The Carleton Ravens varsity women’s hockey team will have a new coach when the puck drops for the 2014-15 season, as Pierre Alain has been handed the reins of the program.
After visiting the campus, Alain said he was impressed with what Carleton offers its student athletes on and off the ice.
“This is a second home for the players,” said Alain. “They go to the classroom and they walk just a few metres and they’re in the dressing room.”
Jennifer Brenning, Carleton’s athletics director, appointed Alain as the new women’s hockey coach in late April.
She said his tremendous head coaching experience made him a good coaching candidate.
“He’s also a teacher, which brings a combination of good teaching skills,” she said.
Alain will take over head coaching duties from Shelley Coolidge.
Coolidge, the team’s coach since 2009, was let go after the Ravens lost 19 consecutive games to end last season with a 1-15-4 record in Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) regular season play.
Alain, a Montréal native, comes to Carleton with a resumé of both provincial and national success.
He helped lead the Canadian women’s under-18 and under-22 national teams to gold medals as the head coach in 2012 and 2013, respectively. He also won five championships over 13 years as the head coach of the Cégep de Saint-Jérome (CEGEP) women’s hockey program.
Brenning said the program will benefit from Alain’s recruiting connections.
“He knows all the CEGEP coaches in Québec and he’s certainly connected in Ontario,” she said.
Alain got his first taste of coaching at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) last season at Ryerson University, when the women’s hockey team hired him on an interim basis while coach Lisa Haley prepared for a role with the Canadian national women’s team for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The defensive-minded Alain said his first priority with Carleton will be to reduce the 90 goals scored against the Ravens last year—the most in the entire CIS.
In one year at Ryerson, Alain reduced the Rams’ goals against from 107 to 71.
“First, it will be to stabilize the defence,” Alain said. “Not just the defence and the goalie—the whole team as a unit.”
Jasmine Levesque, a fifth-year Ravens defender, said the team will benefit from a new approach.
“It’s exciting to hear new strategies and defensive responsibility,” she said. “We were being outshot almost every game in the past.”
Alain said his immediate focus is to recruit new players after the Ravens lost six players to graduation after the 2013-14 season.
He said the team hosted an open evaluation camp May 24 at the Carleton Ice House with potential recruits from across Ontario and Québec.
Returning players also took part in the camp and no positions are guaranteed on the team, according to Alain.
“They’re going to have to show me and earn their ice time,” he said. “Some of the [returning] players might not be on the team this year.”
Alain said it will take at least six or seven wins for Carleton to finish fourth and make the playoffs this year.
“There’s 20 games in the season. Every game is a playoff game,” he said.
As for the long-term future, Brenning said she expects the overhaul of the program to be a “process,” especially considering the tough division competition with perennial national contenders in McGill Martlets and the Université de Montréal Carabins.
“You look at sport in a four-year cycle,” she said. “In three to four years, we should be looking at knocking on the door with McGill and Montréal.”
The Ravens will officially open training camp in early September and play their first exhibition game on Sept. 6, with the regular season portion opening in October.
