Curtis Carr will be spending his eighth season with the Merrimack College men's ice hockey coaching staff in 2018-19, including his fifth as associate head coach.
Arriving prior to the 2011-12 season, Carr served as Assistant Coach for three seasons before his promotion to associate head coach in August of 2014. He has taken over a major role in recruiting since then and has helped matriculate many top Hockey East players to Merrimack, including Hockey East Third Team All-Stars Collin Delia, who signed a professional contract with the Chicago Blackhawks in the summer of 2017 and debuted with the Blackhawks in 2018, as well as Brett Seney, a 2015 National Hockey League (NHL) Draft fifth round selection by the New Jersey Devils. Carr also recruited defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic, one of the top young defensemen in Hockey East who was drafted in the third round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft by the Winnipeg Jets. He represents the second-highest draft pick by a student-athlete in program history.
In each of the last seven seasons, Carr has overseen Merrimack's penalty kill unit, and his presence has certainly been felt. The Warriors have boasted some of the stingiest defenses over the last seven years. In 2015-16, Merrimack started the season 20-for-20 on the penalty kill and did not allow a power play goal until its sixth game. Merrimack finished seventh in Hockey East and 39th nationally on the PK in 2016-17 and were once again competitive throughout the year on special teams in 2017-18, owning a 76.4-percent kill rate.
Carr perhaps produced his best work with the penalty kill in 2014-15, when Merrimack led Hockey East and ranked fifth nationally with an 88.2-percent success rate. In fact, since taking over the unit, Merrimack has ranked third or better in Hockey East in three out of those seven years. Merrimack boasted an 85.1-percent success rate in 2012-13 after killing off 84.5 percent of penalties in 2011-12. Merrimack fended off 81.5 percent of opponents' power plays in 2013-14.
Carr arrived in North Andover after five years with the Youngstown Phantoms of the United States Hockey League (USHL). Carr guided Youngstown to a 23-30-7 record in 2010-11 in his first season as Head Coach and General Manager. During his tenure with the Phantoms, he also served as Associate Head Coach and Director of Player Development in 2009-10.
Carr was named Interim Head Coach at Youngstown on February 16, 2010, but had the interim tag removed on April 1, 2010, with just two games remaining in the Phantoms’ inaugural season at the Tier I USHL level.
Prior to moving to Youngstown, Carr spent three seasons as the Assistant Coach and Director of Player Personnel for the NAHL’s Mahoning Valley Phantoms, during which the team posted a 142-61-11 record. Mahoning won a regular season title, two North Division titles, qualified for the National Tournament in all three seasons, and finished as the National Champion runner-up twice.
Under Carr’s tutelage, 60 players from Youngstown and Mahoning have secured NCAA scholarships.
A native of Georgetown, Ontario, Carr spent seven seasons as a player and coach for Kent State University and was a three-time ACHA All-American. Upon graduation in 2003, he was hired as an assistant coach for 2003-04 before being promoted to head coach, where he was an ACHA Coach of the Year finalist after leading the Golden Flashes to the ACHA National Tournament. In his first season at Kent State, Carr inherited a 9-30 team and produced a 21-18 record.
Carr is also actively involved with USA Hockey’s Select and Developmental camps and serves as a presenter for the USA Hockey’s Coaching Education Program.
He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Physical Education with a teacher certification and a Master’s in Sports Administration and Recreation Management from Kent State.
Carr resides in Methuen, Massachusetts, with his wife, Margaret, and their three daughters, Emma, Sarah and Molly, and their son, Lucas.
