After serving as the interim head coach in the 2017-18 season, Shaun Van Allen has officially been appointed as the permanent head coach of the Carleton men’s hockey program.
Van Allen joined the Ravens prior to the 2010-11 season as an assistant coach and took over as interim head coach after long-time bench boss Marty Johnston took an assistant coaching job with the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose.
As a former hockey player, Van Allen played over 700 games in the NHL split between the Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Dallas Stars, Montreal Canadiens, and two separate stints with the Ottawa Senators.
Following the end of his NHL career, Van Allen joined the Senators as a director of player evaluation and was in charge of scouting the club’s prospects in junior, minor pro hockey leagues, as well as college teams, in North America and Europe.
The Ravens men’s hockey team finished fourth in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East tournament division, but fell to the University of Ottawa (U of O) Gee-Gees in the first round of the playoffs in Van Allen’s year as the interim coach.
“I think there is more stress involved in the wins and losses for the head coach, as opposed to your assistants,” Van Allen said.
“When I was an assistant coach, I wanted to win just as bad, but [I was] just focused on . . . whatever roles I had. You wanted to do the best you could to win, whereas the head guy is overseeing everything.”
He said the biggest challenge of being the boss was telling players that they weren’t playing a game. While it’s one of the responsibilities of the head coach, Van Allen added that it will continue to be tough for him to remove players.
Van Allen said that though his first year as a head coach was different, many things were similar.
“The philosophy was the same: everyone in that coaches’ room had a voice,” he said. “I kind of had the final decision, but for the most part it was just always a team decision, and that’s how we will always continue to do it going forward.”
He said that throughout his eight years in the OUA, he has seen the level of play take big steps forward.
Van Allen said that players from the OUA “can go to the East Coast league and play at that level.”
Van Allen added that his role is about more than the work on the ice and is happy for his graduates no matter where they go.
“It’s a matter of preparing them. It doesn’t matter if they are playing pro hockey or going into a job opportunity that they’ve studied hard and got their degree in,” he said. “It’s the same level of being happy for [graduates] because you know the amount of work they’ve put in and you’re so happy that they’ve achieved their goal of getting to that.”
