Mike Gilligan is a retired American

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

coach. He was the head coach at

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

from 1983 through 2003 and later became an assistant with the UVM women's team for seven more seasons before retiring in 2014.

Career

Playing

Mike Gilligan started as a

defenseman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the latter a reference to ...

for Salem State for three seasons, serving as captain and earning All-American honors in the final two before moving onto a brief minor league career in the early 1970s.

Coaching

Gilligan returned to Salem State in 1975 to serve as

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

for his alma mater. Playing in

ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I college ice hockey, ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United ...

's now defunct Division II league, Salem State became a powerhouse under Gilligan, winning at least 20 games in each of his six seasons behind the bench. Their best finish came in 1979 when they finished 4th in the

NCAA Division II Men's Ice Hockey Championship The NCAA Division II Men's Ice Hockey Tournament was an annual tournament to determine the top men's ice hockey team in NCAA Division II from 1978 until 1984 and then again from 1993 until 1999. The Division II Championship was suspended followi ...

. After the 1980-81 campaign Gilligan accepted an offer to serve as Tim Taylor's assistant at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

. Two years later Taylor took a hiatus from the University to serve as an assistant for

Team USA The United States national team or Team USA may refer to any of a number of sports team representing the United States in international competitions. Olympic teams Additionally, these teams may compete in other international competitions such as ...

at the

1984 Winter Olympics The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian and Slovene: ''XIV. Zimske olimpijske igre''; Cyrillic: XIV Зимске олимпијске игре; mk, XIV Зимски олимписки игр ...

, leaving the Bulldogs in the hands of Gilligan for the 1983–84 season. Gilligan acquitted himself by getting Yale to a 12-13-1 record and after the conclusion of the season was chosen to replace Jim Cross at

Gilligan's first season with the Catamounts was a disappointing, finishing with an 8-21-0 record, but by the end of his second season he had gotten them back on track, winning 17 games. over the next 12 seasons Vermont would post winning records 10 times and made their first NCAA tournament berth in

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

. Gillian's best season came in 1995–96 when he won Vermont's it's only Regular Season Championship with a 27-win season and saw the Catamounts make the

Frozen Four The annual NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament is a college ice hockey tournament held in the United States by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to determine the top men's team in Division I. Like other Division I cham ...

for the first time, finishing 3rd in the 1996 tournament behind the strong play of future NHLers

Martin St. Louis Martin St. Louis (French spelling Martin St-Louis, ; born June 18, 1975) is a Canadian hockey coach and former professional ice hockey player. He is the current head coach of the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League (NHL). An undraf ...

and Tim Thomas. In the 1999–00 season both Gilligan and

were tarnished as a result of a hazing scandal that caused the University to cancel its season after only seventeen games and while it did not lead to Gilligan's dismissal he would never again field a winning team, resigning from his post after the 2002–03 season, one win shy of the school record. In addition to coaching hockey at the University of Vermont, Gilligan served as the head coach of the catamount golf team from 1993 through 2009.

Women's Teams

After leaving Vermont Gilligan became an assistant for the US Women's National Team for over two years, helping the team to win

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

at the

2005 IIHF Women's World Championship The 2005 IIHF World Women's Championships was held April 2–9, 2005, in Linköping, at Cloetta Center (now called the Saab Arena), and Norrköping, at Himmelstalundshallen, in Sweden. USA won their first gold medal at the World Championships, ...

and bronze at

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

the following year. Gilligan returned to Vermont in the fall of 2006 as an assistant for the women's team and remained in that position until his retirement in 2014.

Honors

Gilligan was inducted into the Salem State Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986 and was co- ECAC Hockey Coach of the Year with Bill Cleary two years later. After retiring as head coach Gilligan was named the 2005 recipient of the John MacInnes Award, the 2008 recipient of the Parker-York Award and was inducted into the

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Hockey hall of Fame in 2010

Head coaching record

* Vermont canceled the 1999-2000 season after only 17 games due to a hazing scandal.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilligan, Mike American ice hockey coaches Ice hockey coaches from Massachusetts Living people Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in ice hockey Vermont Catamounts men's ice hockey coaches Yale Bulldogs men's ice hockey coaches Year of birth missing (living people) American men's ice hockey defensemen Ice hockey players from Massachusetts Salem State Vikings men's ice hockey coaches