Former UVM Star St. Louis Named Montreal Head Coach

Former NHL star forward Martin St. Louis (Vermont) has been named the new interim coach of the Montreal Canadiens. He succeeds former UVM teammate Dominique Ducharme, who guided the Canadiens to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final but could only coax the Habs to eight wins in the 2021-22 campaign to date.

St. Louis, 46, played 16 NHL seasons with Calgary, Tampa Bay and the New York Rangers before retiring following the 2014-15 campaign. He tallied 391 goals and 642 assists for 1,033 points in 1,134 career regular-season NHL outings, and added 42-48—90 points in 107 Stanley Cup Playoff contests. He was also a member of Tampa Bay's first Stanley Cup championship team in 2005, a five time NHL All-Star selection, and won an Olympic gold medal with Canada in 2014.

A native of Laval, Quebec, St. Louis played at UVM from 1993 to 1997, recording 90-175--265 points in 138 games overall while also leading the Catamounts to the 1996 NCAA Frozen Four in Cincinnati. He was also a three-team First Team All-America selection, and a three-time finalist for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the nation's best player.

His previous coaching experience includes both head and assistant positions with the Mid-Fairfield (Conn.) Jr. Rangers organization. Professionally, he also served as a special teams consultant with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2018-19.

Colton, Ducharme Represent UVM in NHL

The University of Vermont was well-repped in the NHL earlier this week.

First, former Catamounts forward Ross Colton scored his first career NHL goal in the Tampa Bay Lightning's 3-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday. The goal also stood up as the game-winner for the New Jersey native, who skated at UVM from 2016 to 2018 and put up 28 goals and 50 points in two seasons in Hockey East. Colton, 24, was drafted 118th overall by Tampa Bay in 2016 following his second junior campaign with Cedar Rapids (USHL), and has spent the last two years skating with the Lightning's top minor-league affiliate in Syracuse (AHL).

Also on Wednesday, former UVM forward Dominque Ducharme was elevated from assistant to head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. Ducharme, who previously served as head coach with both Halifax and Drummondville in the QMJHL, played at Vermont from 1991 to 1995 when the Catamounts were still a member of the ECAC. In 129 career outings, the Quebec native tallied 54 goals and 148 points in NCAA play. He went to play professionally in both the ECHL and AHL, and also in France before entering the coaching ranks in 2002-03 as an assistant with the University of Québec-Trois-Rivières.

U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame to Add Three Former Collegians

Former collegiate standouts Brian Gionta (Boston College), Tim Thomas (Vermont) and Krissy Wendell (Minnesota) will all be inducted to the U.S Hockey Hall of Fame later this year.

Gionta, 40, who is still BC's all-time leading goal scorer with 123 goals and nine hat tricks from 1997 to 2001, led the Eagles to four consecutive NCAA Frozen Fours, and also captained BC to the national title his senior season. He played 16 years in the NHL with New Jersey, Montreal, Buffalo and Boston, and won a Stanley Cup with New Jersey in 2003 before setting a still-standing Devils’ single-season record by scoring 48 goals during the 2005-06 campaign. The Rochester, N.Y. native tallied 291 goals and 304 assists for 595 points in 1,026 career NHL regular-season games, and also skated for Team USA in two Olympic Winter Games (2006, 2018), while captaining the American squad in his second Olympic go-around.

Thomas won the 2011 Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the NHL playoffs that spring as he backstopped Boston to its first Stanley Cup in four decades, and also received the Vezina Trophy that season as the league’s top goaltender. A native of Flint, Mich., he compiled a 214-145-19 record to go with a 2.52 goals-against average, a .920 save percentage, and 31 shutouts in 426 career NHL regular-season appearances with Boston, Florida and Dallas. A two-time All-America netminder at Vermont, Thomas, 45, helped the Catamounts to the 1996 NCAA Frozen Four as a junior while recording 81 career victories over four years at UVM. He also gained a bronze medal at the 1996 World Championships and a silver medal at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games with the United States.

Wendell, 37, played three seasons at Minnesota, where she posted 106-131—237 points in 101 career contests with the Golden Gophers. She tallied 104 points in her third and final NCAA campaign, and also helped Minnesota to the 2003-04 national title. She earned five silver medals and one gold medal at the Women’s World Championships, and also claimed silver and bronze medals, respectively, with the U.S. in two Olympic Winter Games (2002, 2006).

Vermont Eliminates BC in Three Games

Nearly 25 years later, the Maroon and Gold was again done in by a green and gold opponent near St. Patrick's Day. 

The ninth-ranked Boston College men's hockey team will have to wait a week to discover its NCAA Tournament fate after falling, 1-0, to visiting No. 17 Vermont on Sunday in Game 3 of their best-of-three Hockey East quarterfinal series at Kelley Rink.

BC won, 4-2, on Friday before UVM (22-14-4 overall) evened up the series on Saturday with a 3-1 victory. BC fell to 21-13-3 on the season.

Alexx Pivitera scored the game's only goal less than three minutes into the third period of Game 3 to offset a 22-save performance by BC sophomore netminder Thatcher Demko.

Vermont junior goaltender Brody Hoffman made 36 saves for the Catamounts on Sunday, one day after stopping 39 shots by the Eagles. He played clean-up on Friday night, stopping all 12 shots he faced in his first action in nearly a month, and for the weekend recorded 87 saves on 88 shots to boost UVM to the Hockey East semifinals at TD Garden in Boston.

The Catamounts will now face UMass Lowell on Friday at 5 p.m. The winner of that contest will meet the victor of the Boston University-New Hampshire tilt on Saturday evening for the Hockey East crown and the conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament berth.

On March 15-16, 1991, BC dropped a two-game set to visiting Alaska Anchorage in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. (Like UVM, UAA’s colors are green and gold.) BC would not return to the national picture for seven years after that series, while the 3-2 and 3-1 wins remain the only NCAA Tournament triumphs by the Seawolves in their 35-year history.

The 2015 NCAA Tournament Selection Show will be televised at noon on Sunday on ESPNU. BC, which dropped to 11th place in the latest national polls, is ranked ninth in the current Pairwise Rankings, which mimics the NCAA Tournament selection process. That almost assures that the Eagles will receive one of the 16 NCAA Tournament bids for the 13th consecutive season, the longest current streak in Hockey East. 

UVM sits 19th in the current Pairwise, and the Catamounts will likely to have to win the Hockey East championship this weekend to advance to the national tournament.