Motzko Moves on to Minnesota

A week after Don Lucia stepped down after 19 years at the helm, the University of Minnesota has a new men’s hockey head coach.

Long-time St. Cloud State University mentor Bob Motzko, a former Minnesota assistant, will be the next head coach of the Golden Gophers, according to multiple sources. 

Motzko, 57, coached at SCSU from 2005 to 2018, registering a 276-192-49 (.581) overall record. He led the Huskies to three regular-season titles, the 2015-16 NCHC championship, and eight NCAA Tournament berths. The Austin, Minn. native’s best campaign came in 2012-13, when he led SCSU to a 25-16-1 overall mark, the WCHA regular-season crown, and its first NCAA Division I Frozen
Four ever. SCSU senior forward Drew LeBlanc also won the Hobey Baker Memorial Award that year, as the nation’s top player.

A 1987 SCSU graduate and a two-year letterwinner with the Huskies, Motzko first served one year as an assistant coach at his alma mater before embarking upon a five-year stay as general manager and head coach of the USHL’s North Iowa Huskies. He spent the next six years as an NCAA Division I associate/assistant coach, five with Miami (Ohio) and one with Denver, before a two-year stay as general manager and head coach of the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede.

Motzko then worked as an assistant coach at Minnesota from 2001 to 2005, and helped the Golden Gophers to two NCAA national championships (2002, 2003) before he took the reins at SCSU.