“A real-life Ted Lasso.”

That’s the best way Andrew Brewer can put Gardiner MacDougall.

He’s a coach. He has the moustache. Even at 65, he has the infectious, undying energy. He can talk to, motivate and connect with people. He’s the ultimate recruiter. He can make anybody feel good about themselves. He’s humble.

Like Lasso, he always has a joke lined up for a news conference. He’ll tell you about the two ladies in his team’s life, Lady Luck and Lady Mo’, and that you need to find Lady Luck before you find Lady Mo’ in the crowd. He shows up early at the rink every day to find them, he says.

He signs his texts with “GMac @ Mct” (short for Moncton) and starts or ends every conversation with a stranger with a genuine interest in what they do, where they’re from and who their family is.

According to those who’ve worked with him, he knows what his strengths and weaknesses are, doesn’t try to be the X’s and O’s guy and surrounds himself with people who do what he doesn’t.

“I have my efficiency chart. It’s 30 years old, way before analytics,” he said on a recent phone call, chuckling, not because he has any disdain for analytics but because he has aged himself again.

“My coaches do more video than I do.”

But there’s one thing MacDougall has on Lasso.

“He has had way more success,” Brewer said. “He’s better at winning.”

Winning seems to be all he does.

He became the winningest coach in Canadian university hockey history at the University of New Brunswick, where he captured nine national titles. Last year, in his final one at the helm of the UNB Varsity Red, he went 43-0. He then guided Canada to a perfect record at the U18 worlds, winning gold in a come-from-behind win against the USA. In 2022, when the Memorial Cup-host Saint John Sea Dogs fired their coach following a shocking first-round exit in the QMJHL playoffs, they asked MacDougall to fill in. He took over a team he’d never seen play and, in 39 days, turned them into Memorial Cup champs.

Brewer says the question was always, “Is the schtick going to work in junior?”

This year, MacDougall answered it, leaving his beloved Reds after 24 years to take over as head coach of the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats.

In his first season behind the bench, they won the QMJHL title, going 16-3 in the playoffs. On Friday, at the 2025 CHL Awards, he was named coach of the year.

This season, with another championship and another coaching award, was different, though: his son, Taylor, an up-and-coming mind in the game, was also the team’s general manager.

The combination?

“It has proven to be pretty powerful,” Brewer said.

Gardiner MacDougall is in a Tim Hortons drive-thru.

“Small iced cappuccino with chocolate milk and that’ll be all, thank you very much,” he says out of his car window.

He’s on his way home from another day at a hockey arena. It’s the week between the end of the regular season and his team’s four-round QMJHL playoff run. He’s going to win it, but he doesn’t know that yet.

He’s incapable of looking that far ahead. Gardiner is all about micro vision, his idea that if you have enough positive micro days that the macro takes care of itself.

But he can begin to reminisce on the late-career move he made from Fredericton and UNB to Moncton and the Wildcats.

UNB, Gardiner said, was his NHL when he got the job, and it stayed that way “’til the end” for him.

But his journey in Moncton “has been invigorating.”

It started with a call from Robert Irving, the team’s billionaire owner of New Brunswick’s Irving family, who owns Irving Oil, potato giant Cavendish Farms (of which Robert is the president) and the lumber business J.D. Irving (of which he’s the co-CEO).

Irving had known Gardiner for years, and after deciding not to renew the contract of his head coach, he reached out.

After an initial visit to the facilities to meet with Irving, Gardiner’s decision was on hold because he had to go to Finland for the U18s.

Irving was willing to wait.

“He’s a winner and his energy is second to none,” Irving said. “It just says that we’ve got a winner, someone who knows the game very well and knows how to bring players along, and develop them, and coach them to be successful on the ice and off the ice. And he just brings an exuberance to everything that he does and everyone around him that we’re here to win, and Gardiner’s going to be the man to do it.”

Gardiner eventually told him that if he took it, he’d want to be in charge of personnel and to have people he knew be a part of it.

He wasn’t thinking of his son when he said that, though. After calling Taylor on his way home to Fredericton and telling him that he’d have to look for a general manager because he didn’t want to play that role at this stage in his career, Taylor said, “Well, Dad, I’d be interested in that.”

