Rick Gotkin (born November 7, 1959) is an American
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 ...
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 former player. He is currently the head coach of the
Mercyhurst Lakers men's ice hockey
The Mercyhurst Lakers men's ice hockey team is a National Collegiate Athletic Association hockey team that represents Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania under Head Coach Rick Gotkin. The team is currently a Division I hockey team playing ...
team, a position he has held since 1988.
Career
Gotkin began attending
SUNY-Brockport in 1978, managing to work his way onto the varsity ice hockey team in his final two years there before graduating in 1982. He spent one additional year with the program as an assistant the following season. By 1986 he was back in the college ranks as an assistant coach for
Rensselaer. After two campaigns with the Engineers he received his first head coaching opportunity at
Mercyhurst.
When Gotkin arrived in
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
the college's ice hockey program was only a year old. He took over after
Fred Lane led the team to a very good 16-7 mark the year before and while Gotkin's first season was disappointing at 11-16-1 he soon brought the Lakers 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 ...
prominence with at least 18 wins in four consecutive seasons. Mercyhurst made their first postseason appearance in his third year and their first
National Championship
A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...
appearance by year five (the Lakers by that time having moved up to
Division II). Gotkin would lead the Lakers to their first 20-win season two years later (as well as their second championship game) but wasn't able to push them any further for the rest of their time in D-II.
A year after the
MAAC ice hockey conference was formed Mercyhurst was invited to join alongside
Bentley and they became a
Division I program for the
1999–00 season. The Lakers started off strong, finishing with a second place finish in their inaugural year, before winning the
conference tournament the following season and making their first
NCAA tournament appearance. Gotkin would get the Lakers to three consecutive regular season titles from 2001 thru 2003 and a second NCAA berth in '03 but after the season the MAAC conference dissolved when founding members
Iona and
Fairfield dropped their programs.
Fortunately for Gotkin and the rest of the programs, the remaining universities continued to support their teams and formed a new conference,
Atlantic Hockey
The Atlantic Hockey Association (AHA) is an NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey conference which operates primarily in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as an ice hockey-only conference. Unlike several other ...
which began play in
2003–04. Gotkin and the Lakers weren't quite as successful in the second version as they were in the MAAC but he still helped the team to several 20-win seasons, a tournament title in
2005, a regular season title in
2013–14 and notched his 500th win during the
2015–16 season. Gotkin signed a 5-year extension that will keep him with the team through the 2020 season.
Head coaching record
See also
*
List of college men's ice hockey coaches with 400 wins
References
External links
*
Rick Gotkin's profile at Eliteprospects.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gotkin, Rick
1959 births
Living people
American ice hockey coaches
Mercyhurst Lakers men's ice hockey coaches
RPI Engineers men's ice hockey coaches
Sportspeople from Brooklyn
Ice hockey coaches from New York (state)
Ice hockey players from New York (state)