This article is part of a series of stories stemming from a lengthy interview with Colorado College coach Kris Mayotte in mid-June.
Colorado College hockey coach Kris Mayotte mirrors the shifting college hockey landscape around him.
There will be no shortage of changes coming to college hockey in the 2025-2026 season. As collegiate athletics as a whole adjust to schools now being able to pay athletes directly. Thanks to the approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, college hockey specifically will change with the inclusion of Canadian Hockey League players this coming season.
But the evolution of the sport isn’t just external. Mayotte is evolving as a coach. He reflected on a 2024-2025 season in which CC underachieved and acknowledged he could have handled his team’s undefeated start differently.
“I think I’m my best when it’s about building belief and optimism and the work that it takes to earn that. But I think when I reflect on last year, and we start 8-0 and I didn’t think we were playing very good hockey, even though we were 8-0. I probably was a little too critical,” Mayotte said. “And not that you can’t be critical, but I don’t think I blended keeping a team grounded with building belief at the same time. I think I was too much about keeping them grounded because I didn’t think we were playing up to our potential.”
Mayotte kept his reflections and his commitment to maintaining a winning culture in downtown Colorado Springs in mind when hiring Paul Pooley, the former associate head coach at Notre Dame, for the same position at CC. Pooley replaces Peter Mannino, who parted ways with the Tigers in the offseason. Mayotte also hired former Michigan Tech assistant Jordy Murray to the same position at CC following the departure of Andrew Oglevie to Notre Dame.
According to Mayotte, Pooley’s decades of experience around a winning culture for the Fighting Irish were a key factor in his hiring.
“Bring in a guy like Paul who’s just been around it so much and has such a good feel on what the goals are and what the priorities are, and the experience of keeping it going forward,” Mayotte said. “His experience obviously speaks for itself: seven Frozen Fours, two national championships, and a ton of All-Americans, obviously. So it’s that background of he’s developed a lot of players, but he’s been around a lot of winning, and this is what it looks like, and this is how you act, and this is what it should feel like.”