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The UConn men’s hockey team will have some new faces on the bench this season as the team announced a handful of changes to their coaching staff. Most notably, Tyler Helton was hired as an assistant coach to replace the departed Brendan Buckley. The latter left to take a job at Boston College, his alma mater.
Helton has been involved with the UConn men’s hockey program since he was a freshman in 2012 and officially joined the staff in 2013.
He worked as a student assistant and graduate manager with duties such as building scouting reports for opponents, helping the staff create practice plans, working with individual players and contributing to the Huskies’ power play and penalty kill. Helton was also responsible for all team video and trained new student assistants on how to use in-game video and stats.
He has also spent time with USA Hockey, working district camps in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions among various other sessions. Helton also completed an internship with USA Hockey in Colorado Springs in 2016.
With Buckley’s departure, current assistant Joe Pereira was promoted to associate head coach. He has spent all six seasons at UConn with head coach Mike Cavanaugh and is one of the top recruiters on staff.
Former Huskies winger Joe Ferriss returns to the program as the new graduate manager, taking over for Helton. He played in 120 games over his four-year career with UConn from 2012-2016.