Dave O’Hearn didn’t let a battle with most cancers outline who he was behind the bench.
The favored Methuen/Tewksbury women hockey head coach was an inspiration to all this previous winter, as he stayed at his teaching submit for the whole lot of the season regardless of receiving remedy for pancreatic most cancers.
O’Hearn’s brave combat got here to an finish this week. He was 48.
The beloved coach left a long-lasting impression on each nook of the native hockey world.
“I like his braveness,” stated Tewksbury Excessive athletic director Ron Drouin. “I like his resolve. He clearly was in lots of ache all season and did the perfect he might to place our student-athletes first. I believe the women have been in a position to sort of draw off of his resolve and his toughness and his power.”
O’Hearn, a longtime assistant coach in this system, was tabbed the interim head coach for the 2022-23 season earlier than shedding that tag two years in the past. In what’s extensively thought-about among the finest leagues within the state, O’Hearn’s groups at all times remained extraordinarily aggressive within the MVC/DCL.
Final season, the Purple Rangers claimed their first league crown since 2019 en path to a 19-2-3 report, only one win away from advancing to the TD Backyard.
Together with his season because the interim head coach, O’Hearn amassed a formidable 47-13-7 report. He was additionally a part of the workers for this system’s back-to-back journeys to the state finals in 2018 and 2019, culminating in a championship in 2019. He was not too long ago named The Solar’s Coach of The 12 months.
“I’ll have fond reminiscences of coach O’Hearn and what he’s achieved for our student-athletes and what he’s achieved for women hockey on this space,” Drouin stated. “He’s been one of many extra well-thought-of ice hockey coaches within the space.”
O’Hearn, a steering counselor at Methuen Excessive, leaves behind three daughters, Maddie, Riley and Kendall. A 1995 graduate of MHS, O’Hearn was a star blueliner for the Rangers and is within the Methuen Excessive College Corridor of Fame.
His zeal for the sport of hockey was contagious. But it surely was his calming nature and steadiness on the bench that made him such an efficient coach.
“In between any interval, if I walked over and talked to educate O’Hearn, I wouldn’t know if we have been up two targets or down two targets,” Drouin stated. “He had that regular hand that not lots of coaches have. And his gamers have been in a position to attract off of that, which is why they’d a lot success within the event.”
The Purple Rangers discovered themselves deadlocked in lots of shut video games final winter, together with 14 one-goal video games between the common season and the state event. Six of these video games required time beyond regulation. But O’Hearn was at all times the calming presence perched atop the bench.
“He had these little issues that have been humorous that he would say that calmed our nerves,” stated defender Lyla Chapman, a star participant on the Purple Rangers. “He would do a pre-game dance earlier than each recreation. Stuff like that, if we have been actually nervous, it simply allow us to benefit from the recreation as a substitute of continually worrying.”
Kelly Golini, a 2018 graduate of Tewksbury Excessive and former participant in this system, spent her first season on the workers with O’Hearn final winter as an assistant. Earlier than enjoying collegiately at Saint Anselm Faculty, she performed for O’Hearn underneath former head coach Sarah Oteri Doucette.
Golini stated O’Hearn was the strongest individual she’s ever seen. She’s without end grateful that he reached out to her to assist coach the crew.
“He was to not himself the man with most cancers or the coach who’s teaching with most cancers. He by no means wished the publicity,” Golini stated. “He confirmed as much as the rink, and he was there for the women. He was there for the Purple Rangers — he was there for Tewksbury and Methuen.”
Golini had a front-row seat to O’Hearn’s willpower. It was at all times in regards to the crew. And his mentorship and legacy will final a lifetime.
“I believe these women have one thing now that they’re going to take with them without end in a optimistic means that there’s extra to life than hockey and he actually confirmed that to them,” Golini stated. “You don’t hand over. You retain combating. Life goes to throw some loopy stuff at you, however you bought to maintain working. Put your head down and get to work, as he would say.”
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