- Source: Mark Taylor (ice hockey, born 1962)
Mark Taylor is an American ice hockey coach and former defenseman. He led the men's ice hockey team at Hobart to the program's first national championship in 2023 and was named as the national coach of the year for his efforts. Both of these accomplishments were repeated by Taylor in 2024.
Career
Taylor began his college career at SUNY Canton and played for the club team for two years. He transferred to Elmira College after his sophomore season and continued his playing career with the varsity squad. He helped the team make the NCAA tournament in his junior year but they lost in the quarterfinal round. After graduating, Taylor travelled to Europe and played for Ånge IK in the Swedish Division 2. After two years abroad, he retired as a player and turned to coaching.
Upon his return to North America, Taylor returned to the college ranks as an assistant at Middlebury. He ended up working on four different staffs over a 4-year period before finally settling into his role at Cornell. He worked under Brian McCutcheon, who had been his head coach at Elmira, for five years but the returns for the big red weren't up to par and the entire staff was let go after the 1995 season. Taylor moved on to Massachusetts Lowell working first under Bruce Crowder and then Tim Whitehead. He was in charge of recruiting for the River Hawks and instrumental in convincing Ron Hainsey, a draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens, to sign on with the program.
In 2000, Taylor got his first head coaching job at Hobart and took over a program that had seen very little success in its history. Over 30 years, the team had been able to post just 5 winning seasons and had never won a championship of any kind let alone make and NCAA tournament appearance. In his first few years that trend continued, however, he got the team to post its first 10-win season in 2002 in almost a decade and had them above water the next year. In the team's fourth year under Taylor, they made the NCAA tournament firs the first time on the strength of a conference championship and continued to raise their profile under his leadership. The Statesmen posted their first 20-win season in 2006, making their first Frozen Four in the season season. Several more championships and highlights followed over the next decade plus but the team as unable to make a championship appearance during that successful run. After the pandemic the team was finally able to break through. After posing his 8th 20-win season in 2022, Taylor led Hobart to its best season in history, finishing the regular season with a 23–2 record while being ranked as the #1 team in the nation during the year. The Statesmen received the #3 overall seed for the NCAA tournament and rode a dominating defense to their first championship appearance. The team faced down defending national champions, Adrian and won the title in overtime. a few days before the game, Taylor was named as the recipient of the Edward Jeremiah Award, given annually to the national D-III coach of the year.
College head coaching record
See also
List of college men's ice hockey coaches with 400 wins