Cory Laylin is starting his fifth season as head coach of the Piper men pucksters.
The St. Cloud, Minn. native, whose first coaching assignment was an assistant at Hamline, made a smashing return to the Pipers in 2014-15. After winning just three games the previous two seasons, Hamline finished in fifth place in conference play and then swept through the MIAC playoffs with three road victories. That earned them a second ever berth in the NCAA Division III men's hockey tournament. They finished the year with a 14-11-4 overall record.
In 2015-16, HU again finished fifth in the league. They won a first round game at Concordia before falling to eventual conference champ Augsburg. HU ended the year with a 10-12-5 overall mark. The Pipers made the postseason again in 2016-17, finishing fourth with a 7-5-4 league standard (10-10-6 overall). HU hosted Concordia in a first round MIAC playoff game, marking the third straight year thyey have been playing in the postseason,
Laylin was an assistant at HU in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons. The Pipers won 32 games in that time span, advancing to the MIAC postseason title game in his first year and making the playoffs the next year as well.
“I’m very excited to be at Hamline. It’s where I got the coaching bug,” Laylin said. “I learned about D-III hockey in my time here. This is a great, very competitive league. I’m looking forward to getting to work to build this team into a being a contender.”
Prior to taking the head job at HU, Laylin has been the general manager and head coach of the Brookings Blizzard in the North American Hockey League for two seasons. He also spent one season as the co-head coach at Buffalo High School and coached a pro team in Carldaro in the Italian professional league.
Laylin played his high school hockey at St. Cloud Apollo. A Pittsburgh Penguins draftee, Cory earned a scholarship to the University of Minnesota, where he scored 58 goals in four seasons there. The Golden Gophers advanced to the NCAA tournament all four years he was there. In his freshman season, they came within a whisker of the NCAA title, losing to Harvard in overtime in the championship game.
After he left the U, Cory played 16 seasons professionally, much of it overseas. His best statistical season was in 1999-2000 when he scored 32 goals in 53 games for Iserlohn, a team in a league based in Germany.
For the past four years, Laylin has also been heavily involved with USA Hockey. In August, he served as the head coach for Team USA at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup tournament in Alberta. Team USA finished fourth, losing a controversial semifinal game to Canada, 6-5 and falling in the bronze medal game to Russia, 5-4. In 2017, he was an assistant coach for the Under 18 team that played in the Hlinka Cup Tournament in the Czech Republic.In 2016, he was the head coach for the Under 17 team that swept away four opponents to win the Five Nations Cup tournament in August in Dallas, Texas. In 2015, he was an assistant coach for Team USA, which won the round robin event.
