Thomas Wolfe is famous for his quote that “you can’t go home again.” For new Franklin Pierce head coach Conor Foley, the Ravens program is truly his home, and he is thrilled for the coaching opportunity at his alma mater as well as the return of the team to being competitive in the NE-10 standings.
“No one loves this program more than I do, and if someone did, I wouldn’t want to meet them,” joked Foley. “This is the place where I had an extraordinary experience and I want to make sure our players have that same kind of culture here at the school and with the program. I enjoyed the culture and closeness of the team when I played here and want to re-instill that moving forward with this group and beyond. I think the team is close and do a lot of things together off the ice that has helped make them closer and the benefits on the ice can be seen with how well we started the season in the first half. After a long semester break we are literally starting season number two and looking forward to challenging for the conference title.”
Foley had a very successful career at Franklin Pierce where he was a two-time captain and NE-10 Player of the Year in the 2022-23 campaign. He played one additional year at Massachusetts-Boston and later started his coaching career as an assistant for head coach Peter Belisle. He is second all-time in goals and fourth in points at Franklin Pierce and has brought some new thinking to the Ravens following his mentorship at SUNY-Fredonia under head coach Jeff Meredith.
“There is no question I wouldn’t be here if not for the guidance and mentoring I received from Jeff at Fredonia,” stated Foley. “He is a terrific coach and we still talk at least once per week just to catchup and talk shop. There is so much to know as a head coach that I had the chance to observe first-hand, and I think that experience really helped prepare me for my dream job here at Franklin Pierce.”
While at Fredonia, Foley helped architect the Blue Devils power play and saw dramatic improvement in the production from his work with the Fredonia special team units. He has brought that skill development with him to FPU where the Ravens this year are scoring at a 22% success rate on the power play which has contributed significantly to their offensive out put in the first half of the season.
“I really encourage our guys to be creative with the man advantage,” noted Foley. “I think giving them opportunity to figure some things out on the ice and practice those things often and with purpose keeps guys engaged and present in the moment. I think it is also good to see what other teams are successful with and try to use those things where it fits the talent and skill level as well. I saw recently a clip where the Colorado Avalanche had copied something that Vancouver had done on the power play successfully. I was going to put that into a practice but actually got into a game situation where the opponent was doing something with their kill that I thought could be attacked by the Avs/Canucks play and white-boarded for the guys on the bench and they went out and executed it – that is a lot of fun for the coaching staff and the players too.”
The Ravens won their opening game of the second half with a 5-3 win over MCLA on Tuesday night and face a gauntlet of MASCAC competition over the next week with Worcester State, Framingham State and Fitchburg State before returning to conference games in the NE-10 for the balance of the season.
“We started the season with scrimmages against Worcester State and Fitchburg State,” said Foley. “Worcester State really beat us and we won in a shootout against FSU. We see both teams for real this time around so I am expecting that the guys will want to make up for the performance against Worcester and continue to build on being better moving forward. We relied heavily on the power play in the first half and Tuesday’s win saw some improved secondary scoring which we need to develop. We have some extra bodies we didn’t have in the first half so I do expect us to compete for the regular season title and the conference championship this year. This team has the talent to compete for those things.”
At 5-3-0 in the NE-10, Franklin Pierce is currently atop the conference leaderboard with St. Michael’s, Assumption and Saint Anselm all within striking distance. The Ravens return to conference play on January 16 with a two-game series against Assumption at home looking to continue their winning ways from the first half.