has also been an assistant coach during the 1993, 2001 and 2002 World Junior Championships for Team USA and also worked with several U.S. Select-16 and 17 teams. His resume also includes coaching hockey, baseball and football while teaching history at Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans, Vt.

Gendron, who is fluent in French, earned a BA in secondary education from New England College and a master's in educational administration from Maine in 1993. He also played baseball at NEC.

Gendron, a former Indiana Ice (USHL) head coach and GM (2004-05), and his wife, Janet, have two daughters, Katelyn and Allison.

Dan Muse has helped the Bulldogs engineer a 2013 national championship, ECAC Hockey regular season and tournament titles, and six NCAA Tournament wins. All of that in four seasons at Ingalls Rink.

Muse, an assistant at Sacred Heart University in 2008-09, came to Yale a few weeks prior to the 2009-10 season and made an immediate impact on a team trying to grab consecutive conference regular season championships and NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in the storied history of the program.  

Muse, a 2005 Stonehill College graduate, was also an assistant at Williams (Mass.) College from 2007-2008 and at Milton (Mass.) Academy from 2005-2007.

At Sacred Heart and Williams, he helped prepare and execute training and practice plans and worked primarily with forwards. He also helped develop scouting reports and break down video segments using Gamebreaker software while assisting with recruiting efforts. Muse has also coached at the Massachusetts Hockey Satellite Training Program and at USA Hockey's Select 14 Development Camps (2006-2008) and USA Select 16 Camp (2009, 2010) as well as several other youth camps and training programs throughout the Bay State.

Muse, who earned a B.A. in criminal justice at Stonehill, served as assistant captain for the Chieftains his senior year and received the team's most improved player award in 2003. He was named to multiple ECAC Northeast/ Northeast-10 All-Academic Hockey Teams and is a recipient of the Canton (Mass.) High School Hockey Distinguished Alumni Award (2007).

Muse and his wife, Maureen, reside in Clinton.

Josh Siembida, the former North Dakota (2001-03) and Quinnipiac (2004-06) goaltender, helped Jeff Malcolm become one of the most successful goalies in the history of Yale hockey during his first season as a volunteer coach at Yale. That work enabled Yale to win the 2013 Frozen Four and get Malcolm all-tournament honors.

The Timmins, Ontario, native played for the USHL Waterloo Blackhawks before going to college. He began his coaching career after graduating from Quinnipiac in 2006. Siembida, who resides in Hamden, is currently head coach of one of the Connecticut Yankees AAA teams, and has helped develop numerous prep, college and pro players.

Head Strength Coach for Men’s and Women’s Ice Hockey, Field Hockey, Baseball, Women’s Crew

Joe Maher was named Yale’s Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach in August of 2007 and was promoted to Associate Head Strength and Conditioning Coach in July 2011.  Before Yale, Maher was an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Richmond.  Prior to that, he was a graduate assistant in the Kinesiology Department at Louisiana State University-Shreveport, where we was also a coach in the USA Weightlifting Development Center. 

Maher graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2003 where he played ice hockey and received his B.S. in exercise physiology.  He also holds his Master of Education specializing in Strength and Conditioning from LSU-Shreveport. 

Maher is a member of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (C.S.C.S). He resides in Hamden with his wife, Renee, and two sons, Austin and Hunter.