New Hampshire has named Jim Tortorella as its new director of men’s hockey operations.
Tortorella returns to UNH, where he was an assistant coach for two seasons (1993-95) and an associate head coach for three seasons (2011-2014).
Tortorella spent the last six seasons (2018-24) as an assistant coach at Harvard. He oversaw the defense, penalty killing and recruiting.
In 2017-18, Tortorella was the head coach at Saint Anselm, leading the Hawks to a 17-9-1 record and winning the Northeast-10 championship. The year prior, he served as a volunteer assistant coach at Providence.
Tortorella was the associate head coach at UNH from 2011 to 2014 and previously spent 16 seasons as the head coach at Colby, where he remains the program’s all-time winningest coach with a record of 230-138-33.
Colby was consistently ranked in the top 15 nationally under Tortorella and won the ECAC championship in 1997 for the first time in 30 years. He was twice named the NESCAC coach of the year (2006, 2008) and was also tabbed the New England Sports Writers coach of the year in 2007-08, as well as being a finalist for the national Division III coach of the year three times (1996, 2006, 2008).
Tortorella has also worked with USA Hockey as the director of New England Select Teams player development(1997-2003, 2008-15) and has coached two stints with the United States World Junior Team (1999, 2000). He has also been highly involved with the American Hockey Coaches Association, including serving as the association’s president (2002-03). Tortorella currently holds a master certificate from USA Hockey, the organization’s highest level of coaching education achievement.
Tortorella, a former standout goalie at Maine, began his coaching career at Brunswick High School (1984-87) before moving on to Cony High School, where he was a two-time Maine coach of the year in five seasons.
