RinkWise podcast: Avon Old Farms coach Mark Naclerio on the future of prep

From left: John Gardner and Mark Naclerio behind the Avon Old Farms bench. (Evan Sayles/Avon Old Farms School)

Mark Naclerio‘s career has come full circle.

The Milford, Conn., native, who played at Avon Old Farms under longtime coach John Gardner from 2008-11, is entering his second season as coach of the Winged Beavers.

Naclerio took over on an interim basis, entering last season after Gardner took a leave of absence. In July, AOF named him head coach of the Winged Beavers.

As a player, Naclerio posted 94 points in 81 games for Avon Old Farms before spending a season in the USHL with the Waterloo Black Hawks. Collegiately, Naclerio was a standout at Brown, where he posted 103 points in 129 career games, captaining the Bears as a junior and senior.

After a professional career that included stops with the AHL’s Providence Bruins and the ECHL’s Atlanta Gladiators and Reading Royals, as well as a stint in Italy, Naclerio began coaching at South Kent in 2020. He returned to AOF as an assistant going into the 2022-23 season.

With Naclerio at the helm in 2024-25, Avon finished 18-8-1, earning the No. 2 seed in the Large School tournament before bowing out to eventual champion Phillips Andover.

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Naclerio joined New England Hockey Journal editor Evan Marinofsky during the latest RinkWise podcast to talk all things prep hockey. They discussed the fall hockey landscape, changes in player development, the influence of specialized sports programs and more.

RinkWise podcast: Avon Old Farms head coach Mark Naclerio

Changes in fall hockey

Naclerio: “There’s always some logistical stuff that you have to work through. We’ve shifted where a lot of our guys are playing with the Nor’Easter (program) down the road in Simsbury. We want to try to get the guys playing together as much as they can, so we have a good amount of our players on that 18U team. I think it’s good to help build the chemistry. If you take a look at a lot of the prep teams that have had success, they do play together in the fall. I think it can be a big benefit for them. We’ll look at different options and work through it every year. … It’s ever-evolving. With all of hockey now, it’s really hard to predict what it’ll look like five years from now. I think a lot of schools are starting to try to get their kids to play together, seeing the trend of the teams that have had success.”

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Academy vs. prep school lifestyle

Naclerio: “The number of games is an obvious (difference). … (At South Kent), we were traveling a lot. We had a lot of home games, but we were in hotels and on bus trips. We were going down to Pittsburgh for the USHL Fall Classic. You don’t have that at prep school. At least for us, in the Founders League, everyone’s within an hour. You’re never in a hotel. You’re always back in your own bed, back for study hall and not missing classes. I think it’s just a different lifestyle. Both can serve a purpose. … The prep school market is a pretty niche market. There are certain kids that want to get everything that a prep school offers. They want that full experience. On the flip side of that, there are some (families) where the number of games and the number of practices and all that stuff throughout the year are most important. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer.”

The RinkWise podcast can be streamed here and on major platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify