An Appreciation. Josh Ciocco, 1983-2022
10/18/2022 3:05:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey
Former UNH Hockey Captain Passes at 38: ‘He Was The Glue’
DURHAM, N.H. – It might be a slight exaggeration to say that Josh Ciocco's strong and long connection with the University of New Hampshire men's hockey team nearly ended before it even began.
But it sure did get off to a rocky start.
Brand new on the job as an assistant to head coach Dick Umile and looking for hockey players far and wide, Scott Borek reached out to an old friend in the British Columbia Hockey League and told him what he was looking for in recruits.
"You want Josh Ciocco," he heard.
So Borek made some calls and plans and he and Umile headed west to Vernon, B.C., the home of the Vernon Vipers, to check out and meet the player who many knew as "Chico."
And Chico was a no show. Well, he did show eventually. But he was about 45 minutes, maybe an hour, late.
"I was saying to Scott, 'Are you kidding me?" Umile said. "We come all the way out here and we're going to offer him a scholarship and he's an hour late?"
In the end, the trip turned productive.
The coaches got to meet and watch their guy and he was as gritty and tough as advertised.
Ciocco apologized for being late (he was never told of the meeting, he said), accepted the scholarship offer, was a leader of the Wildcats from the moment he stepped on campus and eventually became, Umile said, one of the best captains he had in his UNH coaching career.
Borek and Ciocco hit it off from the start and became fast friends and coaching colleagues.
On the day he was brought in to coach the Merrimack College hockey team in April of 2018, Borek hired Ciocco as an assistant. His abilities to evaluate talent and forge relationships with recruits and players was topnotch and Ciocco was coming into his own as a tactician and on-ice coach.
On Tuesday afternoon, Borek and Umile and members of the UNH and Merrimack hockey families gathered with Ciocco's family for a remembrance ceremony for Josh at Salvatore's Italian Restaurant in Lawrence, Mass., before the UNH-Merrimack game that night in Lawler Rink. The teams honored Ciocco at the game, too, and all players wore his name on the back of their jerseys.
Ciocco passed away suddenly two weeks ago, a little over a month before his 39th birthday, just after returning from a recruiting trip to Alberta.
"It's brutal, there's no way around it," Borek said in a phone interview Friday that included a couple of chuckles while recalling fond memories and a few moments where he paused to gather his emotions. "Josh loved the game. All facets of it. He loved playing and competing. He loved evaluating players when he got into that aspect of his life. He always showed up at the rink excited. That's what made him a good captain, what made him a good locker room guy."
It's what was making him a good coach, too. Last season, Merrimack had a 19-15-1 record, posting the second-most wins in program Division I history and under Ciocco's tutelage had the best power play in Hockey East.
"He was a terrific coach," Umile said. "He would have been a terrific head coach. He would have been a head coach."
Connections Galore
Brett Hemingway's season in Coquitlam in the BCHL had ended and the high-scoring forward was in a country music bar in Maple Ridge, B.C., starting to enjoy his summer before he headed off to UNH to begin his collegiate career.
"The internet wasn't too huge at the time and I didn't go into it much," Hemingway recalled.
A guy came across from the other side of the bar and started chatting him up.
"You're Brett Hemingway," he said. "I'm Josh Ciocco. You're going to UNH and so am I. I didn't have the stats you did."
Ciocco continued.
"He started whistling off my stats," Hemingway said. "He knew everything about everyone in the hockey world. It couldn't have been more than an hour later and he said, 'I don't know anyone at NH and you don't know anyone at UNH. Do you want to be roommates?
They roomed together for four years at UNH and at various times after that.
"Josh made great connections wherever he went," Hemingway said. "We had this text exchange going when we got the news about Josh and there were 35 people on there from every class we played with, before us and after us. I was amazed at how close he was with everyone and how he stayed in touch with everyone. It's cool how many people cared for him. He was definitely a natural leader. Everyone looked up to him. Whatever we were doing, he was the centerpiece of it."
The Wildcats were on an impressive run in those years and went to the NCAA tournament in the four years that Ciocco and Hemingway were in the program.
