That David Carle would be a popular candidate to Denver’s next head hockey coach with the returning Pioneers isn’t much of a surprise.

Player after player has said on and off the record for the past three weeks that Carle was their first and only choice to succeed Jim Montgomery, the coach who had the foresight to hire him out of the junior ranks four and a half years ago and return Carle to where he cut his coaching teeth.

But Denver’s athletic department isn’t running the People’s Choice Awards. This is a hockey program with eight national championships, including one in 2017, and four consecutive trips to the elite eight and visits to the Frozen Four in 2016 as well as ’17.

This is a prime job in the college hockey landscape, and everyone knows it. When Athletic Director Ron Grahame, who has seen a thing for two in his 60 years around the game at every level imaginable, starts off by talking about Carle’s hockey acumen, one gets the distinct impression that Denver truly believes its 28-year-old replacement for Montgomery brings as hockey sense as well as horse sense to the table.

And the evidence suggests the Pioneers have every right to.

“When you sit down with David and you talk about the game, he has a real solid knowledge base,” Grahame said Tuesday at a press conference formally introducing Carle as the Pioneers’ ninth head hockey coach. “He teaches it very well.

“He is a quality individual that brings that understanding about how to treat people. I think he’s going to do a great job as far as how he manages the program.”

MORE: Denver’s defensemen give the lowdown on Carle

And that is a key with this hire. Denver is a hockey destination. It’s not a program that needs to be built, as Grahame’s coach, the legendary Murray Armstrong, did – piling up five titles in 12 seasons, or as George Gwozdecky did, winning two more. And even with four defections to NHL contracts after the past season, Montgomery didn’t leave the cupboard bare when he accepted an offer to coach the NHL’s Dallas Stars.

Carle’s charge can be summed up in three words: Stay the course.

That shouldn’t be an insurmountable hurdle given he and assistant coach Tavis MacMillan have recruited up a storm of talent for the Pioneers. Two incoming freshmen already have been drafted by NHL teams and as many as four more could get selected at June’s Entry Draft in, of all places, Dallas.

“I think a large part of his greatest impact has been as a recruiter,” sophomore defenseman Erich Fear said. “Every organization is successful because of the people they bring in, especially in college hockey where there is turnover so often. He and Tavis have been out there scouting and recruiting with the best of them, that’s a big reason why we’ve had the success we’ve had.”

New set of challenges

As head coach, however, Carle won’t be out beating the bushes and wearing layers to stay warm in rinks in the Western part of North America nearly as often. Instead, he will put on a new cap.

“It’s an exciting challenge,” he said. “Having not been a head coach yet, there’s things I don’t know yet. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know.

“I have a great staff around me.”

In addition to MacMillan and director of hockey operations Joe Howe, Carle plans to hire another assistant before the summer recruiting season hits its stride.

“I’ll look for someone with a lot of experience in the college game who has seen different situations,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot with Monty over the past five years, but I’ll be in a different chair.

“What I lean on is who I am as a person, what has guided me through adversity in the past. That will allow me to have success and lead our program in the right direction.”

Carle is battle tested

Any story about Carle’s ascension to DU’s top hockey job wouldn’t be complete without a reminder of the ladder he’s had to climb to reach this peak.

Carle was an elite hockey prospect, just as his older brother Matt (who won the first Hobey Baker Award by a DU player) was. David was a standout at Shattuck-St. Mary’s Prep in Minnesota under legendary coach Tom Ward and was heavily recruited before settling on Denver.

While at the NHL draft combine in 2008, a battery of tests revealed the heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the primary disease of the myocardium muscle of the heart. In an instant his ascent toward the NHL was deposited into a valley the depths of which only he knows.

Yet Denver honored his scholarship and Gwozdecky utilized him as a student assistant coach before one of his former assistants, Derek Lalonde, hired him as an assistant coach at Green Bay of the USHL.

“I knew when I came here I was going to have a great opportunity, and that this was a great school,” Carle said of 2008, not 2018. “I tried to make the most of it, and the more I grew here as a student, the more I knew I wanted to be a hockey coach.”

Along the way, he’s been influenced by a who’s who of coaches – the well-respected and long-established Ward and Gwozdecky as well as the upwardly mobile Montgomery and Lalonde, who very well could be be an NHL coach sooner than later.

“Obviously Monty is (a huge mentor). I learned an incredible amount about the game from (Ward),” Carle said. “Working with George for four years, I learned a lot about how to deal with people. Derek Lalonde, he’s obviously a really bright young mind, and he’s obviously on  quite a trajectory himself, being a head coach in the American Hockey League.

“I’ll lean on him and Derek a lot my first few years here, and throughout life. They’ve become good friends.”

MORE: Let’s Go DU and Magness Mayhem team up to talk about DU’s hiring of David Carle

Ready to go

So 10 years later, Carle now mans the captain’s chair. Even he admitted this happened faster than he’d anticipated.

“Honestly, everything happened a little faster than I would have suspected, but I’m not complaining,” he said. “(My age) is what it is. I’m prepared for this moment because of the experiences I’ve had.”

Carle’s ability to go consistently stay on the power play against adversity was yet another attribute that appealed to another person with a big vote in the hire.

“The thing that stood out to me, in addition to his hockey knowledge, is his impeccable character,” Vice Chancellor for Athletics, Recreation and Ritchie Center Operations Karlton Creech said. “His values represent exactly what we want DU to be and be thought of.

“There was wide support, both internally and externally. … They don’t come much better than David Carle.”

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