At the time, Gardiner thought it was intriguing and told Taylor, “OK, well I’ll let Mr. Irving know and you can go meet him and see where it goes,” knowing that the general manager would actually have more day-to-day dealings with Irving than him.

Taylor, 35, was working for Roy Sports Group (RSG). He was the agency’s legal counsel, handled all of the legal on their marketing side, did NHL contract research and preparation, recruited and scouted for them in the Maritimes and Quebec and was starting to negotiate deals. Allain Roy, the president and CEO of RSG, was grooming him to be one of the people to take over the agency at some point. “And he wasn’t very far from there,” Roy said.

Before being hired at RSG, he earned his Juris Doctor from UNB, his MBA from the Edinburgh School of Business, and played for five years in the QMJHL, five more years under his dad with the Reds, and briefly professionally in the ECHL with the Brampton Beast and EIHL with the Edinburgh Capitals.

Irving was immediately “attracted to the father-and-son tandem approach, knowing that they’ll be able to work very closely together and trust each other.”

After interviewing with Irving, Taylor was named the team’s general manager and director of hockey operations.

Taylor just hoped he could “be more useful to (Gardiner) as a GM than I was as a player.”

“That would be nice,” Taylor said, “and not a high bar.”

As a player, Gardiner said Taylor “totally bought in,” was a “terrific leader” and “played his role” on strong teams where he was often fighting for his spot.

As a manager, Taylor believes junior hockey’s “a beast of its own.” In pro, he says you can build around a particular vision for what a team should look like. In junior, you have to be more flexible.

From his dad, Taylor also knows how hard he works to build relationships with everyone in an organization, from players to rink staff.

Taylor and Gardiner MacDougall. (Daniel St. Louis / CHL)

Gardiner and Taylor both say they’ve found a yin and yang to their working relationship in the different strengths and experiences they have.

Gardiner grew up with three younger sisters in a Prince Edward Island community of a couple of hundred people called Bedeque. He started working on the farm and at the local hardware store at 12 and says his persistence, habits and love of community come from his old man.

His passion for coaching started with a passion for teaching as a physical educator in Norway House, Manitoba, more than 800 kilometers north of Winnipeg. He had a poster of Terry Fox, one of his heroes, in his office. “Enthusiasm is contagious, catch the fever,” it read.

“You always want to be enthusiastic,” he says. “I’ve always had energy, and you channel that.”

Gardiner says that goaltending (Kings prospect Carter George) and “a guy from the Yukon” (2026 NHL Draft sensation Gavin McKenna) won him gold at U18s, and William “Willie” Dufour won him that Memorial Cup in Saint John. He’d rather talk about being a product of the mentors he’s had (Clare Drake, Andy Murray, Dave King), the books he’s read and the people and places he comes from, than himself.

Taylor brought contacts with players, agents, scouts and executives from across the NHL and QMJHL. He knew the league and his contacts with prep schools and colleges across the United States had positioned them well for the NCAA’s opening of eligibility to QMJHL players. Through his time as an agent, he understands now just what players want, but what parents do.

When Taylor was playing junior, Gardiner joked that he was his best recruiter. Once, when Taylor was 16, he recruited a 20-year-old for his dad, who went on to become an All-Canadian, asking Gardiner to give him the phone during a recruitment call.

“He has done an amazing job,” Gardiner said. “You get a lot of opportunities through the years of going to pro, or major junior, or Europe, and at UNB I was the coach, I was the GM (and) you can look in the mirror and if you’re not doing well the coach can say to the GM ‘Get me better players’ and the GM can say ‘Coach, coach better’ and I had those discussions with the mirror for 24 years. So, to have Taylor, I can see the significance of him and the cohesion between your head coach and your general manager is so essential.”

Gardiner also said his son’s communication skills are “top notch.”

“People say simplicity is the ultimate source of sophistication, and I think he has just a great way — and part of it is working with the law — of getting to the facts,” Gardiner said.

Roy is in his 25th season in the agency business and has known Taylor since he was 12 years old because he used to run summer camps for prospects out of UNB. Taylor later became a client and lived with Marc Lavigne, one of Roy’s agents, in the Montreal area.

