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Osgood hopes to change North-Souhegan hockey culture

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Dec 14, 2019

Telegraph photo by TOM KING Matt Osgood, the fourth head coach in the last four seasons for the Nashua North-Souhegan hockey program, hopes to get things pointed in the right direction.

NASHUA – For the fourth straight year, Josh Constant had that same feeling.

He didn’t know what to expect the first day of tryouts at Conway Arena for the Nashua High School North-Souhegan hockey team.

Why? After last year’s SaberTitans coach, Josh Lavoie, suddenly stepped down midway through the fall due to family reasons, he was going to have his fourth head coach in his four years.

“You know, it’s a little discouraging, the first two years, because we didn’t know what was going on,” Constant said. “This year is a little different. I understand our coach last year wasn’t able to come back, that’s fine.

“I have my hopes up this year. I have four incredible coaches this year. They know the game inside and out. I’m hoping there’s more tenacity this year, more effort.”

So you could say Constant was pleasantly surprised by new North-Souhegan coach Matt Osgood and his staff, headed by assistant Zach Lebowitz.

“It’s a bit of a wakeup call,” Constant, one of the North-Souhegan captains, said. “These coaches, it’s not what we’re used to. This is stricter hockey, way more conditioning.

“This is varsity hockey, and you come to play varsity hockey.”

Osgood knows how he would feel if he were in Constant’s and other seniors’ skates.

“It would not be a positive attitude, probably,” he said. “I’d have a lot of concerns, things like that.”

“It’s tough,” Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras said of the constant coaching turnover. “I feel for the kids, I feel for the parents, I feel for the coaches.”

But one constant Gingras has said she’s grateful for is assistant Joe Haley, who has been on all four staffs, but work, etc. has prevented him from ever seeking the head job.

Thus the 35-year-old Osgood sees the North-Souhegan job as a challenge. He’s a Boston native who played junior hockey and has coached a split season prep team at the Hoosac School in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., among other teams, and also coaches for Edge Skills out of North Andover, which is run by Lebowitz. Lebowitz has coached at the high school level in Massachusetts at Concord Carlisle and also has been an assitant at Tufts University. So Osgood & Co. have plenty of experience to help them in their main goal.

“Turn the program around and bring a winning culture back here,” Osgood said. “I saw the posting and said ‘May as well go for it.'”

To say the Saber-Titans have struggled is an understatement. They’ve failed to make the Division I tournament ever since the co-op was formed in 2015. North was a playoff team in March of 2015 and so was Souhegan.

“The challenge is to bring back winning to Norhegan,” Osgood said. “The challenge is the buy-in. To get the kids to buy in. The kids don’t necessarily have to like you, but they have to play for you. That’s hard.”

But it’s happening. The numbers of players are in the low 40s, which is good for the health of the program.

“We have a lot of internal competition this year,” Osgood said. “We set our roster and we’ll take it from there.”

Osgood, who was a way from the game for a bit and then began coaching a few years ago as he missed hockey, feels that coaching high school is no different than a couple of the other levels.

“Kids are kids,” he said. “I’ll be looking for attitude, effort, commitment, all of the above.”

The move to coaching was a natural for him.

“You get to the point where you can only go so far as a player,” he said. “You miss the guys. I wasn’t necessarily without the game, but without the game to compete.”

Goodwin said he’s followed high school hockey, but not so much in New Hampshire. But he’s learing about it now, having watched a few teams thus far, “and I’ll be watching more if we’re off. When not out there playing, we’ll be scouting.”

He knew the deal when he arrived and first spoke to the kids. But he wanted to start with a clean slate, so there was no mention of the past.

“I didn’t really say anything about the past,” Osgood said. “I preached attitude, commitment, and effort. And so far, we don’t have any issues, which is good.”

Especially as Osgood – as Constant alluded – has brought a different level to the game he wants his players to embrace.

“It’s a higher level of coaching,” Osgood said. “High level drills. Learning from Zach, everything’s D-III to D-I hockey drills. We took some Olympic Canadian drills that they ran. It’s a high level. But we just throw it right into them, and that’s how they learn.”

Osgood said he’d like to establish a program, but doesn’t want to “talk to much about the future”, presumably so as to not detract from the present. Gingras would love someone to take control of the program long-term, as the co-op agreement has been extended for at least a couple of years beyond this season.

But Osgood had only one thing on his mind when he first took the job.

“Just come in and set the tone,” he said. “I set the tone right away at the player-coach meeting. Just go with it and earn their respect early.”

It certainly looks like Matt Osgood has that respect. Now he just wants a few wins for his players to go with it.

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