 |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1935 Peterborough, Ontario, Canada |
| Alma mater | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Playing career | |
| 1955–1958 | Rensselaer |
| Position(s) | Forward |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1964–1969 | Rensselaer |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 44–63–4 (.414) |
Garry Kearns is a Canadian retired ice hockey head coach and player who was in charge of the program at Rensselaer for five seasons. [1]
Kearns joined the Rensselaer program a year after it won its first national title in 1954. After sitting out his freshman year (a standard practice at the time), Kearns joined the varsity squad for the 1955–56 season and led the engineers in goals (26), assists (32) and points (58), finishing in a tie for second in NCAA scoring. [2] despite his superlative campaign the Engineers finished third out of four teams in the Tri-State League and were left out of the NCAA tournament. The following year Kearns scoring prowess declined but the Engineers managed to win their conference title. Unfortunately they were once again passed over as second-place Clarkson had a superior record (18-2 compared to RPI's 14-6-1). For his senior season Kearns was named as team captain and responded with a resurgent 56 points in 21 games. Despite this the Engineers were left out of the tournament yet again after finishing second to the powerhouse Golden Knights in their conference.
After graduating Kearns pursued a short professional career with Milwaukee of the United States Central Hockey League then turned to coaching high school hockey. [3] In 1964 Kearns returned to Troy, New York to become the head coach for his alma mater. Kearns became the fourth head coach in the span of three years and was entering as the program was in its nadir. [4] After three years with virtually no recruits and no athletic scholarships available the ice hockey program was in jeopardy of becoming an afterthought. The team struggled to a 10-10-2 record in his first season but once the last recruited senior class graduated the Engineers slipped to dead-last in the ECAC the next year, finishing 3-19 and being outscored 42 to 161. Kearns' team again finished last in 1966–67 season but almost tripled their win total (8) when his first batch of recruits began hitting the ice. By his fourth year with the program Kearns had gotten the Engineers back to .500 with an 11–11 record and followed that up with a 12-8-1 mark. In 1969 Rensselaer made their first appearance in the ECAC tournament since 1964 and provided the first of only two losses to the dominant Cornell team headed by Kearns' former coach Ned Harkness.
With program no longer in dire straits, Kearns left to start a career as an architect. He was inducted into the Peterborough & District Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and the RPI hockey ring of honor the following year.
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rensselaer Engineers (ECAC Hockey)(1964–1969) | |||||||||
| 1964–65 | Rensselaer | 10–10–2 | 5–8–2 | 10th | |||||
| 1965–66 | Rensselaer | 3–19–0 | 0–13–0 | 15th | |||||
| 1966–67 | Rensselaer | 8–15–1 | 1–14–0 | t–15th | |||||
| 1967–68 | Rensselaer | 11–11–0 | 8–9–0 | 11th | |||||
| 1968–69 | Rensselaer | 12–8–1 | 8–5–1 | 7th | ECAC Quarterfnals | ||||
| Rensselaer: | 44–63–4 | 22–49–3 | |||||||
| Total: | 44–63–4 | ||||||||
National champion Postseason invitational champion | |||||||||
| Award | Year | |
|---|---|---|
| AHCA First Team All-American | 1955–56 | [6] |
ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United States. This relationship ended in 2004; however, the ECAC abbreviation was retained in the name of the hockey conference. ECAC Hockey is the only ice hockey conference with identical memberships in both its women's and men's divisions. Cornell has won the most ECAC men's hockey championships with 12, followed by Harvard at 11. Quinnipiac, which joined the league in 2005, already has 7 regular season championships. ECAC Hockey teams have won 10 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championships, most recently in 2023.
Houston Field House is a multi-purpose arena located on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. It is the nation's third-oldest college hockey rink, behind Northeastern University's Matthews Arena and Princeton University's Hobey Baker Memorial Rink. Further, it is the second-oldest arena in the ECAC Hockey League, behind Princeton's rink. Until the opening of the Times Union Center in Albany in 1990, it was the largest arena in the Capital Region.
Nevin Donald Harkness was an NCAA head coach of ice hockey and lacrosse at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Cornell University and of ice hockey at Union College. Harkness was also head coach of the Detroit Red Wings and later was the team's general manager. He was inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame in 1993, the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2001 and into the RPI Hockey Ring of Honor in 2007. He is also a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minnesota, having been inducted in 1994.
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