He called Taylor closer to family than a former employee. He describes Gardiner as “a guy with a lot of panache.”

After taking the job with Moncton, Gardiner gave Roy the hard MacDougall pitch for one of his clients earlier this year.

“He was like ‘You know what, Al, there was a kid once and I went to see him six times and you know what happened on the seventh time that I went to see him?’ And I was like ‘Let me guess, Gardiner, you got him to go to UNB?’ And he was like ‘Yep. I’m not going to give up,’” Roy remembered, laughing. “He just lets you know that he’s just going to keep coming at you, and I respect it.”

Meanwhile, Taylor was described as “very smart” and “a little bit more softly spoken.”

“I think (Taylor) will rise through the ranks of pro hockey very quickly,” Roy said. “I think there’s a bit of a misconception in the pro sports world that you can’t be a good person and be a good manager, and I think he’s that guy that will help break that trend. He puts the individual first, but he’s not afraid to make tough decisions, not afraid to have tough conversations.”

In that way, Taylor reminds him of Hockey Hall of Famer Cliff Fletcher, who famously never had a negative conversation with someone (whether firing, trading or releasing someone) unless he could have it in person.

“That has always stuck with me because I’m like ‘man, do I see the opposite a lot in this world now — people just afraid to communicate because of what’s going to come afterwards (which is more communication),’” Roy said. “Taylor’s a great communicator, I think he thinks the game very well, he uses advanced stats but does not hide behind them.”

When Taylor first told Roy about the job, though, Roy had an honest conversation with him.

“How’s it going to be with your dad?” he asked. He knew that Irving was “a pretty intense individual,” too. But he also knew that Taylor would navigate it all. And after continuing to work with him in a different way this year because he has “quite a few kids” on the Wildcats, Roy has seen both of them do just that.

“It’s a hell of a start,” Roy said. “If their record was reversed, maybe it would be a different conversation.”

Father and son are both thankful for what this last year has given them.

“We’re wildly fortunate to have this opportunity. It has been a privilege,” Taylor said. “There have been plenty of ups and downs, and there will be many more, but the one thing with him leading the charge is that there’s always a lot of buy-in, and it starts with his passion and enthusiasm for the process.”

Added Gardiner of working with his son, for a rare moment losing the words that have always come so freely: “It’s been tremendous.”

In the Memorial Cup’s tournament-opening news conference, Gardiner sat at the podium, cracked his jokes, and said, “If you’d told me 13 months ago that this may be happening with your son, I don’t know if even Hollywood could write that script.”

A few short days later, as he took the podium following a 3-1 loss to the Medicine Hat Tigers, Gardiner didn’t have a joke to tell.

Instead, he said that about 20 minutes prior to puck drop, Taylor had gotten a call from the RCMP telling him that Pat Buckley, his father-in-law, had been golfing in Rimouski after driving up to the Memorial Cup from Fredericton that day, and had died from a heart attack.

“It’s certainly a devastating loss. It’s the hardest game I’ve ever had to coach,” Gardiner said, catching his breath. “Pat Buckley was an unbelievable sportsman, a top-notch golfer, a former university hockey player. He was a second father to my son. They bonded like no other.”

In a moment of loss and grief, Gardiner was there for his son. All year, he’d asked his players to embrace one of his many mantras: F.O.E. (Family Over Everything). Now he was practicing what he’d preached, his humanity on full display.

Everyone who knows him has a story about that humanity, because he has made so many feel like family along the way.

The way Brewer’s goes, he was a university student at UNB who’d done a marketing project about how the Reds could sell more tickets. As part of the project, he’d made a commemorative video of the national championship they’d just won in 2007. His girlfriend at the time, now his wife, was working for the athletic department and showed the video to her boss, who showed it to Gardiner, who asked if he could play it at their ring ceremony.

Time passed, Brewer graduated and took a job in government when another call came from Gardiner. He asked him if he could make another video for the start of their new season and told him that he wanted to start using this new video program called Stiva that some NHL clubs were using, but didn’t know how, and wondered if he’d be interested in helping with it.

