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The time with the Huskies began as a student, where he was a four-year letter winner led by coach Fernie Flaman in 1981-85. After spending a year as an assistant in Vermont, Madigan returned to the program and served as an assistant coach from 1986-93.
From there, he has served as Deputy Director of Physical Institutional Services (1993-99), Director of Sports Development (1999-2004) and Deputy Dean and Director of Development at the School of Economics (2004-11).
Still, he remained active in the hockey community, serving as a scout to the New York Islanders Pittsburgh Penguins, and when the men’s hockey job opened in 2011, Madigan was a logical choice.
In ten years under Madigan’s leadership, the Huskies made it to the NCAA three times – in 2016, 2018 and 2019, after he had reached the post-season once in the previous 22 years.
The program also ended a long drought and won the Hockey East tournament in 2016 for the first time since 1988. In 2018, Northeastern won its first Beanpot in 30 years and then repeated the achievement in 2019 and 2020.
I’m happy with all the accomplishments and I’m excited to be with our student athletes during that period, but you look back and you get a little greedy because we could have done a few more things, Madigan said.
In particular, there was the 2018 team, which featured the dominant Hobey Baker winner first row and Braintree’s native Adam Gaudette, Dylan Sikura and Nolan Stevens, but lost 2-1 to Michigan in the first round of the tournament.
We had some missed opportunities, Madigan said. Here, I look forward to helping with all of our programs and helping hockey get to the next stage and win tournament games.
Some thought Madigan was interested in the job when Peter Roby announced his resignation in May 2017 the following year, but that was not the focus.
I think we really started creating the program ourselves, coach [Jerry] Keefe, coach [Mike] McLaughlin, who we had won the 2016 Hockey East Championship, but we still had to achieve a lot more, Madigan said. I thought at the time we had a good foundation for men’s hockey.
For me, it was still in progress with the hockey program and student athletes. I thought we were doing something really exciting and to continue to promote our program. What we did afterwards.
Jeff Konya would be replaced on the tab by Roby in January 2018, and when he announced earlier this month that he was leaving for the inauguration of the San Jose State AD, school management wasted little time reaching Madigan. The process was fast, Madigan was named AD the following week.
I think these three and a half years I have grown up as a coach, Madigan said. I have been interested in some of the critical areas of thinking in the sports department. Jeff Konya was always ready to share with me some ideas from the department, some challenges, some things he was pulling. He had done a great job investing in our sports system, especially externally with our brand and visibility, as well as with our coach.
I am lucky that over the last three years I have grown and the department is in a really good position.
Madigan wants to move just as fast when it comes to naming the next men’s hockey coach. There’s a sequential plan that hell will work through over the next few days, and the announcement will possibly come right this week.
I felt good where the staff and where the players were. I felt like I was leaving hockey at a good time, Madigan said.
No word yet on whether the coach will continue to jump out of the box of equipment after the big wins.
Listen, I have a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm, Madigan said with a laugh. But someone else’s job is to jump from the locker room tables and accessory boxes.
But I hope to see some of the other coaches jump out of these boxes as it shows that we’ve had some success, regardless of the event at Beanpot, Hockey East and ultimately the NCAA tournament.
Follow Andrew Mahoney on Twitter @GlobeMahoney.
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