In only his second season as head coach of the women’s hockey team, Bill Cahill successfully led his team to the semifinals of the ECAC Tournament. “We really competed and played hard. [The team we played against was] just too [tough],” said Cahill. “The team competed [hard] all season. It was fun. ... Even the games we lost—we were [very] competitive.”
After RPI’s exit from the tournament, Cahill served on the selection committee that rates ECAC berths in the NCAA Hockey Tournament and later assisted the Youth Education Through Sports clinic during the tournament.
Cahill emphasized that coaching is a year-round job. For recruitment, he plans to visit Saskatchewan in April, Vancouver in May, and Winnipeg in June in addition to recruiting by phone regularly. In the summer he assists high school hockey camps.
Cahill, who is very down-to-earth and enthusiastic about the duties involved in his job as head coach, most enjoys “the day in, day out working with [students]. Seeing improvement is very rewarding.”
He has started a new tradition of putting the plaques of former players on the locker room stalls so new players could see who was on the team before them. He has also brought to the women’s program the three by three classic game, a game that started in men’s hockey in which the team breaks up into groups and competes against each other. Cahill hopes to have the women’s hockey office renovated this summer to provide more space for showcasing players’ achievements and create a players’ lounge equipped with ethernet ports. His players have contributed to creating a handbook of rules that Cahill goes over with each player at the start of each hockey season. Members of the women’s team are from “a real cross section of academia” and coaching them “gives me [a better] understanding of what they have to go through ... [Schoolwork] is a grind,” said Cahill.
In 2000-2001, Cahill led the Engineers to a 12-10-2 overall record and a 9-7-2 mark in the ECAC.
Cahill noted that if the women’s hockey team was promoted to Division I, the schedule would become easier to manage since it could be easily coordinated with the men’s schedule.
Between 1988 and 1990, Cahill served as the assistant head coach for the men’s hockey team under head coaches Mike Addesa and Buddy Powers, and then as interim head coach in 1989. He left RPI in 1990 to accept the position of head coach at Norwich University—his alma mater—and worked there for five seasons. Prior to his first tenure at Rensselaer, Cahill was the head coach at the New Hampton School from 1986 to 1988 and at Assumption College from 1983 to 1986. At Assumption Cahill led his teams to the ECAC playoffs three times and compiled a winning percentage of .652, the highest in the school’s history.
Cahill returned to Rensselaer in 1995 to serve as an assistant coach for men’s hockey under Head Coach Dan Fridgen for five seasons. He was later named head coach of the women’s team in 2000.
“It’s extremely exciting to me because women’s ice hockey is growing by leaps and bounds. I’m really looking forward to the challenge of keeping this program near the top of the standings,” said Cahill.
Cahill has coached or played hockey his whole life, including playing as a forward at Norwich University. He has an overall record of 87-65-5 as a head coach. In his spare time, Cahill enjoys watching professional and RPI sports teams compete, spending time at the beach, and participating in old timers’ hockey games.
Cahill is a nominee for Poly Person of the Year. Send in your nominations at features@poly.rpi.edu.