Brewer said yes and became his video coach. Seven years after Gardiner gave him his first job in hockey, Brewer was an assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs. In between, Gardiner helped him get his first video coaching job with Hockey Canada. Last summer, when he brought the U18 trophy home to Fredericton, Gardiner invited Brewer to the house to celebrate.

Brewer isn’t the only one with a story like that, either. Lucas Madill and Ryan Hamilton, two sports psychiatrists who work with Hockey Canada now, were disciples of Gardiner’s.

“I mean, I was a university student coming in and getting involved with a past national champion and big program and he made me feel welcome, he gave me a voice, he gave me an opportunity to be a part of the program, and then gave me more and more opportunity,” Brewer said.

Sea Dogs president Trevor Georgie has his own stories from the 39 days he spent with Gardiner en route to their Memorial Cup together. Like Brewer, he’ll tell you of the immediate bond he formed with Travis Crickard, who was an assistant coach on that team and is now their head coach and general manager, and how Gardiner helped Crickard land his first Hockey Canada job as an assistant on his staff at U18s.

He’ll also tell you how “devastated” his team was when they lost in the first round that year, and how one by one, Gardiner turned each player’s psyche around and got them to believe again.

Before naming Gardiner interim head coach for that Memorial Cup, Georgie interviewed multiple coaches. Gardiner was the only one without NHL experience. But Gardiner “was really special.”

Waiting to hear back, Gardiner texted Georgie, “It’s a great day to be a Sea Dog.”

On their first walk through the dressing room, Gardiner talked to himself and said something along the lines of “I think I can capture their hearts in here.”

His first day on the job, Georgie remembers the office was still waking up, with everyone grabbing teas and coffees, and “Gardiner had already done like 10 kilometers and a million pushups and it was like ‘OK!’”

“He genuinely has that seize the day personality. That’s just his way,” Georgie said. “He is not letting a day go by. He is enjoying every minute. It’s from the second he wakes up. It’s really, really incredible.”

Though they’re now rivals within the league, Georgie and Taylor are also close friends. Several of Taylor’s clients at RSG were on that Sea Dogs team. They know each other’s families and are both young fathers (Taylor has two kids, 4 and almost 1).

There’s one thing that Georgie says everyone will say about the MacDougalls.

“They’re really great people,” he said.

“They deserve to do really well.”

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Daniel St. Louis / CHL)

The Florida Panthers are one win away from their second straight Stanley Cup after beating the Edmonton Oilers, 5-2, in Game 5. Brad Marchand and the Panthers took control of the game early, and they never gave the Oilers any life.

At the age of 37, Marchand is playing some of the best hockey of his career. He scored two goals in Game 5, and both of them were of the highlight reel variety. With his two goals, Marchand now has 10 in the postseason and six in the Stanley Cup Final. He also joins Mario Lemieux as the only players in the modern era to score five or more goals in two Stanley Cup Final series.

The other story of the night was the Panthers’ defense thwarting everything the Oilers tried to do offensively. Edmonton rarely got the puck to a dangerous area, and even when it did, Sergei Bobrovsky made a couple of big saves. Considering the atmosphere in Rogers Place, Game 5 might have been the Panthers’ best defensive showing yet.

The Oilers got a couple of goals in the third period, but they were never really a threat to come back. Leon Draisaitl had two shots on goal, and neither one of them stood out as quality chances. Connor McDavid buried one of his two shots, but Florida made both of those superstars non-factors in a critical Game 5.

Edmonton has already come up with one big answer — the Game 4 comeback — but it needs another one now. The Oilers have to go into enemy territory with their season on the line on Tuesday, and the Panthers will want to prevent a Game 7.

For the complete schedule and results for the Stanley Cup Final, follow along right here at CBS Sports.

