Brett Larson named new Men’s Hockey Coach
· Yahoo Sports
The Minnesota Golden Gophers men’s hockey team has decided to keep the St. Cloud State to Minnesota pipeline alive. Tuesday morning the Gophers announced that current St. Cloud State head coach Brett Larson will replace former St. Cloud State head coach Bob Motzko as the new head coach of the Gophers. Larson is expected to receive a 5-year deal with Minnesota and will meet the press at 4:00 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.
Larson has been the head coach of the Huskies for the past eight seasons taking St. Cloud State to the NCAA Championship game in 2021. Prior to being named the head coach of St. Cloud State. He was a assistant coach for Minnesota Duluth twice from 2008-2011 and from 2015-2018 where he helped the Bulldogs to two NCAA Championships. In between his stints at UMD he spent one year as head coach and general manager of Sioux City in the USHL and two years as associate head coach at Ohio State.
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Larson also has extensive international experience with Team USA. Most recently, he was an assistant coach on the 2025 team that won gold at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championships. He served in the same role in 2024 and 2020. He was also an assistant coach for Team USA at the 2022 Winter Olympics and was head coach of the U.S. Junior Select Team that won the 2012 World Junior A Challenge.
Mark Coyle has the following statement in the press release announcing the hire.
“I am excited for Brett to lead our men’s hockey program and look forward to welcoming him, his wife Kelly, and their children, Lane and Calla, to Minnesota. Brett brings extensive coaching experience at both the collegiate and international levels, and throughout the process, it became clear that he possesses the leadership, vision, and drive to guide our program. He understands the responsibility that comes with this job and our expectation to compete at the highest level.”
With the Larson hiring now official in general, many Gopher fans do not appear to be thrilled with Mark Coyle’s thinking in the hiring process.
According to Michael Russo in the athletic, the finalist for the job were Larson, former Gopher star and assistant coach Grant Potulny and Ohio State heas coach Steve Rohlik. Many Minnesota fans were wondering why Coyle did not do a larger national search and interview potentially interested candidates with State of Minnesota ties like Maine head coach Ben Barr, Dartmouth head coach Reid Cashman, and Western Michigan Head Coach Pat Ferschweiler.
Many Minnesota fans are alarmed that Larson’s St. Cloud State teams have struggled in recent years finishing below .500 the past two seasons and ending with NCHC Quarterfinal series sweeps with records of 14-21-1 in 2024-25 and 16-19-1 this past season. Proponents of the hire have said that Larson is well respected as a hockey coach and was not given any institutional assistance at St. Cloud State to help his program win. The Huskies did not have any nil to speak of, nor were they putting much institutional money into the program.
Minnesota will be a significant step up in that aspect but will come with a lot of added pressure to win and win quickly. Coyle and his advisors in the search which featured prominent Minnesota alums like Pat Micheletti and Lou Nanne think that he can do the job. But much of the Minnesota fan base definitely remains skeptical.
What will be interesting to watch is who Larson hires as assistant coaches and their potential ties to the University of Minnesota. Youth hockey hub reported there are rumors that Larson will look to bring current St. Thomas assistant and former gopher Corey Laylin as well as former St. Cloud State and NHL star Matt Cullen in as assistants. Cullen has two sons in Brooks and Wyatt who are both currently committed to the University of Minnesota and are expected to come in as freshman next season and a younger son Joey who is potentially the most talented of the three. Laylin had two sons play for him at St Thomas and his youngest son Bode is playing in the USHL and currently is expected to be a freshman at St. Thomas next fall.
As with Coyle’s recent hire of Boom May to lead the Gopher women’s hockey program, only time will tell to see whether Coyle has made the right decision to bring both programs back to the top of the national heap or whether the most skeptical of the fan base will end up being correct and Minnesota will be looking for their replacements sooner rather than later.