CHRIS BERGERON
Bowling Green
Head Coach | Miami ’93 | Wallaceburg, Ontario

Background: After playing four years of college hockey at Miami, serving as a two-year captain and spending seven seasons in various minor leagues, Bergeron returned to Oxford to help former teammate Enrico Blasi bring the RedHawks to prominence in 1999. Over the course of 10 seasons, Bergeron and Blasi experienced some ups and downs early on but have turned Miami into a perennial contender by building a tight-knit and talented team based on accountability between coaches and players.

State of the Program: It’s no secret that Bowling Green’s program has been on some rocky ground in recent years. The Falcons have struggled on the ice and the athletic department has experienced serious financial difficulties, but the program and university’s alumni base have rallied around the team, making for an optimistic future. As for on-ice improvement, time will tell.

Bergeron points to a series from last February as a sign that the Falcons do have some talent, but that there is some way to go with respect to nightly efforts and accountability that drive success. In a weekend set at home against Miami, Bowling Green played admirably the first game, lost 3-2 but held its own against one of the nation’s top teams. BG fell apart the next night and lost 10-2. Bergeron knows that creating a culture of success will take some time, is hesitant to put a timeline on a turnaround, but will go to work from the day his team shows up.

Coaching Philosophy: In an effort to turn the program around, Bergeron knows that having the right people in place will be a key factor. He’s happy with the coaching staff and administration and optimistic that he’ll find out quickly whether the current roster is ready to buy into the new culture. Like Blasi at Miami, Bergeron will hold his team to a high standard day in and day out, and is big on accountability for mistakes and lack of effort. Creating this culture took a few years at Miami, but Bergeron is confident that the transition can be smoother at Bowling Green because of all the hard lessons learned by he, Blasi and other staff members at Miami and because he has a distinct plan in place to turn this around – a plan that didn’t materialize until the third or fourth year at Miami.