Stanley Cup Final

Edmonton Oilers vs. Florida Panthers

Game 1: Oilers 4, Panthers 3 (OT) | Recap
Game 2: Panthers 5, Oilers 4 (2OT) | Recap
Game 3: Panthers 6, Oilers 1 | Recap
Game 4: Oilers 5, Panthers 4 (OT) | Recap
Game 5: Panthers 5, Oilers 2 | Recap
Game 6: Tuesday, June 17 | at FLA | 8 p.m. | TNT, truTV
*Game 7: Friday, June 20 | at EDM | 8 p.m. | TNT, truTV

Western Conference Final

(2) Dallas Stars vs. (3) Edmonton Oilers

Game 1: Stars 6, Oilers 3 | Recap
Game 2: Oilers 3, Stars 0 | Recap
Game 3: Oilers 6, Stars 1 | Recap
Game 4: Oilers 4, Stars 1 | Recap
Game 5: Oilers 6, Stars 3 | Recap

Eastern Conference Final

(2) Carolina Hurricanes vs. (3) Florida Panthers

Game 1: Panthers 5, Hurricanes 2 | Recap
Game 2: Panthers 5, Hurricanes 0 | Recap
Game 3: Panthers 6, Hurricanes 2 | Recap
Game 4: Hurricanes 3, Panthers 0 | Recap
Game 5: Panthers 5, Hurricanes 3 | Recap

Round 2

(1) Toronto Maple Leafs vs. (3) Florida Panthers

Game 1: Maple Leafs 5, Panthers 4 | Recap
Game 2: Maple Leafs 4, Panthers 3 | Recap
Game 3: Panthers 5, Maple Leafs 4 (OT) | Recap
Game 4: Panthers 2, Maple Leafs 0 | Recap
Game 5: Panthers 6, Maple Leafs 1 | Recap
Game 6: Maple Leafs 2, Panthers 0 | Recap
Game 7: Panthers 6, Maple Leafs 1 | Recap

(1) Washington Capitals vs. (2) Carolina Hurricanes

Game 1: Hurricanes 2, Capitals 1 (OT) | Recap
Game 2: Capitals 3, Hurricanes 1 | Recap
Game 3: Hurricanes 4, Capitals 0 | Recap
Game 4: Hurricanes 5, Capitals 2 | Recap
Game 5: Hurricanes 3, Capitals 1 | Recap

(1) Winnipeg Jets vs. (2) Dallas Stars

Game 1: Stars 3, Jets 2 | Recap
Game 2: Jets 4, Stars 0 | Recap
Game 3: Stars 5, Jets 2 | Recap
Game 4: Stars 3, Jets 1 | Recap
Game 5: Jets 4, Stars 0 | Recap
Game 6: Stars 2, Jets 1 (OT) | Recap

(1) Vegas Golden Knights vs. (3) Edmonton Oilers

Game 1: Oilers 4, Golden Knights 2 | Recap
Game 2: Oilers 5, Golden Knights 4 (OT) | Recap
Game 3: Golden Knights 4, Oilers 3 | Recap
Game 4: Oilers 3, Golden Knights 0 | Recap
Game 5: Oilers 1, Golden Knights 0 (OT) | Recap

Round 1

(1) Toronto Maple Leafs vs. (WC1) Ottawa Senators

Game 1: Maple Leafs 6, Senators 2 | Recap
Game 2: Maple Leafs 3, Senators 2 (OT) | Recap
Game 3: Maple Leafs 3, Senators 2 (OT) | Recap
Game 4: Senators 4, Maple Leafs 3 (OT) | Recap
Game 5: Senators 4, Maple Leafs 0 | Recap
Game 6: Maple Leafs 4, Senators 2  | Recap

(2)Tampa Bay Lightning vs. (3) Florida Panthers

Game 1: Panthers 6, Lightning 2 | Recap
Game 2: Panthers 2, Lightning 0 | Recap
Game 3: Lightning 5, Panthers 1 | Recap
Game 4: Panthers 4, Lightning 2 | Recap
Game 5: Panthers 6, Lightning 3 | Recap

(1) Washington Capitals vs. (WC2) Montreal Canadiens

Game 1: Capitals 3, Canadiens 2 (OT) | Recap
Game 2: Capitals 3, Canadiens 1 | Recap
Game 3: Canadiens 6, Capitals 3 | Recap
Game 4: Capitals 5, Canadiens 2 | Recap
Game 5: Capitals 4, Canadiens 1 | Recap

