Coach's best friend: Meet the top dogs of the NCHC
ST. PAUL — It was early in the 2023-24 season, and Minnesota Duluth coach Scott Sandelin was pleased to hear reporters had few questions one night in a postgame press conference.
Sandelin was happy to duck out of Amsoil Arena early, but his urgency had nothing to do with the score. UMD won 4-0 over Bemidji State and the questions asked weren't that annoying.
The coach was irked by the amount of penalties called, but that's not why Sandelin was ready to leave after just three minutes at the podium.
"Good?" Sandelin asked, seeing if there were any more questions. "Good, I got to go let my dog out."
While the Bulldogs brought in four freshmen last fall, the Sandelin family was welcoming a new puppy to the family — a golden labradoodle named Reilly. Scott Sandelin said he originally wanted a black lab, but his daughter, Katie, picked out Reilly.
The labradoodle is the third dog now the Sandelin family has had. They previously had 30-pound cockapoos. Reilly, at around 18 months, weighs 50 pounds. Scott Sandelin said he's a fan of the dog because it doesn't shed, but there have been moments where it has tested his patience.
And Scott Sandelin admitted that he and Katie were warned about what they were getting into.
"My wife is the voice of reason and we didn't listen to her," Scott Sandelin said of Wendy. "You can print that."
See, the puppy had a healthy appetite for socks, causing the coach to once return a call from a reporter while sitting in a parking lot awaiting a doggy prescription. Reilly had to visit the emergency veterinarian earlier in the day.
"I recommend dog insurance," said Scott Sandelin, when he was asked by the same reporter for advice about raising a puppy. That reporter was recently talked into adopting a puppy by his wife and kids.
"Never had it before, but we have it now," Scott Sandelin said.
Noted.
Scott Sandelin said he's always been a dog lover, and he's not alone in the NCHC. Five of the NCHC's nine head coaches — and at least six captains — are dog owners, while two more coaches previously had dogs in their lives. Only two coaches have never had a pet.
With conference play and the chase for the Penrose Cup about to get underway for 2024-25, let's meet the dogs of the NCHC, and why they're special to those leading the league this season.
The NCHC is home to a pair of French bulldogs, and none reside inside the home of the UMD Bulldogs at Amsoil Arena.
They belong to two members of the reigning Penrose Cup champions, the North Dakota Fighting Hawks. Head coach Brad Berry and assistant coach Dillon Simpson both have French bulldogs, and the "pups" have been known to frequent Ralph Engelstad Arena. Simpson's is 10 years old and named Kevin. Berry's is 5, and named Louis.
Louis originally belonged to Berry's daughter and her boyfriend. When they broke up, and his daughter moved somewhere she couldn't have pets, Louis moved in with Berry and his wife.
"She's not getting the dog back. I love that dog. I absolutely love that dog," Berry said. "When we go to bed at night, he sleeps in between me and my wife all the time. He has a snore to him. I think it covers up my snore, but he sleeps with us. I tell you what, I miss him a lot."
Berry grew up in Bashaw, Alberta, with dogs when he was young — he had a corgi — but moved away when he was 16 to play junior hockey. Louis is his first dog since.
Berry described Louis as a dog that looks serious, but is a "teddy bear" with big puffy cheeks who slobbers. Every night they watch the news together as part of their daily routine.
"What I love the most is I'll go to work at 6 in the morning," Berry said about their day. "I'll come home on a practice day at 5, 6 o'clock at night, or whatever. As soon as I get in, it sees me through the door, scratches at the door, he licks me all over the face. Then as soon as I sit down, it scratches at the door. 'Let's go take a walk.' It's got a routine, and it's awesome."
Berry has three kids, but they are all out of the house now. It was his kids who once helped him take his mind off the grind of being an NCAA Division I hockey coach — at North Dakota, no less — but now Louie has taken over that responsibility.
"It's something that I never thought, that a pet could do that," Berry said. "It's something that I really love."
Colorado College coach Kris Mayotte and his wife, Juli, welcomed their second child in October, but if it were up to the Tigers' coach, their family would continue to grow.
He wants another dog.
"I want Muzzy to have a friend," Mayotte said. "It's more for him. I like him so much.
"We're starting to leave the house more, and he's getting left more because he isn't very social, so I just want him to have somebody to hang with."
Muzzy is the Mayotte family's 85-pound, 4.5 year-old bernedoodle, who they brought home right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Mayotte said the dog can be a tad obsessive/compulsive after falling into a strict routine during the pandemic with no one coming to the house, let alone walking or driving by.
"We went on a walk right when you could start going out again, and there was a car parked in the street, and he lost his mind at it," Mayotte said.
Muzzy is also not a fan of Logan Will, the former Tigers forward. Or at least the version of him that is used as a growth chart in the Mayotte family basement. But otherwise Muzzy is a good dog.
"He's a huge cuddler," Mayotte said. "He's a good boy."
Mayotte, 41, of Pittsburgh, is in his fourth season as head coach at Colorado College after previously working as an assistant coach at Michigan, Providence and St. Lawrence. He's served as an assistant coach for Team USA at the IIHF World Junior Championship and played professionally in the ECHL and AHL following a four-year college career at Union.
Like any other highly competitive, goal-driven profession where there is pressure to produce results, Mayotte said it can be hard to get his mind off hockey. That's why the coach is thankful to have his family. His two kids, and Muzzy, help him get away from the game when he needs it.
