Boston College Women’s Hockey Assistant Coach Named Head Coach at Lindenwood

Boston College will have a vacancy to fill on the coaching staff as Max Gavin heads to Missouri to lead the Lindenwood program.

Max Gavin on the bench of the Powassan Voodoos during his stint coaching in the NOJHL. | Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League (nojhl.com)

After two years on Katie Crowley’s staff, Max Gavin departs Boston College to take the head coaching job at Lindenwood. In his time on Chestnut Hill, the Eagles extended their streak of top-four finishes in Hockey East and have produced multiple award winners, including Emma Conner who was named Hockey East’s Best Defensive Forward in 2025-26. 

Max Gavin has officially been hired as the new @LU_Hockey 🦁🏒 Head Coach ‼️

Gavin brings over 🔟 years of coaching experience to Lindenwood and comes from Boston College, where he was an Assistant Coach for the past 2 seasons.

📕| https://t.co/2hkTh9J8QP#TheHuntBegins pic.twitter.com/hLhphv4pn2

— Lindenwood Athletics (@LU_Lions) June 16, 2026

The job will be Gavin’s third head coaching gig and first at the NCAA level, as well as his first time leading a women’s hockey program. His first coaching stop was at his alma mater, Adrian College, where Gavin played four years as a defenseman before playing a brief stint of professional hockey in the ECHL for the Wheeling Nailers. At Adrian College he led one of the school’s men’s club hockey teams in ACHA D3 and served as an assistant for the program’s ACHA D1 team. Gavin was part of the coaching staff that helped Adrian College claim the 2018 ACHA Division I National Championship after a 34-1-0 season.

After his stint at Adrian College, Gavin moved north of the border to take the reins of the Powassan Voodoos in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, a Men’s Junior A league. After revamping the special teams units, the Voodoo won the league’s 2018-19 regular season title and sustained the success into Gavin’s second season, accumulating a record of 78-28-4-2 before departing to coach in the collegiate ranks. 

Gavin’s first job in NCAA Hockey came at the University of Vermont, where he oversaw various off-ice aspects of the school’s men’s program as the director of hockey operation. After one season in the role, Gavin accepted a job as an assistant coach at Dartmouth, his first time coaching in the women’s game. Following two seasons with the Big Green, he moved back to Hockey East and joined Boston College ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Gavin replaces former Eagle defensewoman Taylor Wasylk who leaves Lindenwood after the program’s best season in their decade and a half in Division I. The Lions went 14-21-2 overall and 11-12-1 in the AHA in 2025-26, an improvement on the previous record set in Wasylk’s first season, 2023-24, where the Lions went 11-19-2 with a 6-12-2 conference record. Prior to her coaching career, Wasylk was a standout at Boston College, helping lead the Eagles to three consecutive Frozen Fours and being named Hockey East’s best defensive forward in 2014.

This marks the second former Boston College assistant to land an NCAA Division I head coaching job this offseason after Courtney Kennedy was named the head coach at Merrimack College. Kennedy spent seventeen seasons as an assistant coach for the Eagles, the last twelve as associate head coach, before departing in 2024 to lead the USA U18 national team and work as a skills coach for the PWHL’s Boston Fleet.

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