(2) Carolina Hurricanes vs. (3) New Jersey Devils

Game 1: Hurricanes 4, Devils 1 | Recap
Game 2: Hurricanes 3, Devils 1 | Recap
Game 3: Devils 3, Hurricanes 2 (2OT) | Recap
Game 4: Hurricanes 5, Devils 2 | Recap
Game 5: Hurricanes 5, Devils 4 (2OT) | Recap

(1) Winnipeg Jets vs. (WC2) St. Louis Blues

Game 1: Jets 5, Blues 3 | Recap
Game 2: Jets 2, Blues 1 | Recap
Game 3: Blues 7, Jets 2 | Recap
Game 4: Blues 5, Jets 1 | Recap
Game 5: Jets 5, Blues 3 | Recap
Game 6: Blues 5, Jets 2 | Recap
Game 7: Jets 4, Blues 3 (2OT) | Recap

(2) Dallas Stars vs. (3) Colorado Avalanche

Game 1: Avalanche 5, Stars 1 | Recap
Game 2: Stars 4, Avalanche 3 (OT) | Recap
Game 3: Stars 2, Avalanche 1 (OT) | Recap
Game 4: Avalanche 4, Stars 0 | Recap
Game 5: Stars 6, Avalanche 2 | Recap
Game 6: Avalanche 7, Stars 4 | Recap
Game 7: Stars 4, Avalanche 2 | Recap

(1) Vegas Golden Knights vs. (WC1) Minnesota Wild

Game 1: Golden Knights 4, Wild 2 | Recap
Game 2: Wild 5, Golden Knights 2 | Recap
Game 3: Wild 5, Golden Knights 2 | Recap
Game 4: Golden Knights 4, Wild 3 (OT) | Recap
Game 5: Golden Knights 3, Wild 2 (OT) | Recap
Game 6: Golden Knights 3, Wild 2 | Recap

(2) Los Angeles Kings vs. (3) Edmonton Oilers

Game 1: Kings 6, Oilers 5 | Recap
Game 2: Kings 6, Oilers 2 | Recap
Game 3: Oilers 7, Kings 4 | Recap
Game 4: Oilers 4, Kings 3 (OT) | Recap
Game 5: Oilers 3, Kings 1 | Recap
Game 6: Oilers 6, Kings 4 | Recap 

There were 11 centers selected in the first round of the 2024 NHL Draft, including six in the top 15: Macklin Celebrini (No. 1, Sharks), Cayden Lindstrom (No. 4, Columbus Blue Jackets), Tij Iginla (No. 6, Utah Mammoth), Berkly Catton (No. 8, Seattle Kraken), Jett Luchanko (No. 13, Philadelphia Flyers) and Konsta Helenius (No. 14, Buffalo Sabres).

Here are NHL.com’s top 10 centers available for the 2025 draft (position according to NHL Central Scouting):

1. Michael Misa, Saginaw (OHL)

NHL Central Scouting: No. 2 (North American skaters)

Misa was named the winner of the E.J. McGuire Award of Excellence, presented annually “to the NHL Draft prospect who best exemplifies commitment to excellence through strength of character, competitiveness and athleticism.” He also was named “Smartest Player” in the Western Conference in the OHL coaches’ poll after becoming the first player in Saginaw history to win the Red Tilson Trophy as the OHL’s most outstanding player and the Eddie Powers Trophy as the top scorer in the OHL, finishing the regular season with 134 points (62 goals, 72 assists). The Saginaw captain had at least one point in 60 of 65 regular-season games and tied John Tavares (2006-07) for the most points by an OHL player under 18 since 2000 (Misa turned 18 on Feb. 16). His style of play has been compared to Nashville Predators center Steven Stamkos. Misa was granted exceptional player status to enter the OHL as a 15-year-old and he helped Saginaw win the Memorial Cup in 2023-24. His brother, Luke Misa, is 14 months older than Michael and was chosen by the Calgary Flames in the fifth round (No. 150) of the 2024 draft and will play for Penn State in 2025-26.

“He’s the type of player that, if there’s a man in a better position for a scoring opportunity and if the proper read is to get the puck to that man, he’ll do it,” Smith said. “And he does it with such quickness and elite hockey sense that it’s just great to watch.”

