By Warren Kozireski —
Boston College head men’s hockey coach and 1990’s era Rochester/Buffalo defenseman Greg Brown was selected as the winner of the 2024 Spencer Penrose Award as Division I Men’s Ice Hockey CCM/AHCA Coach of the Year.
Brown is the only coach to be named conference coach of the year and lead his team to the Frozen Four this year. His 33 wins are more than double the win total from last season, his first year, and more than the previous two seasons combined.
“If you get an award like that, that means you have a lot of really good players on your team,” Brown said before the semi-final of the Frozen Four in St. Paul. “Again, these guys have worked hard.
“I think the one thing I appreciate is when we strung several wins together, they were never satisfied and didn’t take nights off. They just kept pushing to keep winning. And as a result, we’ve got ourselves to a good spot, and, whatever, they gave me something for that. I still had zero goals, zero assists, zero blocked shots. These guys have done all the work.”
In his two seasons as the Eagles’ head coach, he has led Boston College to a 47-21-7 record, including setting a program record with 34 wins to date in 2023-24. This year, he guided Boston College to its 18th Hockey East regular season crown in program history, posting a 20-3-1 record in league play and becoming the first team in Hockey East to win 20 games since the Eagles did so in 2010-11.
The Eagles have four of the nation’s top six scorers in Will Smith (69 points), Cutter Gauthier (64), Ryan Leonard (59) and New York Rangers draft pick Gabe Perreault (57).
The Southborough, Massachusetts-born Brown was selected 26th overall in the second round of the 1986 NHL Draft by Buffalo. He split the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons between Rochester and Buffalo before spending 1992-93 in the AHL before two more seasons in the NHL and IHL with Pittsburgh and Winnipeg. He finished his playing career with nine seasons in Europe.
Brown spent 14 seasons behind the bench for the Eagles from 2004-18 as an assistant on former head coach Jerry York’s staff, helping to bring three national championships to the Heights in 2008, 2010, and 2012. After eight seasons as an assistant coach, he was elevated to associate head coach following the 2012 NCAA title, BC’s third championship in a five-year span.
During his 14 years as an assistant at Boston College, Brown helped lead BC to six Hockey East Tournament Championships, seven Hockey East Regular Season Championships, 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, and seven NCAA Frozen Four berths. Brown was also selected as an assistant coach for Team USA at three different IIHF World Junior Championships.
A former Boston College All-American defenseman, Brown was named The Schiller Family Head Hockey Coach on May 6, 2022, becoming just the fifth head coach of BC men’s hockey since 1932.
(Photo provided by Boston College Athletic Department/Men’s Ice Hockey Team)
