Brent Brekke (born August 16, 1971) is an American former

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

player who currently the

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

St. Lawrence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roma ...

Career

Playing

Brekke played his college hockey at

Western Michigan West Michigan and Western Michigan are terms for an arbitrary region in the U.S. state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Most narrowly it refers to the Grand Rapids- Muskegon-Holland area, and more broadly to most of the region along the Lower Pen ...

for Bill Wilkinson. He played for years for the Broncos, serving as an alternate captain in his junior season. After being named

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

for his senior season, Brekke helped Western Michigan to a 24-win season, the third-highest win total in program history (as of 2019), and reach the NCAA Tournament for only the second time. After graduating with a degree in marketing Brekke embarked on a two-year professional career, splitting time between the AHL and

ECHL The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL). The ...

affiliates of the

Quebec Nordiques The Quebec Nordiques (french: Nordiques de Québec, pronounced in Quebec French, in Canadian English; translated "Quebec City Northmen" or "Northerners") were a professional ice hockey team based in Quebec City. The Nordiques played in the W ...

Colorado Avalanche The Colorado Avalanche (colloquially known as the Avs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The Avalanche play thei ...

, the team that had drafted him in

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

Coaching

After a year off from hockey, Brekke signed on as the Director of Player Personnel and

assistant coach A sports coach is a person coaching in sport, involved in the direction, instruction and training of a sports team or athlete. History The original sense of the word ''coach'' is that of a horse-drawn carriage, deriving ultimately from the Hun ...

for the

Chicago Freeze The Chicago Freeze was a Tier II junior A ice hockey team in the North American Hockey League's West Division. The team was originally the Detroit Freeze until it relocated to a Chicago suburb of Geneva. The Chicago Freeze played out of the Fox ...

, a junior team in the

NAHL Nahl or NAHL may refer to: * Nahl (surname) * National Accident Helpline, a British personal injury lawyer service * North American Hockey League, an American junior hockey league * North American Hockey League (1973–1977), an American professio ...

. After two years with the Freeze Brekke returned to the college ranks as an assistant at

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach a ...

for

Mike Schafer Mike Schafer is the men's ice hockey coach at Cornell University. He graduated from Cornell in 1986 with a degree in business management after leading the team to its first conference tournament championship in six years. Schafer retired as a p ...

. In nine years Brekke helped the Big Red reach the NCAA Tournament 4 times, including the

Frozen Four The annual NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament is a college ice hockey tournament held in the United States by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to determine the top men's team in Division I. Like other Division I cham ...

in 2003, and helped build one of the toughest defensive corps in college hockey history. Brekke was lured away from

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

in 2008 by

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

and the RedHawks promptly reach the

Championship Game In sport, a championship is a Competition#Sports, competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match sy ...

, falling in overtime to

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...

. After two years he was promoted to associate head coach and continued to serve in that capacity for another 8 seasons. In 2018, with the team stuck in the mire, Brekke and fellow assistant Nick Petraglia both agreed to part ways with the program. Brekke didn't remain jobless for long, accepting an offer from Clarkson to be an assistant under

Casey Jones John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroader who was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi. Jones was a locomotive engineer for the Illinois C ...

. In his only season with the Golden Knights Brekke helped Clarkson win its first conference tournament in over a decade. Less than two months after

fired Mark Morris the Saints named Brekke the 15th head coach in program history.

Head coaching record

* St. Lawrence was forced to withdraw from the NCAA Tournament due to Brekke testing positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brekke, Brent 1971 births American men's ice hockey defensemen Western Michigan Broncos men's ice hockey players Cornwall Aces players Dayton Bombers players St. Lawrence Saints men's ice hockey coaches Living people People from Minot, North Dakota Ice hockey people from North Dakota Quebec Nordiques draft picks