2. James Hagens, Boston College (NCAA)

NHL Central Scouting: No. 3 (North American skaters)

Hagens, whose playmaking ability and skating resemble Clayton Keller of the Utah Mammoth, was third on Boston College with 37 points (11 goals, 26 assists) in 37 games skating as the No. 1 center between Gabe Perreault (New York Rangers) and Ryan Leonard (Washington Capitals). He also tied for the United States lead with five goals in seven games to help his country win the gold medal at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship. Born in Hauppauge, New York, Hagens was the fourth-youngest player in college hockey ranked fourth among NCAA Division I freshmen in points, earning a spot on the Hockey East All-Rookie Team. In 2023-24, he led USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program Under-18 team with 63 assists, 102 points and 1.76 points per game in 58 games. Hagens looks to become the highest-drafted player out of Boston College; defenseman Noah Hanifin is the only player from BC to be chosen among the top five in the NHL Draft (Carolina Hurricanes, No. 5, 2015 NHL Draft).

Mario Cavallaro was a sophomore in 2022 when he played a key role in Norwin’s PIHL Penguin Cup championship run.

He scored the game-winning goal in the finals on an assist from his brother, Anthony.

But Super Mario was far from finished.

Cavallaro went on to play for the South Hills Amateur Hockey Association 16U team, playing with a broken arm, mind you, that was protected by a hard cast.

He then joined the Ohio Blue Jackets 18U program before zeroing in on a college career.

Now a starter on the hockey team at South Florida, Cavallaro found a spot on the AAU D2 team as the youngest player on the roster (18).

As if that accomplishment wasn’t impressive enough, the freshman was the second-leading scorer on the team and finished top 10 in the league in assists and points.

Cavallaro had 15 goals and 24 assists in 27 games.

“I know it sounds conceited but yes, I did expect to have the season I did,” he said. “I’ve always went into hockey with a confident mindset as it allows me to do things that I would otherwise not think I could. My confidence allowed me to step up in big moments and be a contributing factor to the team.”

John Yudichak, President of Luzerne County Community College, said this week that for the past decade, Pennsylvania lost economic ground to states like Virginia. He said Virginia used creative economic incentives that built the largest data center market in the world that sustains 74,000 jobs and contributes $9.1 billion to the GDP of that state’s economy.

“It is not lost on me that Luzerne County, which played a central role in the industrial revolution with the production of coal, now stands to be a prominent player in the technological revolution as the epicenter of hyper-scale data center development that will fuel American dominance in artificial intelligence technologies,” Yudichak said.

On Monday, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that Amazon is planning to invest $20 billion to establish multiple high-tech cloud computing and artificial intelligence innovation campuses across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The governor said Amazon’s investment will create at least 1,250 high-paying, high-tech jobs.

The first communities identified as sites for these future campuses are Salem Township, Luzerne County, and Falls Township, Bucks County. Several additional Pennsylvania communities are under consideration for data center development.

NEPA becomes target zone for data centers

John Augustine, President/CEO at Penn’s Northeast, said the close proximity of natural gas through the Marcellus Shale and the reliable and robust infrastructure of our utilities make our region one of the top spots in the United States.

Since Monday’s announcement by the governor, Augustine said he has received a half dozen calls from companies interested in locating data centers in NEPA.

“This is in addition, to the four that we are working with in Lackawanna County, three more in Luzerne County and another in Schuylkill County,” Augustine said.

Augustine said for every $26 dollars of tax revenue that a data center generates, they spend a $1 on servicing the center. He said each campus is providing millions of dollars in local and state revenue along with thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of high-tech, high-paying positions.

“The hyper-scale facility in Salem Township alone is a $10 billion dollar investment,” Augustine said. “Besides ongoing manufacturing, we are seeing the third wave of industrial development in Northeastern PA — coal, warehousing/distribution facilities and now data centers. Our region is poised to be a leader in the race for artificial intelligence infrastructure. This is a generational opportunity to provide huge tax revenue and high paying jobs for our residents.”

Community colleges performing critical role

Bucks County Community College President & CEO Dr. Patrick Jones spoke at the Amazon announcement, stressing a vision as more hyper-scale data centers are planned.

