Alfie Michaud knows what it takes to win a national championship.
The former University of Maine goalie led the Black Bears to their second and last NCAA championship in 1998-99, being named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
Now Michaud will have an opportunity to help head coach Red Gendron and associate head coach Ben Guite return the program to prominence after he was named a full-time assistant coach on Friday, replacing Jay Leach.
Leach resigned in April after four seasons. Leach and Guite joined Gendron in his first season at the helm. Leach earned $91,800 per year.
Terms of Michaud’s contract were not disclosed.
Michaud, who was UMaine’s first-year volunteer goaltender coach this past season, will begin on July 1.
Gendron said Michaud will continue to work with the goalies and he will also be involved “in all aspects of our defensive play” and recruiting. Gendron indicated that he will add a volunteer coach before the season.
“This is a great opportunity. I want to give back to a program that has done so much for me and my family,” said Michaud, a native of Selkirk, Manitoba. “I’m looking forward to working my butt off and helping these kids any way I can to reach their full potential as players and student-athletes.”
Gendron said Michaud has tremendous work habits
“Those were evident when he worked with us this past year. His job was primarily to work with the goaltenders but he went way above and beyond that,” he said. “He took it upon himself to watch extra film and weigh in on the opposing teams and the best way to attack their goalkeeper.
“He is also an outstanding human being and family man and those things matter to us. We want those kinds of people around our players,” Gendron added.
Michaud will handle recruiting in western Canada and will have his hand in the European market, also, since he played pro hockey in Finland, Germany and Denmark after graduating from UMaine.
“He knows a lot of people in Europe. It is certainly a place we’ve recruited in the past. We have quite a few European players now and one of the program’s best players was [Swede] Gustav Nyquist,” said Gendron referring to the Detroit Red Wings winger.
“I made a lot of good contacts in Europe and I’ll work on building relationships with people from my past so we can get some kids to come to Maine,” said the 40-year-old Michaud, a former goalie coach with the American Hockey League’s Portland Pirates.
He is also the owner and coach of Dream Catcher’s Hockey, which offers private coaching and clinics, and he opened RISE Sport Testing which is a developmental testing agency for schools in various sports.
Michaud, who will commute from Vienna where he lives with wife Addie and their three daughters, said he is excited about the future of the program, which has missed the NCAA Tournament nine times over the past 10 seasons and is coming off an 11-21-4 campaign.
“We had a real good freshman class and, with the incoming freshman class, we’re putting more and more of the puzzle together,” said Michaud, who played in 60 games during his UMaine career and posted a 2.82 goals-against average and a .891 save percentage.
He won 28 games and had a 2.32 GAA during the national championship run.
“People forget that Boston College and Boston University weren’t always powers. Every school goes through that. We want to get Maine back to not only where we want to be, but where the people in the state want us to be,” said Michaud, who was a former teammate and roommate of Guite’s at UMaine.