Rob O'Gara got the call in late March while in Green Bay, Wisc., scouting the USA Hockey Nationals.
His wife, Isabel, had been diagnosed with breast cancer, all while she was 30 weeks pregnant.
A month later, O'Gara lost his job as an assistant coach at Yale after new head coach Jeff Hamilton took over.
O'Gara was suddenly jobless with a wife who had cancer and a baby on the way.
"Hard," O'Gara said of this year. "It's been overwhelming at times. Early on, it's like not only is my wife going to be OK? But is our unborn son going to be OK? Honestly, it felt silly early on to even worry about the job stuff because of how unimportant it felt in the grand scheme."
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Resilience and new beginnings
The baby boy was born in May. Six months later, he's "crushing it," according to O'Gara. Isabel has since gone through her first round of chemotherapy and has had surgery. There's still a long journey ahead before she's cancer-free.
"We have the full belief that she's going to be fine at the end of this," O'Gara said.
As for O'Gara, in September, he rode in the Closer to Free Ride in Connecticut, raising money for Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, Conn.
O'Gara hoped to raise $10,000. Come riding day, when he biked 100 miles across Connecticut, he had amassed over $65,000 (and counting).
His wife's battle with cancer and his son's birth rightfully overshadowed the loss of his job at Yale.
That didn't mean it hurt any less — O'Gara won a national championship at Yale in 2013 and played there from 2012-16. After a career in the NHL and AHL, Yale hired him as an assistant in 2021.
"Yale meant so much to me," O'Gara said. "I said this to people all the time, and I'm sure they thought it was corny, but it was more than a job. Giving back to a program and players who were walking in the same shoes I did was really meaningful."
It was fitting, then, that O'Gara, who played at Milton Academy before heading to Yale, landed on his feet as the head boys hockey coach at a prep school, signing on with nearby Taft in June.
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O'Gara works in the development office with the advancement team, raising money for Taft. Ironically, his boss is Natalie Smith Will, the wife of Salisbury head coach Andrew Will.
"I'm curious if in late November, early December, right before we play our first real game, I start to get really swamped with that side of the work," O'Gara said with a laugh.
Taft has been flexible with O'Gara's life, getting him up to speed with two sides of the new job, and spending time at home helping his wife and their two young children.
"Getting to be at home when I need to has been a huge part of this too," O'Gara said. "Being there for my wife and kids as we go through this time, that's something that every single person here understands, and that's been huge for the transition.
"The stresses [of Taft] don't extend home. Like, yeah, it's a new place, a new job. You're trying to meet so many new people and figure out what you've got in the room. That can be a little anxiety-inducing. But it's never felt overwhelming, and it's because of the support at Taft. That has been really, really special. I'm very grateful for that."
The plan to win at Taft
Taft went 10-13-1 last season. Ryan Shannon announced he was stepping down as head coach in April.
Along with graduating 11 seniors, Taft had rising senior forward Henning Reinprecht, defenseman Logan Smith and goalie Hunter Dryden all jump to juniors. Recent Yale commit Dylan Rothstein transferred to Salisbury.
"I think we returned three goals on our roster this season," O'Gara said.
Yes, that's right — three.
The foundation of this year's extremely green team will be returning forward Will Busconi, defenseman Thomas Hamilton and goalie Charlie Rodrigue (Shelton, Conn.). Busconi and Hamilton are the two team captains. Assistants will be named as the season goes on.
All of Shannon's incoming recruits still opted to come. O'Gara, in his limited recruiting time, got three players of his own in.
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"It really is a clean slate," O'Gara said. "I told them all the first time we chatted over Zoom — I have no allegiances. I need to play the best players, and if you're willing to work, I'm willing to work with you."
Opportunity will be aplenty. Wins, however, may not, and that's OK — it's the first year of what could be a multi-year rebuild.
"We're not going to be the most talented team in New England this year," O'Gara said. "But we need to get an identity and embrace it. You could say, 'Oh, we're going to be the hardest-working team in prep hockey.' Well, how do you do that? What do you do on a day-to-day basis?"
Believing in prep
By going from Yale to Taft, O'Gara jumped to a different side. Just earlier this year, he was recruiting players for Division 1 college hockey. Now, he's trying to put them in the best position to get recruited.
He understands that players aren't going from prep to college anymore — junior hockey has become a necessity. And, in turn, succeeding against older competition is a necessity, too.
"On the way [to college and junior hockey], you need to learn how to function against older competition and how to play your game as fast as you possibly can at those levels," O'Gara said. "I think prep is just another piece of that puzzle where you're going to play against older competition and you're going to develop and have all these resources."
O'Gara is fortunate to be at Taft, a prep school with an endowment of almost half a billion dollars, two ice rinks on campus and a big weight room led by strength and conditioning coach Will Turner (who was previously at Yale).
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"All of this is here, and it's for players to take advantage of," O'Gara said. "If you are the kind of person that is willing to make sure that you're budgeting your time to do all of that and want to play hockey for a long time, that's the person I'm looking for.
"And that's how I think we win."
