Ben Smith (ice hockey coach)

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Not to be confused with Ben Smith (ice hockey, born 1988).
Ben Smith
Born Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S.
Height 6 ft 3 in (191 cm)
Weight 200 lb (91 kg; 14 st 4 lb)
Position Defence
Played for NCAA
Harvard University
Playing career 1964–1968

Benjamin Atwood Smith III is a former American ice hockey player and Olympic coach.

Early life[]

Smith was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts. His father was Benjamin A. Smith II, a U.S. Senator.[1]

Playing career[]

Smith played ice hockey at Harvard University and graduated in 1968. For three of his four years at Harvard, Ben Smith was on the men's hockey team. His coach was Cooney Weiland.

Coaching career[]

Upon graduation from Harvard, Weiland advised Smith to make coaching a career. In autumn 1968, Smith served as an assistant at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After several years of coaching high school hockey in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Smith became an assistant with the Yale Bulldogs.

Smith left Yale to become an assistant with the Boston University Terriers. At BU, Smith worked with Jack Parker, who played for BU while Smith played at Harvard.

Smith's time at BU would represent some of the first success in his coaching career. After helping to lead the Terriers to the NCAA Frozen Four in 1990, he accepted the head coaching job for the Dartmouth Big Green. In his first and only season with Dartmouth, he had 1 win, 24 losses and 3 ties. His only victory was against the Northeastern Huskies, the team he would coach the following season.[2]

Smith became the Northeastern coach in 1991, inheriting a team that had 8 wins, 25 losses and 2 ties in the 1990–91 season.

While he was an assistant coach at Boston University, he took a year off from BU to assume a role as the assistant coach of the U.S. men's hockey team in Ice hockey at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Ten years later, Smith would return to the Olympics as the coach of the first ever US women's team. Smith coached the first three women's Olympic teams and won a gold (1998), silver (2002) and bronze (2006) medal.[3] In 2009, the 1998 U.S. Olympic Women's Ice Hockey Team was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.[4]

Smith is known for his self-deprecating style and the "amusing and often puzzling sayings" that he uses to motivate his players, such as "The hay is in the barn, ladies".[1]

Head coaching record[]

Statistics overview
Season Team Overall Conference Standing Postseason
Dartmouth Big Green (ECAC Hockey) (1990–1991)
1990–91 Dartmouth 1–24–3 0–19–3 12th
Dartmouth: 1–24–3
Northeastern Huskies (Hockey East) (1991–1996)
1991–92 Northeastern 16–19–0 7–14–0 7th Hockey East Quarterfinals
1992–93 Northeastern 7–18–0 4–17–0 8th Hockey East Quarterfinals
1993–94 Northeastern 19–13–7 10–8–6 4th NCAA Regional Quarterfinals
1994–95 Northeastern 16–14–5 11–8–5–5 4th Hockey East Quarterfinals
1995–96 Northeastern 10–21–5 6–13–5–5 7th Hockey East Quarterfinals
Northeastern: 68–85–17 38–60–16
Total: 69–109–20

      National champion         Postseason invitational champion  
      Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion
      Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion
      Conference tournament champion

[5]

Honors[]

Smith was elected to the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2017.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Golen, Jimmy (February 18, 2002). "Women's Hockey: Smith is a study in history". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
  2. ^ "NU's Ben Smith Back Home | News | the Harvard Crimson".
  3. ^ Lloyd, Janice (November 19, 2008). "Next USA Hockey women's coach: Female or legacy?". USA Today.
  4. ^ http://www.gocrimson.com/sports/mice/2009-10/releases/20091203_hof_induction
  5. ^ "Ben Smith Year-by-Year Coaching Record". USCHO.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  6. ^ "Ben Smith". United States Hockey Hall of Fame. Retrieved November 19, 2018.

External links[]

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