Color of Hockey: Russell making impact as Trinity College assistant coach

William Douglas has been writing The Color of Hockey blog since 2012. Douglas joined NHL.com in 2019 and writes about people of color in the sport. Today, he profiles Paul Russell, an assistant coach at NCAA Division III Trinity College and one of the few Black male coaches in NCAA hockey.

Trinity College assistant men’s hockey coach Paul Russell still gets needled occasionally for once breaking his team’s heart.

Russell was a senior forward for Norwich University when he scored a third-period goal to help defeat Trinity and win the 2017 NCAA Division III championship in Utica, New York.

“I don't hear the end of it either,” Russell said. “I get it from time to time from (Trinity coach Matthew) Greason.”

Greason obviously didn’t hold a grudge following the goal; he hired Russell from an assistant’s post at Division III Curry College in September, calling the 31-year-old Andover, Massachusetts, native a dynamic young coach with a winning pedigree.

“He scored the game-winner in the national championship in 2017 in Utica on a bad goal he got from behind the net, not that I remember,” Greason said. “Hockey is Paul’s blood. It always has been, always will be. He knows the game and he's good for the game.”

Russell completed his first season under Greason at the Hartford, Connecticut, college, doing a little bit of everything for a team that went 16-7-2 overall and 12-4-2 in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) before its season ended with a 1-0 loss to Middlebury in the league quarterfinals on March 1.

“Paul's primary focus is on the recruiting trail, where he already has established a number of great relationships while at Curry and continues to cultivate them with us,” Greason said. “He is a great, not a good, great skills coach in terms of running skills practices. His work with our D-corps, in particular, he runs all the D-corps splits and he runs the D during the game. His ability to develop players in skill drills and skill settings is remarkable.”

Russell is among the small number of Black men in the NCAA hockey coaching ranks this season that includes head coach Matt Pinchevsky at Division III University of Southern Maine and assistant coach Leon Hayward at the University of St. Thomas, a Division I school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tennessee State University hired Duante Abercrombie on April 18, 2024, to help establish and coach what would be the first NCAA hockey program at a historically Black college.

“When you take a step back, it’s pretty cool to see what I’ve been able to accomplish at this level,” Russell said. “It’s pretty cool to see that because when I was growing up, I didn’t have that, I never played for a Black coach, I never really saw anyone else like me in a higher position that I could aspire to.

"So I think it's pretty cool and very important to make those connections with the kids or their families, just to show that it’s possible to do that.”

Russell said he got into hockey when he was 4 years old after a neighbor asked his parents if they could use the frozen pond in the back of their home in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, for their son.

“And my mom and dad were, like, ‘Why do you need to do that?’” Russell said. “They were, like, ‘We’re going to go skating.’ Obviously, I wanted to do what my friends were doing. So I popped out there, was obviously really bad, my sister and I.”

The neighbors suggested Russell’s parents take their children to a local rink for skating lessons.

“I fell in love with that, and the rest is history,” he said.

Russell became a good enough skater and player to join the Boston Jr. Bruins program in the Empire Junior Hockey League and Eastern States Hockey League from 2008-13. He moved on to Norwich, where he was second in goals (13) as a junior in 2015-16 and had 60 points (37 goals, 23 assists) in 106 NCAA games from 2013-17.

He helped Norwich win East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) East championships in 2014 and 2015 and a New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) title in 2017.

Russell then had 18 points (10 goals, eight assists) in 52 games with Roanoke, Macon and Fayetteville of the Southern Professional Hockey League in 2017-18 before he decided to retire as a player.

“I'd be lying to you if I said it wasn't one of my regrets that I stopped playing after a year,” he said. “Being from the Boston area, there's a lot of opportunity up here. And I thought that I wasn't that great of a player in the pro ranks. I wanted to explore what else I could do, come back home. I hadn't been around my friends for almost 10 years at that point. I just wanted to get back to my normal life, I guess what you could call it.”

Russell soon found he still had a hockey itch that needed scratching. He sought advice from one of his mentors, Brett Peterson, a Northborough, Massachusetts, native and former Boston College defenseman who became the NHL’s first Black assistant general manager when he joined the Florida Panthers in November 2020.

“When I was working a regular 9-to-5, [Peterson] said, ‘You know, whatever you do, just find a way into hockey, whether that be coaching, anything like that,'” Russell said. “I kind of took that and took that to heart and just got into coaching.”

Taking Peterson’s advice, Russell worked two seasons as a skills coach and U16 head coach for the Crimson Hockey Club in Stoughton, Massachusetts, before becoming an assistant at Curry in Milton, Massachusetts, from 2022-24. The team went 43-12-2 during his two seasons there and advanced to the NCAA Division III men’s championship quarterfinals twice.

“I think he is on a great track,” Peterson said. "Learning from a couple of the top coaches at that level. He’s doing it the right way, learning and growing a strong foundation. His future is very bright. Young and hungry coach that wants to grind and grow. Now he’s a got a chance to put his fingerprints on the game and that is awfully exciting.”

Russell said he doesn’t how far he’ll go in hockey, but he's excited about the possibilities.

“Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a pretty ambitious person,” he said. “Me coaching at the highest level, if that means Division I college, if that's in the NHL, I don't really put a limit on that. I think wherever life takes me, I'm ready to take that on.”