UT hockey team records best five-year span in program history under Durrigan

Ice Vols coach Steve Durrigan arrives at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum on a bone-chilling Wednesday night, carrying his hockey bag in one hand and his hockey stick in another, navigating his way to the locker-room area.

After taking care of any off-ice issues, such as Robert Banks returning to the roster for the first time this season, the all-time leader in coaching victories (105) in Southeastern Collegiate Hockey Conference (SECHC) history sits in a steel chair and laces up his ice skates, his hockey stick nearby.

This may not be the way practice goes on a regular basis for the winningest coach in UT hockey history, but the main theme of this practice — getting UT ready for game night — is just like every practice Durrigan has run since he arrived in 2005, when he coached the Ice Vols to the best record of any first-year coach in SECHC history (18-6-0), as well as to a conference championship and a top-five finish in the North Region of the American Collegiate Hockey Association.

With two games remaining, a battle with Georgia on Friday with third place in the East Division on the line and a newly announced Orange-and-White Alumni Game on Saturday to replace Eastern Kentucky, Durrigan knows that when the season ends, it will be because it was time.

“I live 100 miles from here, almost exactly,” Durrigan said. “My grandson (Jason) is 2 years old, and so in two years, he’s going to be old enough to cross-ice.”

Unfortunately for young Jason, the closest cross-ice skating for young skaters in the area is the Icearium in Farragut, a conflict Durrigan said would significantly impact his time with his grandson.

“What I was afraid of was if I kept doing this, I’d be driving back and forth, and then when it came time to take him, I’d say, ‘Eh, I don’t want to do this anymore,’ and that’s unfair to him,” Durrigan said.

With his free time, the Chattanooga resident is putting together plans to build an ice rink closer to home but says he’ll continue to help UT with some of its off-ice affairs.

“I really want to get a rink built in Chattanooga,” Durrigan said. “I’ve got some definite ideas with Volkswagen and so forth. I’ve just got to dedicate more time to that.

So I figured between the two (reasons), we can get a new coach and I’ll stay involved with the paperwork and the recruiting … and the scheduling, and so that way I can just come up and watch the games.”

Assistant coach Joe Williams is the only other member of the Ice Vols coaching staff with experience this season; the former UT player had been on the roster since Durrigan first arrived in Knoxville from Massachusetts.

Durrigan and Williams together turned the Ice Vols into a powerhouse hockey club with a combined 88-26-2 record (.771) from 2005 to 2009. In 2006, the Ice Vols coach led UT to 26 wins, the most of any coach in SECHC history. Add three conference championships, an ACHA South Regional championship and three national-championship tournament appearances in the four-year span, and fans witnessed what is still the best run in Ice Vols history.

UT also witnessed Williams’ career at Tennessee blossom; Durrigan’s fellow Chattanooga resident skated his way into the record books for most points (102), goals (47), assists (57), power-play goals (28) and game-winning goals (6) in a single season, as well as for being the all-time career points leader in UT hockey history (301).

The now-assistant coach also holds the record for most career penalty minutes (345), something he feels kept UT from being better than it already was, but Williams credited Durrigan’s discipline for turning his conduct around in his senior season.

“We were wild, a pretty undisciplined team from the start,” the former player said. “We were talented, probably should’ve won nationals a couple years. He gave me the captain seat in my senior year, so that made me smarten up a little bit, and that helped me learn how to lead and not take stupid penalties and become a better all-around player.”

Williams also owns a 1-0 record as head coach of UT hockey, but won’t be filling the soon-to-be vacant coaching spot because of traveling issues.

The four years he spent coaching UT’s career points leader may have brought Durrigan most of his impressive coaching numbers, but overall, the Brockton, Mass., native said that every year has meant a lot to him in its own way.

“I’m pretty happy with every team I’ve ever coached, including the ones last year and this year,” Durrigan said. “They’re good guys and a lot of fun to be around.”

The Ice Vols will honored their coach at the alumni game on Saturday, an announcement Durrigan said couldn’t have come at a greater time.

“I couldn’t believe it when I read it,” Durrigan said. “It was a crappy week when I read it and I sent Joe a text, and I just said, ‘That’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever read all week!’ So it was pretty deep.”

Durrigan may be stepping away from coaching at season’s end, but a possible second coming hasn’t been ruled out.

“I’d like to come back to coaching, whether it be coming back here when the next person is ready to retire or go back and coach kids like I did in Massachusetts,” he said. “I’ve been a coach all my life, so yeah, somewhere along the way, I’ll be a coach. For right now, though, my wife deserves me to be home once in a while; she’s put up with it for a while.

“I’d like to come back and coach some day, but not for a little while. Not until Jason’s about 6 or 7, when I coach him in pee-wee and mites or something like that.”