Men's Ice Hockey
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- rfogarty@princeton.edu
- Alma Mater:
- Colgate '95
- Season:
- 10th season
ECAC Championships (1): 2018
NCAA Tournaments (1): 2018
NHL Players Coaches At Princeton (4): Eric Robinson '18, Ryan Kufner '19, Josh Teves '19, Max Veronneau '19
Ron Fogarty concluded his 10th season at the head men’s ice hockey coach at Princeton in 2023-24. He has posted an overall record of 90-169-27 while behind the bench with the Tigers.
Fogarty coached the Tigers to the 2018 ECAC Championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament. It took Fogarty just four years to turn the Tigers from worst to first, as he inherited a team that finished 12th in the league and then built the program into the 2018 ECAC Champion.
In the Spring of 2019, Fogarty made Princeton history as he had three undrafted free agents sign NHL contracts on the same day -- Max Véronneau with Ottawa, Ryan Kuffner with Detroit and Josh Teves with Vancouver. All three went on to make their NHL debuts that same season. More history came when Ryan Kuffner earned his second All-America honor, becoming the first Tiger in history to earn All-America honors twice.
Princeton was one of the hottest teams during the second half of the 2017-18 season, finishing on 13-3-1 run. As the No. 7 seed in the ECAC Tournament, the Tigers swept Brown in the first round and outscored the bears 15-3. In the quarterfinals Princeton swept No. 2 seed Union to earn a trip to Lake Placid. The Tigers knocked off No. 1 seed Cornell, 4-1 in the semifinals and topped No. 3 seed Clarkson 2-1 in overtime. Princeton held a 1-0 lead through most of the game before an extra attacker goal was scored by Clarkson in the final six seconds. It took less than three minutes for Princeton to punch in the game winner and win the program's third ECAC title. It marked just the second time a No. 7 seed won the ECAC Tournament, and both times it has been the Princeton Tigers.
It was during the same year that Fogarty captured his 200th career win as a head coach, on Feb. 2, 2018 after Princeton topped St. Lawrence 5-4.
In 2019-20, the Tigers were playing their best as the season came to a close suddenly due to COVID-19. After a regular season which included eight one-goal losses, the Tigers rallied in the postseason with a two-game sweep at Dartmouth to advance in the ECAC Playoffs. Each win came in overtime as Princeton knocked off the higher-seeded Big Green to reach the Quarterfinals before the season was halted.
Kuffner and Véronneau both captured second-team All-America honors as one of the two hottest lines in college hockey. Véronneau led the nation in assists per game, while Kuffner was second in the nation in goals. The duo finished third and fifth nationally in scoring as both had 50+ point seasons. Teves led the nation's defensemen in scoring (1.06 ppg) as Princeton finished second in the nation in scoring offense, averaging 3.64 goals per game. Princeton's power play unit also finished first, converting on 36 of 130 chances for 27.7 percent.
Hired in the summer of 2014, it took two years of rebuilding before Fogarty and the Tigers started to gain national attention. In 2016-17, Princeton finished with a 15-16-3 overall record, matching its number of wins over the last three years. The Tigers, predicted to finish 12th in the league took seventh in the ECAC and won their first playoff series since 2009, to advance to the quarterfinals. The Tigers were one of the most improved teams in the country this season: after starting 0-6-1, the Tigers then went 7-2-1 in their turnaround season that saw them grab home ice for the playoffs for the first time since 2012. The squad earned six NCAA Top Plays during the year as it nearly doubled its offensive output from 2015-16 to 2016-17, scoring 43 more goals (103-06). The program also recorded 178 assists, the seventh most assists in a single season at Princeton.
Fogarty spent seven seasons as head coach at NCAA Division III Adrian College (Adrian, Mich.) from 2007-2014. He came to Princeton as the leader among all active NCAA coaches in win percentage.
Fogarty led the Bulldogs to unprecedented success as they set an NCAA single-season record for wins by a first-year program at 26-3 in 2007-08. Fogarty’s success at Adrian continued, as the program became the fastest hockey program to reach the NCAA tournament and 100 wins. To his credit, Fogarty was named the MCHA Coach of the Year three times and was a four-time finalist for national coach of the year. Academically, the Bulldogs had a combined team GPA of 3.00 or greater in all seven years.
A 1995 graduate of Colgate University, Fogarty is no stranger to the ECAC. As a four-year right winger on the hockey team, he was named to the 1992 ECAC All-Rookie Team, and was a member of Raiders first three seasons under Don Vaughan. As a senior captain at Colgate in 1995, he helped Vaughan to his first 20-win season while earning the Coaches Award and the Terry Slater Award. After playing in the ECAC All-Star game following the completion of his senior season, Fogarty left Colgate ranked 20th on the all-time scoring list with 141 points.
Fogarty’s coaching career began shortly thereafter, staying on at Colgate as an assistant coach for three years (1996-99). In 1999, he joined the hockey staff at Clarkson and remained with the Green & Gold through the end of the 2001-02 season. From 2002-06 Fogarty was an assistant coach at Bowling Green. In all, Fogarty coached and/or recruited four Hobey Baker finalists, three All-Americas, eight conference all-stars, four all-rookie selections and nine NHL players (Colgate - Andy McDonald, Cory Murphy; Clarkson- Randy Jones, Erik Cole; Bowling Green- Jordan Sigalet, Jonathan Sigalet, Kevin Bieksa, Jon Matsumoto).
Fogarty first got a taste for coaching during the summers between his sophomore and junior, and junior and senior years at Colgate. He was the Bluewater Sharks Bantam AAA coach in his hometown of Sarnia, Ontario. During his two summers he compiled a 57-19-3 record and was named Coach of the Year after one season.
His professional hockey experience started with the Toledo Storm (ECHL) in 1995 and led to a stint with the Memphis River Kings (CHL) in 1995-96.
