By DAN ZIMMERMAN

Published June 27, 2019

NORTH READING — As spring turns to summer and the first heat wave of the season inevitably draws near, thoughts turn toward ice, cold rinks and hockey. In particular, the North Reading hockey team recently learned that a new head coach was named to fill the vacancy created by last year’s retirement of John Giuliotti.

Enter, North Reading’s own Brian McAuliffe, who was selected by athletic director David Johnson and his staff to take on the role. McAuliffe landed the job because of his deep roots in this community, his decade-long tenure as an assistant with the Hornets, working side-by-side with Giuliotti and co-assistant Todd Flynn and a commitment to successfully engineer the rebuilding of the program.

With the start of the 2019-20 campaign still five months in the distance, McAuliffe has already begun to devise a game plan. He recently shared his thoughts on a warm summer afternoon.

NORTH READING native Brian McAuliffe, who spent the last 10 seasons as an assistant on the Hornet hockey team, is the new head coach. (Dan Pawlowski File Photo)

“Aside from wins and losses, character will be one of the most important aspects when we get underway this winter,” said McAuliffe, who has also served as the Hornets’ varsity golf coach since 2009 and earned Coach of the Year laurels in 2016. “I’ve already met with the team and had a number of one-on-one talks to get a sense of what we’ll face in that regard. I came away with a very positive outlook. We’ll have some great leadership on this team.”

Save for several years living in nearby Andover with his wife Lisa, McAuliffe has always called North Reading home.

He grew up on Orchard Drive and attended local schools and graduated from North Reading High School in 1997. He has been employed by North Reading Public Schools since 2008 and is currently a business administration teacher at that high school but is in the midst of a two-year hiatus, thanks to an accommodating leave policy.

“I’m a stay-at-home dad, helping to care for my kids – Lily (8), Colin (5), and Patrick (1),” said McAuliffe, 39. “I’ll return to teaching after one more year.”

As McAuliffe recounted, following graduation, he attended college at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. Certainly, he had aspirations of skating for the Division 3 Huskies but was hobbled with a knee injury during his senior year at North Reading. Despite an impressive high school hockey resume that featured 43 points in 14 games played as a senior, McAuliffe was unable to convince the Southern Maine staff to give him a chance.

“I met with then-coach Jeff Beaney and we discussed potential opportunities,” he recalled. “I was encouraged after speaking with him but the injuries ultimately derailed my ambitions and I wasn’t able to land a spot on the squad.”

BRIAN McAULIFFE

McAuliffe remained with the University of Southern Maine on a merit scholarship, playing occasional club hockey to retain his skills and earned a business degree. When he entered the workforce, McAuliffe was in sales but later, followed in his father’s footsteps and earned certification as a school teacher. McAuliffe also acquired his hockey pedigree from his dad, Joe, who played hockey for Wakefield High School and Merrimack College, where he earned MVP honors in 1971.

McAuliffe came up through the hockey ranks in the typical fashion, first learning to skate as a first-grader at a rink in Peabody through North Reading Youth Hockey. In fact, his progression through the various levels, mites, squirts, pee-wees, bantams and midgets, were all part of NR Youth Hockey. Perhaps that’s the reason behind his insistence in shoring up the communications between the community’s hockey organizations.

“The synergy that we’ll have between the Youth program and the High School program is something that hasn’t really existed because of logistics,” explained McAuliffe, who also worked as a high school hockey referee for a time. “Going forward, it will make sense to communicate strategy and share information, such as the importance of good character. We can start teaching them at an earlier stage.”

When McAuliffe reached the high school ranks as a freshman, North Reading hockey was on the brink. Numbers were down and there seemed to be little interest in the survival of the program. Fortunately, the Hornets persisted and McAuliffe became a varsity player as a freshman, skating as a forward with occasional fill-in shifts as a blue-liner. It was rocky for him, at first, but he soon helped turn the program around and was rewarded with the captain’s “C” in his senior year. He also earned a number of noteworthy tributes, including Cape Ann All-League, Lawrence Eagle Tribune All-Scholastic, and Lowell Christmas Tournament MVP.

“I was kind of a small player and I didn’t get much playing time during my first year,” he recalled. “But as a sophomore, I gradually got more exposure and by the time I reached my junior and senior seasons, I really came on as a player. For a stretch of time, before I was hurt, I was one of the state’s leading scorers.”

McAuliffe’s playing time with the Hornets was during a period in their history when they struggled to win games, much like last year’s team. During his four years as a player, he wasn’t able to enjoy the thrill of a tournament visit.

“After I recovered from my knee injury, I did return to play my last five games as a senior,” he said. “We had a good run but in the end, lost to Lynnfield, 4-2, in the season finale. We ended up with a 9-11 record, one win short of qualifying for the postseason.”

During his ten years as Giuliotti’s assistant, McAuliffe has helped steer the Hornets to more than one hundred regular season wins, a pair of Cape Ann League championships, and a number of postseason bids. He now has a chance to fulfill a lifelong desire to win a state title as the head coach of the Hornets.

“When David Johnson introduced me to the team as the new coach, I received a nice round of applause, which was unexpected,” he said. “There are a lot of new faces but the reception so far has been positive. We’ll have strong leadership from the start. We announced that Alex VerColen will be the team captain and Storm Davis and Zack Stats will be the assistants. I feel they’re ready to take on the burden of finding us a few more goals in the season ahead.”