Boston University is set to announce that David Quinn will succeed Jack Parker as the BU men’s hockey coach, according to a source. The athletic department will make it official at a news conference 11 a.m. Tuesday at a location to be determined.
The news comes just two days after Parker’s 40-year head coaching career at BU ended with a 1-0 loss to the University of Massachusetts-Lowell in the Hockey East championship game. Parker announced March 11 that this season would be his last on the Terrier bench.
Quinn, 46, who was a co-captain for Parker’s 1987-88 team, served as Parker’s associate head coach for five seasons, but left after the 2009 national championship to become the head coach of the Lake Erie Monsters (AHL).
Last June, Quinn joined the Colorado Avalanche as an assistant coach under Joe Sacco, another BU hockey alumnus.
The Cranston, R.I., native is highly regarded as a top-notch recruiter, and was long seen as a likely candidate to replace Parker whenever he decided to retire.
On March 15, athletic director Mike Lynch told The Daily Free Press that a committee, comprised in part by him, BU President Robert Brown and Provost Jean Morrison, would pick the next coach. Lynch indicated he was looking to move quickly.
The hiring of Quinn means associate head coach Mike Bavis, who replaced Quinn starting in the 2009-10 season and said March 11 he felt very qualified for the job, was passed over.
“I’m a little more uniquely positioned to deal with this,” Bavis said that afternoon. “As the last couple of years have shown, this is more than just a hockey job.”
The status of Bavis and assistant coach Buddy Powers moving forward is unclear.
The source also said the school “talked to” New York Rangers assistant coach Mike Sullivan and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (AHL) head coach John Hynes, though how close either was to getting the job is also unclear.
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