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New boys hockey coach passionate about making Nashua South a winner

By Staff | Dec 14, 2014

Coaching a team that is clad in purple seems to fit Shawn Connors.

After all, it’s a special color in his life. The new Nashua High School South boys ice hockey coach was awarded the Purple Heart for his service in Iraq a decade ago.

“It matches up,” Connors said, smiling.

It’s that military background that serves him well as a disciplinarian-type coach. When Connors was the assistant coach under former Panthers head man Eric Monmie, he was the bad cop to Momnie’s good cop.

“Usually it’s the other way around,” Connors said, chuckling. “The assistant is usually the good guy.

“With my army background. I’m tough I say it once, if they don’t do it, they skate. One reason we will never lose games is because we’re out of shape. On same note, I’ll be the first to pick them up. Having fun is part of it too. We’ll push them, and push them, and do our best to at least get these kids into the playoffs for the first time.”

It would be quite a feat for a team that has won only a handful of games over the last several seasons and hasn’t been a Division I playoff team in the last nine years. Connors is the fourth Panthers head coach during that span.

His military experience isn’t something he talks about. Connors joined the Army a little while after 9-11, inspired by the fact that his sister Kathleen could have easily lost her life in the World Trade Center in New York City.

“She was supposed to be there, but it turned out she wasn’t,” he said. “But she knew a lot of people who were.”

He enlisted and was in the 270th Armored Battalion in Fort Riley, Kan. Eventually he was deployed to Iraq, but what he saw and experienced there basically stays there.

“We don’t really talk about it,” he said. “Just the army way of life comes out in my coaching.”

Eventually he was deployed to Iraq, spent 11 months there, but suffered injuries and was sent home, receiving the Purple Heart. Connors could have stayed in the military but would have been confined, he said, to desk work.

“I didn’t go in the army to sit behind a desk,” he said, “so I got out.”

What followed has been a fun career coaching – he was Londonderry’s junior varsity boys lacrosse coach for nine years as well as assisting Monmie behind the South bench for two seasons. When Monmie decided over the summer he’d rather spend more time with his young family, Connors threw his hat in the ring and was the choice last month.

He graduated from Londonderry in 1995, just before the school got approval for a hockey program. No problem, Connors played lacrosse for the Lancers and also junior hockey (Merrimack Valley Knights), and then went to play in Europe before he joined the Army.

Besides coaching, he owns a fireworks display company that, among other things, has put on the Friday fireworks shows for the Nashua Silver Knights baseball team at Holman Stadium. He also runs a 20-team men’s league out of Cyclones Arena in Hudson that also plays its games in Salem and Hooksett.

When he came with Monmie, he was startled by the state of South hockey.

“When I came here I was surprised,” he said. “When I grew up, Nashua’s program was one school. They had a freshman program and JV program. When I got here, I thought it would be a little bit better than it was. But we were young two years ago.

“In my mind, this will be the year where South could look at the playoffs.”

He’s banking on a few veterans, and the fact that numbers, with a roster of at least 24 players, give the Panthers depth. The question could be inexperienced goaltending.

“We’ll have to devise a program on defense to help make up for that, play around with that end of it,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of things that need to be changed. Don’t get me wrong, Eric was a great coach. But we need a better off-season program, we’ve got to change the offense, change the defense.

“We’ve got to put a team together based on these kids’ talents, knowing we have freshman to seniors. It’s not like every other program where they have JV, varsity.”

And Connors will put his coaching theories to the ultimate test.

“I am a strict coach,” he said. “I like to push them, and in my mind, that’s the only way a young team like this is going to win. We’ve got young players, we’ve got to push them as hard as we can.”

But don’t get Connors wrong, he’s not so much of a taskmaster that the experience is a chore, for him or his players.

“I love it. I love coaching kids,” he said.”I think coaching is more than just being on the ice and being on the field. It’s getting these kids ready for the real world. That’s what it’s really about.

“I’ll never stop coaching, whether it’s lacrosse or hockey. I’m looking forward to (South’s season). I think we have a good shot.”

In the newest phase of his life, Shawn Connors is again thinking purple.

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