O'Neil notches one last win in Make-A-Wish Hockey Classic

Bill O'Neil spent the night before the final game of an unrivaled coaching career in a University of Vermont dorm bed. It was part of the deal. He was grateful his room caught the summer breeze.

Unsurprisingly, sleep was fleeting on a mattress built for teenagers. 

"I don't sleep anyway — I was up, it was probably 2, 2:30, 3 before I got to sleep," O'Neil said.

Rested or not, gameday still came as it had the roughly 2,000 times before in his four-plus decades coaching Vermont high school sports.

However, to say this time was different at once hits the mark and misses the point. O'Neil, the Essex High School icon whose passion and persistence helped him become the state's winningest coach, made a point of not turning his last season into a farewell tour. He ended up with a swan song anyway at the 25th Annual Make-A-Wish Hockey Classic on Saturday night.

And a 44-year run that began with an 8-1 win over Lyndon at Northfield's Taylor Arena on Dec. 5, 1973 ended with one more W: Vermont's 3-2 come-from-behind triumph over New Hampshire at Gutterson Fieldhouse.

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Some things never get old, like that feeling when you're on the brink of victory — you know, the one that builds like a wave before breaking in a sea of high-fives and hugs.

"To come out and go down 2-0, get one, get two and then get the game-winner, there's that sort of euphoria you get when you can sense it but you're not sure," O'Neil said.

"It was just a great way to end it," he said. "The kids were so excited, so proud. I don't think we get enough of that in Vermont hockey."

The result was Vermont's first win against New Hampshire since 2012 and only the second since 2004.

But before the comeback, the challenge was assembling a cohesive team out of players from 10 different programs. Joining O'Neil in solving that puzzle were his former assistant Jay Parent, who spent 10 years on the Hornets bench before stepping away last winter, and Middlebury coach Derek Bartlett.

Neither needed a long-winded recruiting pitch to join O'Neil for the Twin State encore. 

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"When he called and asked me to do this with him, one more game, one last time, especially here at Gutterson, there couldn't be a better guy I'd want to spend the last couple days with," Parent said. 

"When you can coach with a legend of high school hockey throughout the country like Coach O, it's unbelievable," Parent said. 

The afternoon before the game, the second of three on-ice practices for the contest, O'Neil laced up the same Lange skates he's worn since his first season at Essex — truth — and warmed up North Country goalie Dana Marsh while Bartlett peppered Spaulding's Cody Gosselin and Parent directed the skaters.

At the end of the session, he skated to each player stretching at center ice, tapping them with his stick and providing words of encouragement.  

"He's there for your support and he's just a caring guy,"  said BFA-St. Albans' Isaac Cioffi, whose father, Luke, coached the Vermont girls team. "There's more to it than just hockey, which is amazing."

O'Neil's overall record at Essex added up to a staggering 1,293-592-85 and 24 state championships. It included a 396-176-52 run in girls soccer and a 261-124 balance leading the Hornets softball team.

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His 636-292-33 mark in boys hockey is more than any other Vermont high school coach — in any sport.

One common thread in that resume: Patience.

"When I started my coaching career I was pretty young and even coming in with him I was young starting at Essex," Parent said. "He taught me patience. He taught me a ton about the game. And he really taught me about perseverance and always staying on the right path rather than making a change quickly ... a knee-jerk reaction is never like him. Everything is very calculated and strategic, which is why he's as successful as he is."

For 19 of the 20 players representing the Green Mountain State, it was their first and only chance to play for O'Neil. Nicholas McGovern, whose sharp forechecking pressure won the puck to set up Joe Parento for the short-handed winner, was the lone representative from Essex. 

"He's a legendary Vermont high school coach so to just get one game under him was a great experience," said Parento, who went on to earn team MVP honors.

"People would be talking in the locker room — locker room talk — and he'd be telling us to watch our adjectives because he's an English teacher," Parento said. "Just funny, quirky stuff like that. His skates are 40-something years old ... he's just such a great hockey character." 

Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/eadanforth