On Wednesday afternoon, the New York Rangers announced that Boston University men’s hockey head coach David Quinn would become their next head coach. I went back into my archives and found a draft of a profile of Quinn I wrote for the Boston University men’s hockey program back when he took over in 2013. A tightened and cleaned up version of this appeared in the Terriers’ program in the fall of 2013.
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Kevin Shattenkirk’s freshman year was not going exactly as planned.
The blueliner was struggling through the first games of his Boston University career in the fall of 2007. He was playing every game, but he and his entire team were floundering at the blue line, dropping four of their first five regular season games in and letting up 21 goals in the process.
Then David Quinn, then in his fourth year as the associate head coach of the Terriers, intervened.
“A month into my freshman season, I was doing poorly,” recalls Shattenkirk, now a fourth year NHL defenseman with the St. Louis Blues. “Coach Quinn pulled me aside and told me that I could do better, and that I would get better and he knew how to do it, but that it was not going to be easy.
“He told me he was going to push me, but he wasn’t going to baby me. It was then that I realized that I needed to grow up and handle hockey and school differently. He got me playing at a higher level.”
Quinn’s ability to motivate and mentor high talent players like Shattenkirk are what made him an ideal choice to succeed Jack Parker as the 11th head coach of the Terriers. The Cranston, Rhode Island native and College of Arts and Sciences graduate has demonstrated the ability to coach and develop players at a variety of levels bringing experiences from across USA Hockey, Division I hockey, the American Hockey League and the National Hockey League to his first Division I head coaching job.
Through all of his experiences, it was Quinn’s time as a member of the Terriers defensive corps from 1984-88 that shaped how he would approach leading young hockey players. He realized how much his own coach influenced him when Parker brought him on board as an associate coach in 2004.
“It really struck me how similar our coaching styles were,” explains Quinn. “I knew I had learned a lot from playing here, but I really realized how much I learned from him when I started coaching with him. So much of my coaching philosophy was shaped by playing for him.”
What Parker imparted on an young Quinn was that coaching student-athletes is a lesson in shaping the entire player. Being a supportive ear during the tumultuous times of young adulthood is as much of the position as setting up lines of forwards. Quinn did not realize this completely until his junior year, when he was diagnosed with Christmas disease, a blood clotting disorder that made playing hockey, especially at one of the most physical positions, defense, extremely dangerous. His playing career came to an end years before he expected it to.
“My career ended so abruptly after my junior year, so I kind of was a lost 20 year old,” admits Quinn. “I was trying to figure out what I was going to do because I had anticipated I was going to be playing hockey for the next 15 years. I wasn’t thinking about anything else, but after going through a difficult time, I knew I wanted to stay in the game in some way, shape or form.
“Because I think of what my personal experience was, if Jack Parker only cared of me as a player, God knows what I would be doing today.”
Quinn caught the coaching bug from his first coaching opportunity. The chance came in 1994 from the man who recruited him to play on Commonwealth Avenue, former BU assistant and Olympic Team coach Ben Smith. Smith had moved on to serve as head coach of a familiar foe: Northeastern.
“Ben lost his assistant coach in August. By luck and friendship, he offered me the assistant coaching job, which was an incredible opportunity,” recalls Quinn. “And from that point on, I knew it was something I loved. I knew in my life how impactful my coaches had been for me, and I wanted to do the same for others.”
After two years on Huntington Avenue, Quinn moved on to help build the Division I program at University of Nebraska-Omaha from the ground up as the top assistant coach. Unlike many in similar positions, he never had a chance to cut his coaching teeth on a non-Division I program – he was thrown into the college hockey elite immediately.
Looking back, Quinn notes that there may have been a bit of a learning curve.
“There was a lot of uncertainty. When you’ve never coached, and all of a sudden you’re coaching a Division 1 team, it can be a little overwhelming and intimidating,” says Quinn. “I always thought to myself, ‘It’s hockey, and I’m dealing with people.’ If you can stick to that and don’t get distracted by the other stuff, no matter what level you’re coaching at, you are good.”
Quinn soon found himself leading the USA Hockey’s Under 17 developmental program in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and found himself with what was his biggest coaching challenge to that date: the unique perspectives of 16 year olds.
“That was my first head coaching experience. The two things I knew I improved on dramatically were my patience level and my communications skills,” chuckles Quinn. “I was amazed at how little 16 year olds knew.”
The teenagers gave him perspective that would serve him well when leading hockey players a decade older.
“The thing I took from that experience that I’ve tried to apply to the higher levels is that you have to be patient,” explains Quinn. “You have a vision of how you want your team to play, the perfect way you want them to do things, but you can’t hold them to that standard every day. You have to think to yourself, ‘Well if my team made 20 mistakes on Monday, and 19 mistakes on Tuesday, that was a good day.’ You have to consume yourself with the progress instead of consuming yourself with the finished product. “
Quinn’s increased patience paid off and his Under-17 squads succeeded under his tenure. He lifted them to a 10-3 record internationally. Domestically, his team was finally a playoff contender among other teams in the North American Hockey League, many of which were made up of players an age group older.
Soon, another former college coach of Quinn’s came calling: Parker. He became associate coach and lead recruiter for the Terriers. His touches were seen especially on defense, where he coached several of the program’s recent professional defensmen: 2009 Hobey Baker winner Matt Gilroy, Brian Strait and Shattenkirk.
Quinn’s ability to mold student-athletes into solid pro prospects and solid people caught the eye of Craig Billington, the Assistant General Manager of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. He was keeping an eye on his team’s draftees on for the Terriers, including ‘07 pick Shattenkirk, and was impressed by Quinn’s tutelage.
“I found a man who was passionate for developing players, about communication skills and passionate for the game of hockey,” recalls Billington. “His read on people and his ability to communicate creates a good environment for the young men in his program.”
Shattenkirk credits Quinn’s environment for preparing him to play pro hockey. “I think what was so important to us was how detailed he was,” says Shattenkirk of his time at BU. “At practice everyday, he never accepted less than our best. If you were having a bad day, you had to put that aside. That is definitely how it is in the pro game.”
The level of detail Quinn imparts he sees as the key to coaching hockey players at the top of their games.
“The older the player you coach, the more thorough you have to be in your explanation,” explains Quinn. “The days of just telling someone to do something is over. There needs to be a reason behind it, and they have to understand why it needs to be done. It can’t just be I’m telling them to do it. If they understand why to do it, then they will do it again. They are going to have to do it instinctively because I can’t always be there, telling them what to do.”
Quinn’s work with BU’s Avalanche prospects earned him a head coaching opportunity with their AHL affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio, the Lake Erie Monsters. His developmental coaching philosophy led to success on that level as well, with the team amassing a 115-94-20 record over his three seasons. In 2012, Quinn was tapped to become fellow BU alum Joe Sacco’s assistant coach with the home club.
But college coaching, and the chance to succeed a man who came through for him when he needed it most, drew him back to Boston after just a year in the big leagues. Quinn enjoys being there for young men during a time when they are trying to figure out exactly how hockey is going to fit into the bigger picture of their lives.
“There are a lot of things going on in their lives,” says Someone might be having a girlfriend problem, which – people may laugh at that, but hey, they’re kids,” says Quinn. “They are emotional, they are probably having the first serious relationship of their lives. Or something may be going on with their family. Or they might be struggling with school. So when they are struggling or not grasping what you’re telling them, you have to do a little digging and see what’s going on.”
Quinn’s sincerity and experience will serve him well as he steps into a head coaching role that it seems like his entire career has been building towards. While his goal is to maintain the strong tradition of BU’s hockey success, he also hopes to create successful men off the ice.
“I would love them to love me when they’re here, but if they don’t, they love me a lot more when they’re 25, and then I think we’ve done a good job.”
