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John P. Riley Jr.

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Jack Riley
Jack Riley, Jr.
Riley as coach of Army men's ice hockey team
Biographical details
Born June 15, 1920(1920-06-15)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died February 3, 2016(2016-02-03) (aged 95)
Sandwich, Massachusetts, U.S.
Playing career
1940–1942 Dartmouth
1946–1947 Dartmouth
1947–1949 US National Team
1949–1950 Boston Olympics
Position(s) Left Wing
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1950–1986 Army
1959–1960 US National Team
Head coaching record
Overall 542–343–20 (.610)
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
1960 Olympic Gold Medal
Awards
1957 Spencer Penrose Award
1960 Spencer Penrose Award
1979 US Hockey Hall of Fame
1986 Lester Patrick Award
1998 International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame
2002 Lester Patrick Award
2004 Army Sports Hall of Fame
Medal record
Men's Ice hockey
Representing the Flag of the United States USA
World Championships
Bronze 1949 Sweden
Olympics
Gold 1960 Squaw Valley

John Patrick "Jack" Riley (June 15, 1920 – February 3, 2016) was an American ice hockey player and coach. The hockey coach at West Point for more than 35 years, Riley coached the United States to the gold medal at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, during which he cut future Olympic coach Herb Brooks at the last minute. He played for the U.S. Olympic team at the 1948 St. Moritz Olympics.

Biography[]

Riley was born in Boston in 1920[1][2] and raised in Medford, Massachusetts. He played prep-school hockey at Tabor Academy and was graduated in 1939. He played college hockey at Dartmouth College (1940–1942 and 1946–47) as well as for the U.S. Naval Air Corps (1942–1946). In 1948 he was part of an American team that was disqualified as two rival teams arrived for the Americans at the St. Moritz Olympics. (See Ice hockey at the 1948 Winter Olympics.) He was then player-coach of the national team at the 1949 IIHF World Championship.

Riley began his Army coaching career in 1950, remaining the Cadets' head coach through 1986. During his tenure, he twice won the Spencer Penrose Award for NCAA Coach of the Year. He was replaced by one of his sons, Rob Riley in 1986. Another son, Brian Riley, took over the job from Rob in 2004. Rob's son Brett was named as the inaugural head coach at Long Island University in 2020.[3]

Riley's Americans surprised the hockey world going undefeated in winning the country's first Olympic gold medal and second ever.

Riley was inducted in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1979, and the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 1998. He is a two-time winner of the Lester Patrick Trophy, in 1986 (as a coach) and 2002 (as a member of the Olympic gold medal-winning United States hockey team of 1960).

In the 1960s, Riley ran the Eastern Hockey Clinic (a hockey camp for high school-age players) in Worcester, Massachusetts. The camp had many NHL players as coaches, including John Ferguson, Tommy Williams (the only American NHL player at the time), Jean Ratelle, and Charlie Hodge. He died on February 3, 2016 at a retirement home in Sandwich, Massachusetts.[1][4]

Head coaching record[]

Season Team Overall Conference Standing Postseason
Army Cadets[lower-alpha 1] (University Division Independent[lower-alpha 2]) (1950–1961)
1950-51 Army 2-10-1
1951-52 Army 3-12-0
1952-53 Army 8-8-0
1953-54 Army 10-7-0
1954-55 Army 8-8-0
1955-56 Army 11-5-0
1956-57 Army 14-4-0
1957-58 Army 15-4-1
1958-59 Army 9-10-1
1959-60 Army 16-5-1
1960-61 Army 17-8-0
Army: 113-81-4
Army Cadets[lower-alpha 1] (ECAC Hockey) (1961–1973)
1961-62 Army 17-6-1 14-4-1 5th ECAC Quarterfinals
1962-63 Army 17-6-2 12-4-2 6th ECAC Quarterfinals
1963-64 Army 20-8-0 17-4-0 2nd ECAC Quarterfinals
1964-65[lower-alpha 3] Army 17-7-0 3-7-0 12th
1965-66 Army 17-7-1 3-6-1 11th
1966-67 Army 15-12-0 4-6-0 10th
1967-68 Army 14-10-0 5-7-0 12th
1968-69 Army 20-7-1 4-6-1 10th
1969-70 Army 13-12-0 5-8-0 11th
1970-71 Army 8-14-1 3-7-1 11th
1971-72 Army 11-14-0 1-9-0 17th
1972-73 Army 9-17-1 1-9-0 17th
Army: 178-120-7 72-77-6
Army Cadets (ECAC 2) (1973–1980)
1973-74[lower-alpha 4] Army 20-7-1
1974-75 Army 18-11-0
1975-76 Army 18-9-1
1976-77 Army 22-6-1
1977-78 Army 13-12-1
1978-79 Army 7-21-0
1979-80 Army 19-12-1
Army: 117-78-5
Army Cadets (ECAC Hockey) (1980–1986)
1980-81[lower-alpha 5] Army 21-13-1 [lower-alpha 6] [lower-alpha 6]
1981-82 Army 25-11-0 [lower-alpha 6] [lower-alpha 6]
1982-83 Army 25-11-1 [lower-alpha 6] [lower-alpha 6]
1983-84 Army 28-5-1 [lower-alpha 6] [lower-alpha 6]
1984-85 Army 17-13-0 0-11-0 12th
1985-86 Army 18-11-1 2-9-0 11th
Army: 134-64-4 2-20-0
Total: 542-343-20

      National Champion         Conference Regular Season Champion         Conference Tournament Champion
      Conference Regular Season & Conference Tournament Champion       Conference Division Champion

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/02/03/jack-riley-who-coached-hockey-team-gold-dies/otgDTneWWuz8Uw34jsGz6J/story.html
  2. ↑ Many sources give 1922 as a year of birth, but 1920 is backed by the Society for International Hockey Research and the U.S. Public Records Index
  3. ↑ LIU Sharks (May 27, 2020). Riley Announced as Inaugural Head Coach of Men's Hockey at LIU. Press release. Retrieved on June 29, 2020.
  4. ↑ http://www.dartmouthsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=11600&ATCLID=210684565
  5. ↑ "2011-12 Army Hockey Media Guide", Go Army Sports. Retrieved on 2014-07-17. 

See also[]

References[]

External links[]

Awards and achievements
Preceded by
William Harrison
John Kelley 		Spencer Penrose Award
1956–57
1959–60 		Succeeded by
Harry Cleverly
Murray Armstrong
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at John P. Riley Jr.. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).



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