The 1991 Northern Michigan University hockey team celebrates its national championship on the ice immediately after defeating Boston University 8-7 in triple overtime in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March 30, 1991. (Photo courtesy NMU Archives)
Journal Sports Editor
MARQUETTE — Not many sports programs can boast having just four head coaches in a nearly half-century of their history.
Northern Michigan University hockey is one of them.
The university announced Wednesday and will introduce Friday just its fourth head coach for its premier program, men’s ice hockey. Dave Shyiak, 57, will come back to the Wildcats after serving as associate head coach at St. Cloud State in St. Cloud, Minnesota, for the past four years.
Dave Shyiak — 1990 NMU hockey team photo
The public is invited to the Wildcat Room near the Berry Events Center for the introductory news conference that will also include the media to introduce Shyiak at 11 a.m. Friday.
NMU athletic director Rick Comley — the Wildcats’ first head coach who put in 26 years in that position from 1976 to 2002 — had to have thought of Shyiak immediately when Grant Potulny announced he was leaving Marquette just over two weeks ago.
That’s because Shyiak was not only a key player — actually a captain — of Comley’s 1991 NCAA national championship team, but the 1993 NMU graduate and native of Brandon, Manitoba, served as an assistant coach at Northern for Comley and his successor, Walt Kyle, for a decade from 1995 to 2005.
Shyiak rose through the Wildcats’ coaching ranks from recruiting coordinator until he became associate head coach in 2002.
He left Northern in 2005 and has had several head coaching and associate head coaching jobs in other college hockey programs since.
Dave Shyiak — on the St. Cloud State hockey cocaching staff
Kyle — who was also a Comley assistant both during the national championship season and through the end of Comley’s tenure at Northern — was the school’s second head coach from 2002-17, while Potulny was the third from 2017 until earlier this month.
Starting as an NMU player in 1987, Shyiak was a senior on the 1990-91 national championship team as he also was on teams that won WCHA playoff titles in 1989 and 1991.
“I’m thrilled that Dave Shyiak will be returning to campus to lead our hockey program,” Comley said in an NMU Sports Information press release on Wednesday morning. “Dave was a part of our national championship team and helped keep our program…
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