Carvel of UMass Wins Spencer Penrose Award

Greg Carvel (Massachusetts) has been tabbed as the 2019 Spencer Penrose Award as the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey CCM/AHCA Coach of the Year. The runner-up was Eric Lang of American International College, who led the Yellowjackets to their first-ever Atlantic Hockey regular-season and playoff titles, and the school's first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.

This season Carvel has led the Minutemen to a 30-9-0 overall record (.769), a Hockey East regular-season championship, and a berth in the NCAA Frozen Four. UMass will face Denver in the
second national semifinal on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) in Buffalo, with the winner to advance to Saturday's national title game. The Minutemen won the NCAA Northeast Regional in Manchester, N.H. last month by defeating both Harvard and Notre Dame by 4-0 scores.

A 1993 graduate of St. Lawrence, Carvel served as head coach of his alma mater from 2012 to 2016 before moving on to UMass. The Minutemen finished 5-29-2 in his first campaign in Amherst
before improving to 17-20-2 a year ago. This year they posted the first 30-win season in school history, and earned their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2007. His career collegiate record now
stands at 124-121-19 (.506).

A native of Canton, N.Y. and a former captain at St. Lawrence, Carvel skated four years with his hometown Saints, totaling 37 goals and 134 points from 1989 to 1993. He then played one
year of professional hockey in Sweden before embarking upon a coaching and scouting career that included NHL stops in Anaheim and Ottawa before he went back to SLU as an assistant for a
year, prior to taking the top job with the Saints.