Tom Upton is living through a state of transition — and loving it.

The newly minted head coach of the Brown men’s hockey team was technically hired before the college hockey season ended, after long-time coach Brendan Whittet stepped down midseason in the midst of a serious family medical issue.

Upton spent several weeks splitting his time between his role as an assistant at UMass and his new gig with the Bears. While he was able to meet with his new players at Brown shortly after he accepted the job, Upton still had to devote much of his attention to the Minutemen’s quest to make the NCAA Tournament, as their late-season surge brought them back into the national picture despite a rocky start to the season.

Tom Upton doubled up on his responsibilities after accepting the head coach job at Brown. Photo credit to UMass Athletics.

After UMass lost in the Hockey East semifinals and was ultimately eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by a mathematical whisker, Upton turned his complete attention to his new position. He dove in full steam ahead getting to know his new team and environs, starting with a few key focuses.

“Number one was just trying to reach out to as many alumni as I could. The mark of a great program in college hockey is the alumni interaction. That’s definitely an area of focus for us, and I wanted to establish a relationship with guys.

“The second thing was for me to really sit back and listen. The first couple weeks [I was] observing how we do things around here. You can’t come in and change something unless you figure out really what needs to be changed, right? Now it’s a bit more of me talking about my vision, our standards.”

As he continues to get acclimated to his new digs on College Hill, Upton’s life remains somewhat scattered. He and his family are navigating the process of moving from Amherst to Providence. Making the roughly hour-and-a-half drive each way several days per week has given him time to reflect and enjoy his new challenge. Sitting in his office at Meehan Auditorium, he spoke eagerly about the task before him.

“This is the most fun time for me — implementing our new mentality and our new culture. ‘This is how we’re going to do this moving forward, these are the things that we’re going to believe in moving forward’, and getting everybody on the same page.”

Uniquely equipped for the challenge at hand

Make no mistake: building a winner at Brown will be the most significant challenge Upton has faced so far in his career. The Bears have dwelled in the ECAC’s basement for the better part of two decades now, and haven’t finished higher than seventh in the standings since 2005. For many years, Brown’s resources for hockey were among the worst in the country, though the current athletic department has worked hard to change that paradigm, including investing in substantial renovations to player amenities at venerable Meehan Auditorium. Regardless of those improvements, the Bears have lost a bevy of talented players to the transfer portal or the pros over the past two years.

But Upton doesn’t care.

“You know what? Those things don’t scare me off. Maybe it’s because of where I’ve been.”

After a career as “a below-average D-III player” at Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Upton knew his dream of playing in the NHL likely wasn’t going to come to fruition. He played five games for the Columbus Cottonmouths of the SPHL after his senior season ended before Wil Nichol, his former head coach at UWSP, unexpectedly called him with a job offer for an assistant coaching role on the staff.

Upton gave it some thought — his career as a player was likely coming to its conclusion, but he still wanted to be involved in hockey. Coaching could more realistically provide an avenue to reach his ultimate goal: the NHL.

“My dream didn’t die; it just changed roles. I fell in love with [coaching] right away, the first year. [Nichol] was tremendous. In D-III, your staff is smaller, so it was just [him and me]. I learned a ton that first year. I fell in love with recruiting. I fell in love with the development of the guys, with having an impact on the players not only as hockey players, but as young men. That first year, I made a ton of mistakes, but I learned a lot.”

Maybe it’s fair to say Tom Upton has always thrived in an unsettled state. His rise through the coaching ranks is emblematic of that.

After three years at UWSP, he got the opportunity to coach in the USHL for the Cedar Rapids Rough Riders, working with some of the top junior players in the country. He parlayed that experience into a head coaching and general manager position with the Minnesota Magicians of the NAHL, the second-tier league of the US junior hockey pyramid.

After two years in Minnesota, Upton did another stint as a USHL assistant (this time in Youngstown, Ohio) before transitioning to NCAA Division I hockey. He spent three years as an assistant coach at Mercyhurst, then took a head coach/GM job with the Madison Capitals, a fledgling USHL club that hadn’t seen much success in its relatively short history. In his second year at the helm, his team set the club’s record in wins and advanced to the Clark Cup finals.

Upton's time at Mercyhurst was formative for him as he learned how to navigate the unique challenges of running a college hockey program. Photo credit to Mercyhurst Athletics.

Upton credits his constant upward movement as a key to his never-say-die attitude when it comes to tackling a challenging job like Brown.

“I was at Mercyhurst. We didn’t have a ton of resources there, and we were able to field some pretty good teams while I was there. Same thing in the USHL. Madison was a great place to work, but [they] by no means have all the resources in the world. I don’t think anywhere does. There are very few programs in the country that have all the bells and whistles. Everyone’s got their challenges. You just have to figure those challenges out. There’s no reason to make excuses.”

That was the case at UMass, where Upton served as an assistant following his spell in Madison. The Minutemen had been a laughingstock for years before Greg Carvel came over from St. Lawrence to right the ship, recruiting NHL superstar Cale Makar and ultimately winning a national championship. Working for one of Hockey East’s most consistent programs over the past decade under Carvel gave Upton the tools and experience he believes he needs to build a winning program at Brown.

Nurturing a nascent culture

Despite the expectation that the bulk of his roster will return to Brown, Upton is in many ways starting from scratch.

Nearly all the pieces of a once-promising core assembled over the past handful of years have departed: Tyler Kopff left for the AHL last spring after his sophomore year; co-captain Max Scott and standout goalie Lawton Zacher transferred to Hockey East schools a few weeks later.

This past week, top-pairing defensemen Alex Pineau (another former captain) and Matt Desiderio entered the transfer portal, and were joined by leading scorer Ivan Zadvernyuk. Desiderio will play for Ivy rival Dartmouth next fall, adding further salt to the wound. As of this writing, Pineau is joining Zacher at Northeastern.