"If we were swaying a little too much and Josh saw that someone was doing something that wasn't helping the team, he would let you know and rein us in a bit," Hemingway said. "I always attributed our success to us being so close off the ice. You can have all the talent in the world and if you're not a team, it isn't going to translate into victories and success. He was the glue that brought everyone together."
Chico was the glue to the end.
The night Ciocco got back from Alberta, he and Hemingway talked on the phone about ice time for the men's league team that Hemingway had brought Ciocco into. Josh said he could get early morning time at Merrimack. Hemingway got off the phone and checked around and found that the time was too early for some and texted Ciocco back to see if there might be weekend time available.
Hemingway never heard back.
Hockey Family
The Merrimack players had a tough decision to make. One of their beloved coaches died and within a couple of days should they leave for a long road trip to upstate New York and play games at St. Lawrence and Clarkson?
"Frankly, I did not want to play," Borek said. "I was still on edge and I didn't think that personally I could handle it."
The players chose to play.
"They players made that decision and they didn't make it lightly, I can tell you that," Borek said. "They made the decision to go for structure and for togetherness and to honor Josh."
It didn't end there. The players checked in after they made their decision. Twice. They wanted to make sure the coaches were OK with playing, to make sure the coaches could handle it.
"Josh helped build that," Borek said. "That's family."
Merrimack traveled to New York.
The Warriors wore "JC" patches on the front of their jerseys and that was family, too. Hockey family.
A Providence assistant coach picked up the patches from the manufacturer and met up with a Merrimack assistant to deliver them. Merrimack took the patches with them to St. Lawrence and equipment folks for the Saints made sure they got sewn onto the Merrimack jerseys.
The Warriors lost to St. Lawrence on the first night of the road-trip and beat Clarkson on the second.
"It was very hard," Borek said. "I don't think any guy on our team would tell you any different. But we got through it. At the end of the day, we were glad we did it and it was a positive."
Borek and Ciocco formed a tight bond at UNH and beyond.
Borek lost his son, Gordie, at the age of 22 to a car crash in 2016 and Ciocco was among those there for him.
"I just hope he knows - not so much how much he meant to me - I know he knew that," Borek said. "But how much he took care of me and I relied on him during some of the toughest times in my life. . . . Losing Josh leaves an incredible hole in our group. It's going to be there for the rest my lifetime."
But it sure did get off to a rocky start.
Brand new on the job as an assistant to head coach Dick Umile and looking for hockey players far and wide, Scott Borek reached out to an old friend in the British Columbia Hockey League and told him what he was looking for in recruits.
"You want Josh Ciocco," he heard.
So Borek made some calls and plans and he and Umile headed west to Vernon, B.C., the home of the Vernon Vipers, to check out and meet the player who many knew as "Chico."
And Chico was a no show. Well, he did show eventually. But he was about 45 minutes, maybe an hour, late.
"I was saying to Scott, 'Are you kidding me?" Umile said. "We come all the way out here and we're going to offer him a scholarship and he's an hour late?"
In the end, the trip turned productive.
The coaches got to meet and watch their guy and he was as gritty and tough as advertised.
Ciocco apologized for being late (he was never told of the meeting, he said), accepted the scholarship offer, was a leader of the Wildcats from the moment he stepped on campus and eventually became, Umile said, one of the best captains he had in his UNH coaching career.
Borek and Ciocco hit it off from the start and became fast friends and coaching colleagues.
On the day he was brought in to coach the Merrimack College hockey team in April of 2018, Borek hired Ciocco as an assistant. His abilities to evaluate talent and forge relationships with recruits and players was topnotch and Ciocco was coming into his own as a tactician and on-ice coach.
On Tuesday afternoon, Borek and Umile and members of the UNH and Merrimack hockey families gathered with Ciocco's family for a remembrance ceremony for Josh at Salvatore's Italian Restaurant in Lawrence, Mass., before the UNH-Merrimack game that night in Lawler Rink. The teams honored Ciocco at the game, too, and all players wore his name on the back of their jerseys.
Ciocco passed away suddenly two weeks ago, a little over a month before his 39th birthday, just after returning from a recruiting trip to Alberta.
