Longtime Yale hockey coach Tim Taylor has died at 71. He’d reportedly been battling cancer and very ill as the Bulldogs were on their run to the national championship earlier this month.
Taylor coached the Bulldogs for 28 seasons, with two leaves to coach in the Olympics in 1984 (as an assistant to Lou Vairo) and 1994 (head coach). His Yale record was 337-433-55 with two 20-win seasons and the 1997-98 ECAC regular-season championship.
The Bulldogs let him go in 2006, hiring Keith Allain, and you know the rest of that story. Taylor worked more closely with USA Hockey since then, including a stint as a coach with the NTDP; he was most recently director of player personnel for the junior national team, which won the World Junior Championship this year for the second time in four years, both under his watch. Caught a couple of young Americans tweeting their condolences along with an American sporting hero.