Kelvin "Brush" Christiansen is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

retired

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

coach. He spent the entirety of his coaching career at Alaska-Anchorage after founding the program in 1979, retiring after 1995–96 season.

Career

Brush Christiansen became a major figure at Alaska-Anchorage when he helped found the varsity ice hockey program in 1979. He took over as

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

and led the Seawolves through several good years as a Division II program, but the school's remote location led to an inability to find a conference to play in. When D-II ice hockey collapsed after the 1983–84 season, rather than drop down to

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Third ...

as most programs did, Alaska-Anchorage became a Division I Independent for a season before they were finally able to join a conference. Along with three other

western US The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

schools, Alaska-Anchorage became a founding member of the Great West Hockey Conference in 1985. Despite their best efforts, however, two of the four schools had dropped their programs within three years and the conference was dissolved after the 1987–88 season. The experiment did, however, help bring Alaska-Anchorage some national attention and when they posted their first 20-win season as a D-I team two years later they were invited to participate in the 1990 NCAA Tournament. Christiansen's first foray in the tournament was predictably brief but the following season, finding his team invited once more, Brush's Seawolves shocked a great deal of onlookers by downing a strong

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

team in two games to advance into the quarterfinals. After another berth the next year Alaska-Anchorage was firmly established as a competitive D-I program and was invited to join the

WCHA The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college ice hockey conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated as a men ...

in 1993. Consistently facing much stiffer competition, the Seawolves' yearly records declined after joining the conference, but with their future much more secure Christiansen decided to step down in 1996 but he didn't entirely step away from the program, still keeping up with current events.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Christiansen, Brush Living people Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men's ice hockey coaches Canadian ice hockey coaches Ice hockey people from Ontario People from Fort Frances Year of birth missing (living people)