Kelvin "Brush" Christiansen is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

retired

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 ...

coach. He spent the entirety of his coaching career at Alaska-Anchorage after founding the program in 1979, retiring after 1995–96 season.

Career

Brush Christiansen became a major figure at Alaska-Anchorage when he helped found the varsity ice hockey program in 1979. He took over as

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 ...

and led the Seawolves through several good years as a Division II program, but the school's remote location led to an inability to find a conference to play in. When D-II ice hockey collapsed after the 1983–84 season, rather than drop down to

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

as most programs did, Alaska-Anchorage became a Division I Independent for a season before they were finally able to join a conference. Along with three other

western US The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

schools, Alaska-Anchorage became a founding member of the Great West Hockey Conference in 1985. Despite their best efforts, however, two of the four schools had dropped their programs within three years and the conference was dissolved after the 1987–88 season. The experiment did, however, help bring Alaska-Anchorage some national attention and when they posted their first 20-win season as a D-I team two years later they were invited to participate in the 1990 NCAA Tournament. Christiansen's first foray in the tournament was predictably brief but the following season, finding his team invited once more, Brush's Seawolves shocked a great deal of onlookers by downing a strong Boston College team in two games to advance into the quarterfinals. After another berth the next year Alaska-Anchorage was firmly established as a competitive D-I program and was invited to join the

WCHA The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...

in 1993. Consistently facing much stiffer competition, the Seawolves' yearly records declined after joining the conference, but with their future much more secure Christiansen decided to step down in 1996 but he didn't entirely step away from the program, still keeping up with current events.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Christiansen, Brush Living people Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men's ice hockey coaches Canadian ice hockey coaches Ice hockey people from Ontario People from Fort Frances Year of birth missing (living people)