After spending four years as SUNY Geneseo’s starting goaltender, former Div. III National Player of the Year, Devin McDonald has joined the Oswego State men’s hockey team as its new Festa Graduate Assistant Coach. 

McDonald is the third person to be awarded the assistantship since its creation, joining current assistant coach Jon Whitelaw, who was the team’s graduate assistant coach from 2016 to 2019. 

When McDonald saw the position open online, he “jumped all over it,” looking forward to the opportunity to learn from head coach Ed Gosek and Whitelaw.

“An opportunity like this, it’s something you can’t turn down,” McDonald said. “It was an opportunity that allowed me to move forward with my hockey career as a coach after finishing playing. It was weird to be on the other side at first, but I’ve been here and I’m looking forward to the next two years.”

The Festa position is a good opportunity to bring in a goaltender, Gosek added. With the addition of McDonald, he can take some of the responsibilities of really working with the goaltenders during practices and doing game review of every shot, save and goal allowed. 

While the team has had goaltending coaches in the past, such as former U.S. Olympian Pete Sears, who won the silver medal in the 1972 Olympics, until 2013, the position has always been volunteer, so it was harder to find someone to take the position, Gosek said. 

Sears would work with the goalies twice a week for an hour, plus watch goaltenders during home games and provide evaluations that were “pages and pages of notes.” With the help of video, Sears and the coaching staff would talk with the goaltenders during practices.

Last season, Oswego native Dalton Izyk, who was a goaltender for Div. I Robert Morris University, occasionally helped the team when he could, Gosek said.

“Pete Sears is the last true goaltender coach that we had,” Gosek said. “We were very fortunate this year that we had a few goaltenders with experience that we respected that applied for the position.”

McDonald will have three goaltenders to work with this coming season, including junior Steven Kozikoski, who took over net-minder duties in the middle of last season, overtaking two seniors in the process. 

The team added freshman Ritchie Parent and junior transfer from UMass-Lowell, Eric Green, for the two additional goaltending spots. McDonald said it seemed like all three goaltenders were excited to have him on the coaching staff.

“Me, being one of the smaller goalies in the country every year, vs. Koz or Green who are 6-foot-5 or 6-foot-6, around there, maybe I can teach them a few things,” McDonald said. “And Ritchie, being a guy similar to my height, give or take a couple inches, I can help him with [the] transition into this next level, with what I struggled with at first or what I noticed worked. Hopefully I can help him with other things too.”

Outside of the goaltenders, McDonald is hoping to help the entire team after learning other styles of hockey during his one year of professional hockey in France with the Meudon Comets. He played alongside SUNY Geneseo teammates Anthony Marra and Arthur Gordon, who still play overseas in France.

McDonald said that the style of hockey overseas is not as physical as the SUNYAC is but is a little more offensive..

“I played with some good guys over there, where it’s just a different style of hockey that maybe I can bring some things here,” McDonald said. “With the upperclassmen [here], the thing that I can bring and help them get to that next level and help them get over there with the connections that I made and the people I met.”

As expected, with the SUNYAC rivalry between SUNY Geneseo and Oswego State, there has been some “healthy banter” not only between McDonald and the rest of the team, but from his former teammates at SUNY Geneseo, as well.

Gosek mentioned that he had not yet heard from SUNY Geneseo head coach Chris Shultz but was sure they would “bust on each other soon.”

“The upperclassmen I played against, those guys are giving me a hard time,” McDonald said. “I know Broughman scored a couple on me one game when he was a freshman and stuff like that.”

While the season will not be normal due to COVID-19, with the hope that the season will begin in January after Oswego State suspended athletics for the entirety of the fall semester, McDonald said this will give him extra time to learn the Lakers’ systems and be ready come January.

“I’m sure it’ll take him a little time to get up to speed on what we do and how we do things. He’s already observing what we do,” Gosek said. “There’s certainly a difference between us and Geneseo. There’s not a right or a wrong. It’s just different styles and coaching philosophies and how the coaches approach things.”

While he still has two years in the program, McDonald will come out of the assistantship with a Master of Business Administration from the school. Gosek said McDonald understands the expectations of the program: completing schoolwork and getting his degree, while making sure to represent the program in a good fashion, “no different than when he was at Geneseo,” Gosek added.

“[Coaching is] something I’ve always wanted to do. If I get lucky enough to get to do that after this, then I will definitely take advantage of that,” McDonald said. “I look at it as, in this position, I get to obtain my master’s in business, which will help me out if I go into the business world and not coaching. Then I can use the skills I learned from playing and coaching within the business world.”

Photo Provided by Oswego State Men’s Hockey