Longtime UMass coach Jack Canniff remembered as difference-maker (original) (raw)
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By FRAN SYPEK
When the Mullins Center opened at the University of Massachusetts, the first person I thought of was Jack Canniff.
The longtime hockey coach, who died at age 77 on Aug. 29 in Danvers, got to see something that was promised but never delivered a long time ago. Even though he had retired from coaching after the school dropped the program in 1979, Canniff couldn't have been more pleased to see Division I hockey come to UMass and a beautiful on-campus facility to call home.
This was all promised to Canniff during the 1970s. Back then plans were made to upgrade athletics at the state's university.
Articles were written about how UMass could become "Notre Dame East" with a new facility. But it would be more than 20 years until the Mullins Center became a reality.
Canniff coached UMass from 1967-79 and won what was then a school record 120 games. His Redmen (the school's nickname back then) won the ECAC Division II championship in 1972 and the program appeared to be on the rise.
But the mid-'70s brought recessions and budget cuts. A Division II team, UMass was not afraid to schedule the likes of Providence College, New Hampshire and Northeastern, but without the necessary resources, it became impossible to compete with those teams and by 1979, the program, whose origins go back more than 100 years when hockey was played on the campus pond, was dropped.
As the hockey beat reporter for the UMass Daily Collegian, I would spent a lot of time in the hockey office in Boyden Gym talking about the sport.
Canniff and his assistant coach, Russ Kidd, also taught a hockey gym class, which was staged at the team's off-campus home, Orr Rink at Amherst College. I played goal, and when Canniff saw my butterfly style, he disapproved.
"You'll be on the ice for two hours without a break, and you'll never make it unless you become a standup goalie," he said.
Canniff taught me how to use the crease to play angles and make skate saves, and I could not believe the difference.
When hockey returned to UMass in 1994 as a Division I program, the school established the "Jack Canniff Unsung Hero Award."
UMass could not have picked a better person to honor with that award.
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