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Paul Flanagan’s routine nowadays is pretty simple. He’ll work on some house projects and run some errands. And at 2:15 p.m., Flanagan will drive to Cicero-North Syracuse High School to help coach the boys’ varsity hockey team.

Flanagan found it funny. His son knew that the newly-hired head coach was looking for assistants.

“My son said, ‘Call my dad. He’s not doing anything,’” Flanagan said. “And technically I wasn’t. But I did have some home improvement things I never got to.”

In preparation for the Northstars’ upcoming season, Flanagan will work with the team on dryland training. Afterwards, the team will skate. He’s still getting used to the concept of “open skates,” where any student can try out.

Flanagan loves that he has September and October off, and that the high school season ends in early February, something that was rare when he coached Syracuse. He retired last March after the Orange won their second-ever College Hockey America title. There wasn’t any sole reason for his decision. He just knew it was the right time.

Only Flanagan, his wife Sharon and associate head coach Brendon Knight knew he was retiring on March 23. Syracuse was taking part in season-end activities when Flanagan called a team meeting in the locker room.

No one knew what to say, SU senior Abby Moloughney said. After the speech, some of SU’s fourth and fifth year players — Moloughney, Victoria Klimek, Jessica DiGirolamo and Lauren Bellefontaine — all went to his office, talking and joking for hours.

In his first 10 seasons with the Orange, he signed successive five-year contracts to stay. But from 2019-22, Flanagan decided to sign three straight one-year contracts. He knew he had job security at SU. One of his colleagues, who just retired, gave him simple advice.

“He said, ‘You’ll know when it’s time,’” Flanagan said.

After two altered seasons because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Flanagan wanted one normal year. The pandemic’s restrictions didn’t allow him to coach the way he knew, and Moloughney said she had a feeling Flanagan would retire last season.

“There was just something about him that year,” she said.

Before Moloughney became the Orange’s top scorer with 17 goals and 32 points, she was a freshman getting accustomed to the new environment. Moloughney said she built trust up with Flanagan on the rink.

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Moloughney would always be inclined to pass, scoring just twice in her first 11 games. She always skated with the puck down the sides of the rink and took a lane. Moloughney wasn’t doing anything wrong, but Flanagan knew she could score. He kept pushing Moloughney to shoot.

“I didn’t want to upset anyone by not making a pass,” Moloughney said. “But I was making passes where I should not have been making passes.”

Last season, Flanagan gave the same advice to freshman forward Sarah Marchand, who had a “pass-first mentality.” Flanagan always told Marchand, who now leads the Orange this season with five goals and 11 points, to trust herself. 

“You miss the actual coaching and being around the kids,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan built programs from scratch at Syracuse and St. Lawrence. The Saints’ program just moved to Division I in 1997, and the players didn’t get along with the head coach. So St. Lawrence administrators approached Flanagan, and he accepted the job in 1999.

By 2001, Flanagan brought the Saints to the national championship, where they fell to Minnesota-Duluth 4-2 in the first season women’s ice hockey was an NCAA sanctioned sport. Over the next six years, St. Lawrence made three more Frozen Four appearances.

In his ninth and final season with the Saints, Flanagan remembered losing to New Hampshire on a ricocheted overtime goal in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. If that goal didn’t happen, Flanagan said he may have never gone to Syracuse.

He also may not have accepted the offer if he wasn’t in China, serving as an assistant coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team at the 2008 International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship. Flanagan said if he was back at St. Lawrence, he might have still been with the Saints.

When he was in China, then-SU Athletic Director Daryl Gross offered Flanagan the job. He knew that it might have been his only opportunity to move from being a small-town kid coaching a small school to living in a city in charge of a big program. In the few days he had to respond, Flanagan talked about the offer with coaches he knew at the tournament before accepting.

Stefanie Marty, SU’s first Winter Olympian, came to Syracuse’s new program after a “tough time” at New Hampshire, and said she appreciated how Flanagan trusted the players. When Marty had a bad game, Flanagan acknowledged this and let her sit out.

“That’s also how I define a good coach now,” Marty said. “That he or she sees who is doing well, or who isn’t doing that well.”

Flanagan led Syracuse to its first winning season in 2009-10, advancing to the CHA Championship game after Marty scored in a 5-3 victory over Niagara. It fell to Mercyhurst 3-1, setting up a decade where Syracuse made the title game five more times, but always fell short.

Still, Flanagan’s teams exuded a specific offensive style that became apparent to CHA opponents. Mercyhurst head coach Michael Sisti said Syracuse took more chances at the net than other teams, and Mercyhurst experienced this first hand at the CHA Championship.

“(The Orange) really like to play a wide open offensive style,” Sisti said. “I think it’s probably the one thing he carried over from St. Lawrence as well.”

In the 2021 CHA Championship, DiGirolamo kept the attack alive and shot from her normal spot on the blue line. Sophomore forward Sarah Thompson scored off the rebound, sending the bench into a frenzy during the 3-2 win. Flanagan said he didn’t even see the puck go in, noting he told the team to just throw the puck on net.

Flanagan got a Gatorade bath as his skaters surrounded him. With “Sweet Caroline” playing in the background, Flanagan screamed “Give me that damn thing!” before he lifted the CHA trophy.

“He got to go out with a championship win and a league win,” Moloughney said. “I think that was enough for him.”

Flanagan doesn’t show up at Tennity Ice Pavilion too much anymore, but tells the players “he’s just down the road.” He’s been around Syracuse enough to know where the right coffee places and Irish pubs are. He and Sharon have always enjoyed exploring the outdoors in the surrounding area, and they’ll continue to do just that.

“We’re definitely not planning on going anywhere,” Sharon said. “We’re very happy here.”

Published on November 17, 2022 at 12:57 am

Contact Henry: henrywobrien1123@gmail.com