Ice Hockey

Net goal

Paul Flanagan looks to lead Syracuse to 1st CHA title in 7th year with team

Hannah Wagner | Staff Photographer

Paul Flanagan looks on in a match at Tennity Ice Pavilion, which was all he had when he came to Syracuse seven years ago.

When Syracuse named Paul Flanagan the first head coach in SU women’s ice hockey history in 2008, all the program had was him and a rink.

There was no locker room and no skate sharpener. He had no staff members and no players, and he only had three months to find them.

“We didn’t have anything,” he said.

What he did have was five Frozen Four appearances, 230 wins and a .692 winning percentage from nine years as the head coach of the St. Lawrence women’s hockey team. He already had a reputation as one of college hockey’s best coaches, but couldn’t pass up the challenge to elevate a program that, at the time, didn’t exist.

Syracuse (1-1-4) isn’t at the level that Flanagan would prefer, having not won a College Hockey America conference title despite three championship game appearances. His recruiting expertise and established reputation of success have him gradually approaching that targeted peak though, increasingly validating a move that initially left many in shock.



It wasn’t until his seventh season at St. Lawrence that the Saints won their first outright conference title, and Flanagan will look to do the same in his seventh year at the helm of the Orange.

“For a lot of reasons, not one singular, this has been a great move,” Flanagan said. “I stand here today feeling comfortable that we’re moving in the right direction. I think we should be knocking on the door both with winning the CHA and getting into that Top 10.”

Growing up in Canton, New York, Flanagan was immersed in the culture of a college town focused on one sport. He played baseball, but St. Lawrence Saints hockey was like the town’s professional team, he said.

A young Flanagan could often be found at a rink, either watching the Saints or playing himself. He was around the team at an early age and, knowing players and coaches, the self-proclaimed “rink rat” said it was easy to nurture his passion.

“He was born and raised in Canton and St. Lawrence was all he knew,” said SU assistant coach Alison Domenico, who also played for Flanagan at St. Lawrence. “He’s such a small-town guy.”

He attended St. Lawrence, where he played for the Saints from 1976–80. In 1982, Flanagan found his first head coaching gig with the Canton High School boys’ team.

After six years as a high school coach and 12 as an assistant with the St. Lawrence men’s team, Flanagan took the head job with the women in 1999 before amassing 230 wins in nine years.

“He built this thing from the ground up,” current St. Lawrence women’s head coach Chris Wells said. “He’s a tireless recruiter and was able to get some great kids in here early on.”

Flanagan plucked prized prospects from key markets in Canada like Quebec and Toronto, Wells said, using St. Lawrence’s proximity to steal top players away from Ivy League schools.

But in 2008, before Domenico’s senior season, Flanagan announced to the team that he’d taken the job at Syracuse, a decision that left Domenico in “pure shock.” But she said that she understood.

“To go from a successful program to just see ‘You’re just on your own two feet here, let’s see what you can do’ — it was very challenging but exciting at the same time,” Flanagan said. “It wasn’t like I felt I had to leave or I wanted to leave, it was just this opportunity presented itself and I was excited about it.”

A year before he was standing in the coaches’ box at the Frozen Four. Now he was standing on gravel trying to get players to come play for him.

He stood in the parking lot behind Tennity Ice Pavilion and pointed at space, showing recruits and parents where a locker room was going to be built.

Recruits knew there would be no immediate championships. Rather, they wanted to be part of a ground-up movement and play for a coach with established success and a frank attitude about why they should be part of Syracuse’s first recruiting class.

“There was no bullsh*tting with him,” said Taylor Metcalfe, a freshman defender on the first SU team. “Whatever he did or whatever he was planning on doing, even though you weren’t sure what it was yet, it was for the best and it was going to work out from all the experience he had.”

There were no expectations for the program, Metcalfe said. Some players had to cart their equipment back to their dorms because there wasn’t enough storage at Tennity.

Yet for some reason players, even ones like current Swiss National Team member Stefanie Marty, were attracted.

“The ‘starting from the bottom’ is a reason why I went to Syracuse,” Marty said in an email. “It was challenging and interesting to build up a team culture, that goes from building simple team rules to inventing team cheers and other traditions on bus trips, before games, pretty much anything you can imagine from serious to almost absurd.”

Gradually, the program evolved. After a 10-15-3 first season, Flanagan led the Orange to two straight CHA championship game appearances and a combined 32 wins the next two seasons, while winning the 2010 CHA Coach of the Year award.

After only 10 wins in 2011–12, Flanagan guided SU to a program-record 20 victories in 2012–13. Then came another 20 the next year.

What started off as trying to find a place for players to change into and out of their uniforms has become a mission to finish the job of becoming CHA champions.

But Domenico said there’s one question she repeatedly gets asked by recruits and their parents: “What’s Paul like away from the rink?”

“He’s a blue-collar guy who rarely gets outworked in anything that he does, whether it’s painting the house or recruiting players,” Wells said.

And now he wants something to show for the program he built from scratch.

“It’s seven years, we’re not a new program anymore,” Flanagan said. “I won’t be satisfied until I can sit down and say, ‘We’re really good.’ I think we’re close.”





Top Stories