O’Handley Earns 500th USHL Victory

Press Release

 The Waterloo Black Hawks earned a 5-2 win over the rival Cedar Rapids RoughRiders to earn their 36th victory of the season and give head coach P.K. O’Handley the 500th win of his USHL career.

In his 11th season in Waterloo, O’Handley has led the Black Hawks to at least 30 wins in eight seasons and now holds a 360-249-52 record with the team.  Combined with his seven seasons coaching the North Iowa Huskies (1991-98), his overall USHL record is currently 500-436-73.

On March 9th, he coached his 1,000th game in the USHL, the first coach in League history to reach that mark.  He is only the fourth coach in USHL history reach the 500-win milestone, joining Mike Hastings (529), Dave Siciliano (522), and Bob Ferguson (517).

Under his leadership, the Black Hawks set a team record in the 2006-07 season when they won 39 games on the way to capturing the Anderson Cup for earning the most points in the USHL regular season (39-17-4).  O’Handley also led the team to their first Clark Cup title in 2003-04, just his second season with the organization.

He has twice been named USHL Coach of the Year (2006-07 and 2002-03) to go along with earning USHL General Manager of the Year honors in 2002-03 following his first season in Waterloo and again last season after a 35-win season and a trip to the Clark Cup Final series for the Black Hawks.  In addition to on-ice success, O’Handley has developed hundreds of players who have moved on to play college hockey.  Each of the last two NCAA Frozen Four MVPs have been former Black Hawks players – Parker Milner (Boston College) in 2012 and J.T. Brown (University of Minnesota-Duluth) in 2011.

In addition, a number of players coached by O’Handley have been selected in the NHL Draft, including Joe Pavelski (San Jose Sharks) and Craig Smith (Nashville Predators) who are both starring in the NHL.

O’Handley also has extensive experience coaching internationally which includes most recently taking the Black Hawks to Russia in August 2012 to compete in the Junior Club World Cup.  It was the first USHL team to compete at the event, which has top junior clubs from around the world, and the Black Hawks captured the silver medal at the tournament.  O’Handley also led a group of USHL players who represented the United States at the 2010 World Junior A Challenge and captured the tournament title.

 (Nathan can be reached at nathanfournier@mainehockeyjournal.com)