Still, Upton is encouraged by the culture that already exists within the locker room, and looks forward to putting his own stamp on it. Already, Brown has received commitments from a pair of transfers with whom he has relationships from previous stops: Northeastern sophomore forward Griffin Erdman (15 points in 36 games) and Bowling Green defenseman Bryan Lonergan, who only played in four games his freshman year before redshirting.

In particular, Upton is excited to add Erdman’s leadership to a tight-knit group of players.

“He will push this culture forward. He will [help us] implement a winning environment and a winning culture, along with the guys that are currently in the locker room as well. We’ve got a lot of great leaders in this locker room already. [Erdman] will add to that.”

Junior transfer Griffin Erdmann brings speed, tenacity, and skill to the Bears' lineup. Photo credit to Northeastern Athletics.

The coach said he also expects a few more additions from the transfer portal to supplement the current roster.

Part of building a strong culture is adopting a program identity — something the Bears have struggled to maintain over the years. Upton’s mantra is “fast, hard, and consistent.” It’s how he envisions his ideal program operating at Brown, both on and off the ice. He pointed to Erdman and Lonergan as examples of the types of strong skaters with gritty attitudes that he’ll be targeting going forward.

When asked how his staff might adjust their system to the current players’ skillsets, Upton was clear: the only way to succeed is for the whole roster to commit to the vision.

“Well, they need to buy in right away. If they don’t buy in, they won’t be here. It’s pretty simple. We need a room full of guys that are all on board, and I believe we [have that].”

Year One will almost certainly present obstacles to a first-time head coach bringing a more up-tempo style of play to a roster that isn’t necessarily loaded with speedsters, but Upton accepts that challenge as part of the growth process. In other words, building a strong foundation requires an unflinching belief in what you’re building.

“We’re going to play a certain way here moving forward. We might struggle a little bit at times because guys have to adapt to it, but they’re going to adapt to how we play.”

Despite the expected growing pains, Upton is uncompromising in his lofty goals for Brown hockey in both the short and long terms.

“[We want to] win an ECAC championship, make it to Lake Placid. Those are going to be our goals every year.”

Recruiting from a variety of backgrounds will go a long way in helping to accomplish the goals the staff has in mind. Upton said they’d leave no stone unturned in identifying players who fit the program’s identity, whether they come from traditional pipelines (the USHL, NAHL, and US prep schools), Canadian junior leagues, or even international leagues.

He’s seen a success story in targeting a non-traditional recruiting footprint up close: UMass has had a recent influx of Czech talent that has anchored the program in recent years. Upton believes Brown could potentially recruit European players who fit the profile of an Ivy League student-athlete, as well.

“In today’s world, you [have to] look everywhere. You [have to] recruit the whole world. If there’s a European player that can help us win games and he wants to get an Ivy League education, and he’s a good enough student, and he fits in as a person, then we’re going to recruit him. We’re not just going to focus in one area.”

You don’t spend 16 years traversing the continent in pursuit of your hockey dreams, spending countless hours on bus rides, in locker rooms, working the recruiting circuits, and grinding through a never-ending slate of practices and games with teenagers if you’re not willing to put in the work to find the best players for your program.

For Tom Upton, leaving no stone unturned may come as second nature.

Other notes and takeaways

Coach Upton was generous with his time and provided some bits of information that didn’t quite fit the scope of this story, but I thought were noteworthy. Below are some of his thoughts:

On retaining assistants Matt Plante and Evan Moorhouse:

“I’m all about giving people opportunities. I did think that there needed to be at least a change on the staff.” (Jason Smith was not retained). “Matt Plante, for me, has proven throughout his time to be an extremely hard worker from a recruiting standpoint. And he’s brought some really nice players here to Brown. I know our record might not reflect that, but I think that there’s some really great pieces in our locker room right now.”

“Evan Moorhouse does a tremendous job. I’ve heard really positive things about Evan before this Brown opportunity for me even came about. People speak very highly of his character. People speak very highly of his work and [the detail he goes into] with the goalies.”

On scheduling:

“Part of our job here is to give these athletes a great experience. And sometimes that means you [have to] leave your area, and you [have to] go play schools that are in different areas of the country.”

“[I’ll definitely use] my relationships across the country to maybe schedule some games here in the future against teams that we haven’t seen in a while, or teams that we usually don’t play.”

“Over time we’re going to definitely get out of our little bubble sometimes.”

On Meehan Auditorium:

“It’s a great college hockey rink. I’d never been here until I came to my interview, and I was blown away [with our] accommodations down below for the guys.”

On future renovations:

“I believe it’s gonna be next offseason — so the following season [2027-28] it should be ready. I saw the blueprints and I’ve had some conversations about it, but I’m not the contractor, so don’t hold it over my head.

“We’re going to add a weight room right here at the rink, and we’re going to add a shooting room, and I believe we’re going to add a sauna as well, [but] maybe that’s just something I dreamt up.

“It shows the commitment from the program — the school, but also, obviously, [Athletic Director Grace Calhoun] and her team as well.”

On the best player he’s ever coached:

“Just from a draft status standpoint, Ivan Provorov is probably the highest ranked player I’ve ever coached [in Cedar Rapids].But there’s been too many guys over the years to truly answer that.”

…and coached against:

“Probably [Macklin] Celebrini when he was at BU, I would say.”

When asked if Brown would be the frontrunner for the next Celebrini:

“We’re trying. Whoever it is, I heard he’s a good student!”

We’d like to thank Coach Upton again for his time and insights. It was a pleasure to chat with him, and we look forward to seeing how next year’s roster comes together. Is it November yet?

Go Bruno!

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