"It's brutal, there's no way around it," Borek said in a phone interview Friday that included a couple of chuckles while recalling fond memories and a few moments where he paused to gather his emotions. "Josh loved the game. All facets of it. He loved playing and competing. He loved evaluating players when he got into that aspect of his life. He always showed up at the rink excited. That's what made him a good captain, what made him a good locker room guy."
It's what was making him a good coach, too. Last season, Merrimack had a 19-15-1 record, posting the second-most wins in program Division I history and under Ciocco's tutelage had the best power play in Hockey East.
"He was a terrific coach," Umile said. "He would have been a terrific head coach. He would have been a head coach."
Connections Galore
Brett Hemingway's season in Coquitlam in the BCHL had ended and the high-scoring forward was in a country music bar in Maple Ridge, B.C., starting to enjoy his summer before he headed off to UNH to begin his collegiate career.
"The internet wasn't too huge at the time and I didn't go into it much," Hemingway recalled.
A guy came across from the other side of the bar and started chatting him up.
"You're Brett Hemingway," he said. "I'm Josh Ciocco. You're going to UNH and so am I. I didn't have the stats you did."
Ciocco continued.
"He started whistling off my stats," Hemingway said. "He knew everything about everyone in the hockey world. It couldn't have been more than an hour later and he said, 'I don't know anyone at NH and you don't know anyone at UNH. Do you want to be roommates?
They roomed together for four years at UNH and at various times after that.
"Josh made great connections wherever he went," Hemingway said. "We had this text exchange going when we got the news about Josh and there were 35 people on there from every class we played with, before us and after us. I was amazed at how close he was with everyone and how he stayed in touch with everyone. It's cool how many people cared for him. He was definitely a natural leader. Everyone looked up to him. Whatever we were doing, he was the centerpiece of it."
The Wildcats were on an impressive run in those years and went to the NCAA tournament in the four years that Ciocco and Hemingway were in the program.
"If we were swaying a little too much and Josh saw that someone was doing something that wasn't helping the team, he would let you know and rein us in a bit," Hemingway said. "I always attributed our success to us being so close off the ice. You can have all the talent in the world and if you're not a team, it isn't going to translate into victories and success. He was the glue that brought everyone together."
Chico was the glue to the end.
The night Ciocco got back from Alberta, he and Hemingway talked on the phone about ice time for the men's league team that Hemingway had brought Ciocco into. Josh said he could get early morning time at Merrimack. Hemingway got off the phone and checked around and found that the time was too early for some and texted Ciocco back to see if there might be weekend time available.
Hemingway never heard back.
Hockey Family
The Merrimack players had a tough decision to make. One of their beloved coaches died and within a couple of days should they leave for a long road trip to upstate New York and play games at St. Lawrence and Clarkson?
"Frankly, I did not want to play," Borek said. "I was still on edge and I didn't think that personally I could handle it."
The players chose to play.
"They players made that decision and they didn't make it lightly, I can tell you that," Borek said. "They made the decision to go for structure and for togetherness and to honor Josh."
It didn't end there. The players checked in after they made their decision. Twice. They wanted to make sure the coaches were OK with playing, to make sure the coaches could handle it.
"Josh helped build that," Borek said. "That's family."
Merrimack traveled to New York.
The Warriors wore "JC" patches on the front of their jerseys and that was family, too. Hockey family.
A Providence assistant coach picked up the patches from the manufacturer and met up with a Merrimack assistant to deliver them. Merrimack took the patches with them to St. Lawrence and equipment folks for the Saints made sure they got sewn onto the Merrimack jerseys.
The Warriors lost to St. Lawrence on the first night of the road-trip and beat Clarkson on the second.
"It was very hard," Borek said. "I don't think any guy on our team would tell you any different. But we got through it. At the end of the day, we were glad we did it and it was a positive."
Borek and Ciocco formed a tight bond at UNH and beyond.
Borek lost his son, Gordie, at the age of 22 to a car crash in 2016 and Ciocco was among those there for him.
"I just hope he knows - not so much how much he meant to me - I know he knew that," Borek said. "But how much he took care of me and I relied on him during some of the toughest times in my life. . . . Losing Josh leaves an incredible hole in our group. It's going to be there for the rest my lifetime."