Eric Rud hired to be SCSU assistant men's hockey coach (2024)

ST. CLOUD — Eric Rud's career as a coach over 22 seasons has seen him work in six states in juniors, NCAA Division I men's and women's hockey.

He will not have a tough time finding a way around the city he is working in when he starts his next job.

That is because the 51-year-old Rud is going to be working for a university he has worked for twice before. Rud was an assistant coach for SCSU men's head coach Bob Motzko from 2005-10 and then was the Huskies' head women's coach from 2014-19. Monday, it was announced that Rud has been hired as the new assistant coach for the St. Cloud State men's hockey team under head coach Brett Larson.

"I think it's a great place for people to come and experience college athletics," Rud said of returning to SCSU. "I've witnessed it with the men's program. I've witnessed it with the women's program. I've watched student-athletes from there go on to all kinds of success in life whether it's hockey or non-hockey.

"It's a really special place. It's a unique college environment that really is special. To be able to come back to a place that means so much to my family is just amazing."

Rud replaces Dave Shyiak, who left the program and was named the head coach at Northern Michigan on June 26. Shyiak was with the Huskies for the last four seasons and one of Rud's roles with the team will be to coach the defense.

"I talked to some other people who have worked with him in the past and they all raved about how he's got a talent of developing defensem*n and that's really what I needed," said Larson, who is about to begin his seventh season with the Huskies. "If you ask the defensem*n who played for him here at St. Cloud or at other stops along his career, he's done a great job of teaching the game and developing defensem*n who are ready for the next level."

Recruiting, of course, is a big part of being an assistant coach and this will be the fifth time that Rud has done that for a men's program. He was an assistant coach for Colorado College in 2004-05 before getting to SCSU the first time, then was an assistant coach again for the Tigers from 2011-14 and his last college stop was when he was an assistant coach for Miami from 2019-22.

"I think he did some of the best work in his coaching career when he was at St. Cloud State as an assistant coach, recruiting some great teams here," Larson said. "He built great relationships with the players. There were a lot of guys he coached and recruited who reached out to me and showed a lot of belief in him."

Courtesy of St. Cloud State University

While Larson and Rud have not been on the same staff before, their paths have crossed many times throughout their careers. The two are the same age, both played defense and ran into one another for the first time at camps when they were growing up.

In high school, Larson played for Duluth Denfeld and Rud played for Simley. Then they played against one another in college. Larson played for Minnesota Duluth (1991-95) and Rud played for Colorado College (1993-97).

They also played against one another in pro hockey and were teammates for the Minnesota Blue Ox in Roller Hockey International and then have been opponents throughout their coaching careers.

"We're both straight-up, honest, good people who try to do the right things in life," Rud said. "Those are the types of people you want to work with and when you go into a profession as an intense as this, you have to trust that. I certainly felt that trust always with our relationship."

Once Rud found out that Shyiak has gotten the Northern Michigan job, he reached out to Larson. Larson said that Rud was one of "20-30 people" who reached out to him about the job, but picked Rud for a number of reasons.

"For eight months out of the year, you're together from pretty much 6:30 in the morning until 6:30 at night and every weekend," Larson said of being on a college coaching staff. "You want to make sure you're hiring good people that you want to be around. Having a long relationship with Ruder, I had no doubt that he'd fit into our staff."

Larson also likes having an assistant coach on his staff who has been a head coach somewhere else.

"Someone who has been a head coach and can keep us as a staff keep learning and growing ... that experience is invaluable," Larson said. "I think those guys understand the stress of being in the head coach chair and they've been through it. I think it makes them better assistant coaches. I felt like my two years as a head coach at (USHL's) Sioux City made me a better assistant coach when I went back to being an assistant coach.

"It helps you see things from a different perspective," Larson said of Rud, who was also the head coach and general manager of the USHL's Green Bay Gamblers in 2010-11. "He's a guy I'll really be able to rely on to help us grow as a staff."

Trent Singer / The Rink Live

Rud was the head coach the last two seasons for the USHL's Sioux Falls Stampede. The Stampede were 28-28-5-1 and reached the playoffs for the first time since 2019 last season, but Rud's contract was not renewed.

"It was surprising when it happened," Rud said. "It was an interesting process. I'd never not had my contract renewed before. It was an interesting process to go through and you don't wish that on anyone.

"It's something that I have learned a lot from and our family has learned a lot from. People always say that it makes you stronger and it certainly has made us stronger. It gives me extra fire in my passion for coaching. Part of the reason I wanted to come back to St. Cloud State is that I believe it's a place you can win a national title. At this point in my life, you don't want to work this hard in a profession if you don't think you can win a national title."

Rud said that his family is excited about returning to St. Cloud. He has three kids with his wife, Amy: Sam, Gabbie and Max.

"My wife couldn't be more thrilled," Rud said of Amy, who has an education degree from SCSU. "She has such close relationships in town and it's a place where my kids all went to high school and graduated from Tech. The kids are extremely excited to be able to spend more time when they come back and visit us.

"They were little ones when we were first here, so that was chaos," he said of 2005-10. "We moved away and came back and then it was the high school years. Now they're young adults.

"It's kind of crazy that our time in St. Cloud is measured by our kids' ages."

Sam is a senior consultant for Hawkeye Hockey Services. This fall, Max will be a sophom*ore defenseman at the University of Minnesota men's hockey team and Gabbie will be a senior forward for the Cornell University women's hockey team.