"My kid is the first time I've been able to shut it off," Mayotte said. "I get home, we get two hours at night, I just hang with him. That's the first time since I got into this business 14 years ago that I've been able to just shut it off and be present. I am thankful for family in general to allow that to happen."
Canine Companions is an organization that helps provide service dogs to those who need them. Not all dogs make the final cut to become service dogs.
Zazu the labrador was one of those who got cut, but now he lives with the family of Omaha coach Mike Gabinet. The Mavericks coach of the last eight seasons has two kids with his wife Antara.
While he didn't make the cut to be a service dog, Zazu has many of the skills and traits of one, Gabinet said. The Mavericks coach said Zazu helps bring his stress level down, and he likes to bring Zazu to Baxter Arena.
"He's very chill," said Gabinet, who got Zazu when the dog was 1.5 years old. "He doesn't get up with me in the morning. He stays in bed. Then about 8 or 9 o'clock, he'll go to bed on his own."
Western Michigan associate head coach Jason Herter grew up on a farm in Hafford, Saskatchewan, so he had "several hundred" pets growing up, including eight samoyed huskies.
Now he has two labs — 11-year-old Midas and 4-year-old Marley — who came from a rescue in Duluth.
Herter was an assistant coach and associate head coach under Sandelin at UMD from 2011-2020, helping the Bulldogs win back-to-back NCAA championships in 2018 and 2019. His kids still call the Duluth area home.
"Midas, the male dog, is my best friend," said Herter, who was filling in for his boss and fellow dog owner, Broncos head coach Pat Ferschweiler, at NCHC Media Day this fall. "(Midas) goes everywhere with me. It gets to the point where, when we go visit our kids in Duluth from Kalamazoo, Midas is in the back seat of my truck and makes his way to the front seat, sits on my wife's lap, because that's where he is normally. She makes me pull over. She goes, sits in the back and Midas gets the front seat for the nine hour drive."
Herter insists his wife is OK getting bumped to the back, as long as Midas is happy.
Marley is described as a little more timid than Midas, and likes to play hard to get.
Herter's favorite trait about his two dogs is they don't know when you've had a bad day at work. They don't care if you don't land a recruit or lose a key player to the transfer portal. They don't care if the referee made a call late that cost you a big game.
"Whether we win or lose, I get home at 1 o'clock in the morning after doing video after the game, I know he's going to some and look at me, jump out of bed, and want me to throw the ball to him, because that's what I do," Herter said.
Two of the NCHC's nine head coaches had dogs previously, but not anymore.
Arizona State's Greg Powers had a white lab named Bailey who died six year ago at the age of 14. He always had German shepherds growing up, and when life gets less hectic, he said he'd like to get another dog.
First-year Miami head coach Anthony Noreen has no pets at the moment because of his busy life. He did have a dog growing up — Teddy the bichon frise.
"He was a nightmare. I loved him," Noreen said. "I think the family only kept him because I liked him. He was a disaster to everything in the house."
Two of the NCHC's nine coaches have never owned dogs.
Denver's David Carle, who grew up in Anchorage, never had any pets growing up because his dad is allergic. It can also be tough to have pets in Alaska because you travel a lot, and "you have to worry about bears in Alaska," Carle said.
St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson doesn't have to worry about bears in St. Cloud, but the Duluth native and former Bulldogs assistant coach is allergic to dogs. No one else in his family — wife, Kelly, or their two kids — are allergic.
"This is a huge issue in our house, because I'm allergic to almost everything, and my kids, I think, would rather trade me for a dog at this point," Larson said.
Larson, who helped coach UMD to NCAA titles in 2011 and 2018, said he loves dogs, and they've looked into hypoallergenic ones, but he's even allergic to those.
His daughter does have a fish, but she really wants a dog, Larson said.
"My 10-year-old daughter just said she would be willing to trade me for a dog," Larson said. "She would be OK if dad moved out of the house and we could get a dog."
While the two Bulldogs of the NCHC reside in Grand Forks, a dog named Champ belongs to the family of UMD senior captain Dominic James.
But Champ is not a bulldog. He's a chihuahua, and he's not named after UMD's Champ. His name was acquired long before James even committed to UMD.
"He's just always happy, always around, prancing around, causing trouble," James said. "He usually follows my mom around and hangs around with my mom. He doesn't give me too much love anymore."
Almost all of the NCHC's captains this season have dogs in their lives, though few live with them at college as the lifestyle isn't conducive to pet ownership.
Louis Jamernik V, the North Dakota captain who Berry's dog is not named after, has a Chesapeake Bay retriever that was his mom's dog before she died. Described as "a beggar, but a cute beggar," the dog now lives with Jamernik's dad in Calgary, Alberta.
Another Calgary native, Denver senior captain Carter King, has two West Island white terriers back home named Douglas and Stewie.
Colorado College senior captain Stanley Cooley of Regina, Saskatchewan, has a border collie named Patch who is 11 or 12 years old. Patch is not the best at fetch, or good on a leash, but still a good dog.
Nolan Krenzen, the Duluth native and fifth-year senior captain at Omaha, has his dog with him in Nebraska, as he has someone to help him take care of it. He and his girlfriend adopted a 5-month-old miniature American shepherd that Krenzen described as hyper and a little odd, but on good ways.
Western Michigan fifth-year senior goaltender Cameron Rowe, the former Wisconsin Badger from Wilmette, Illinois, has a pit bull named Marcell that came from a rescue in the city of Chicago. While he can be a bit nuts, Rowe said he's a great dog.
"Pit bulls are so misunderstood," Rowe said.