“Through a unique, consortium approach, we will be able to better focus on the needs of data centers and help ensure students are prepared with the knowledge and skills required for this unique sector,” Jones said. “We will collaborate to determine industry needs and share expertise and resources so that no matter where someone lives, one of our colleges will be able to help them attain the skills they need for success in this growing industry.”

Under the lead of the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges (PACCC), Luzerne County Community College, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Northampton Community College and Bucks County Community College are joining forces to partner on a Technology and Trades Workforce Consortium in an expanded Northeast Region of Pennsylvania.

The PACCC collaboration will bring together these four community colleges to address workforce needs during the construction of hyper-scale data centers and the jobs needed once they are built.

As more hyper-scale data centers are constructed, other community colleges across the Commonwealth will join to expand the ADVANCEPA Technology & Trade Workforce Consortium.

Technology and Trades Workforce Consortium

Yudichak said there is no sector of higher education better equipped to adeptly respond to the changing workforce development demands of the technological revolution that is driving historic economic growth than Pennsylvania’s community colleges.

He said the three pillars planned by the Technology and Trades Workforce Consortium are:

Career & Technology Academy

An innovative regional partnership formed by community colleges and career and technical center high schools to create new pathways for career and technical center students to earn post-secondary credentials in technology and the skilled construction trades. The goal of a Career & Technology Academy is to serve under-served student populations in career and technical center high schools to build a consistent workforce pipeline of entry level technicians and skilled trade workers.

MicroCredential Academy

The MicroCredential Academy will rapidly develop post-secondary credential programming that makes upskilling career credentials for Pennsylvania workers efficient, cost-effective, and accessible. The goal of the MicroCredential Academy is to serve Pennsylvania workers where they live and work by identifying high demand industry clusters and providing online, mobile, and campus based microcrendential programming that empowers workers to advance to a high wage, high demand career.

Construction & Trade Pre-Apprenticeship Academy

The Construction & Trade Pre-Apprenticeship Academy will forge a strategic partnership the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trade Unions is to build a pre-apprenticeship pipeline of students who will learn from a foundational curriculum that will prepare them to enter union registered apprenticeship programs and secure employment in the skilled building and construction trade industry.

The goal of the Construction & Trade PreApprenticeship Academy is to promote, educate, and drive interest in students pursuing union apprenticeship programs to meet the growing demand for skilled trade workers in the Pennsylvania economy.

Yudichak said:

• Pennsylvania’s 15 community colleges collectively serve nearly 240,000 students annually through academic programing and workforce development training programs that focus on high demand and high wage jobs.

• Pennsylvania community colleges fuel regional economic growth and serve as the central workforce development pipeline in the Commonwealth with 90% of community college graduates going on to live and work in Pennsylvania after graduation.

• Pennsylvania’s community colleges partner with over 2,000 industries in the Commonwealth to align their academic and workforce development programing with a rapidly changing economy driven by technological innovation.

The Technology and Trades Workforce Consortium will strategically coordinate resources, avoid duplicative investments in equipment, and foster innovative college and industry collaborations that will streamline a fragmented workforce development system to deliver the highest quality workforce in Pennsylvania history, Yudichak said.

The Consortium will work with the State Board of Higher Education, federal and state agencies, Career and Technical Centers, high schools, Pennsylvania Construction & Trade Unions, and employers to ensure that curricula remain current and aligned with workforce needs to establish clear educational and career pathways for students, Yudichak said.

As the former state senator and chairman of the Pennsylvania State Senate Community, Economic and Recreational Development Committee, Yudichak said he worked on the passage of Act 25 of 2021 that established data center tax exemption to serve as a economic incentive to attract data center development to Pennsylvania.

He said as president of LCCC, he is honored to be working with the Pennsylvania State Board of Higher Education, the Shapiro Administration’s Department of Community & Economic Development, and the Pennsylvania Commission on Community Colleges to establish a historic workforce development partnership through the new Technology & Trades Workforce Consortium.

“This will be the central workforce development pipeline to supply thousands of new technology and skilled trade workers to meet the demand of Pennsylvania’s 21st century economy,” Yudichak said.