After playing, coaching and scouting talent from the high school to NHL levels, Sean Coady has found that coaching the Sacred Heart/Rising Tide program is just as rewarding.

KINGSTON – You won’t find many people who have done more in hockey than Sean Coady.

            He was a high school star who went on to play for an iconic head coach in college. He played defense at the pro level with enough edge to pile up 272 penalty minutes in 72 games (Binghamton Whalers, 1982-83). He was an assistant coach at his college alma mater, as well as at two Ivy League schools. The nearly 20 years he spent  scouting talent for three NHL organization – including the hometown team – are worth a mention.

            Somehow, it took awhile to get to the most recent, current item on Coady’s resume: Head coach. And while the job might be where people would expect to find him, there’s also no place Coady would rather be than on the bench, in the locker room, and on the ice with his kids from Sacred Heart School in Kingston and Rising Tide Charter School of Plymouth, a combined program for the first time this season.

            “I had never been a head coach before,” said Coady, 61, who is leading the Saints for the second year after three seasons as an assistant. “It’s different from a lot of things I’ve done, but it’s still hockey. And it’s more fun.”

            Coady, a Scituate native with histories at Archbishop Williams High School (he played for legend Frank Quinn), the University of New Hampshire (played, coached and recruited there), Princeton (men) and Brown (women) universities, is used to more resources at the amateur level – to say nothing of what was at hand when he worked in the scouting and player personnel departments of the NHL’s Jets/Coyotes, Bruins and Sharks for almost 20 years.

            The Knights have a roster of 15 players – 13 skaters, two goalies. There are more eighth-graders (four) on the roster than any class; there’s even a seveth-grader in forward Mike Bulger of Hanson. Coady, who got junior winger Joshua Turner and freshman No. 2 goalie Bradley Staruski from Rising Tide (both are from Plymouth), only has two seniors – captain Josh McCafferty of Weymouth, whom the coach considers the team’s best player, and Conor Greeley of Scituate.

            There’s not much more Coady loves than taking his small group into games.

            “People see how many players we have, and the size of some of our younger guys, and they say ‘Is that your varsity?’” Coady said. “And I’ll say ‘Sure it is.’ ''

            Mayflower League opponents are figuring that out – often the hard way.

After some growing pains a year ago (3-11-3 overall, 1-6-2 in league play), the Saints are growing up. They’re 6-5-1 overall (2-2-0 in league play) with a legitimate shot at the MIAA Div. 3 tournament, and have recently been making life difficult for some of the Mayflower League’s top teams: The combined Southern Regional/West Bridgewater program, 11-3-0 overall this season, is 4-1-0 in league play because Sacred Heart pulled off a stunning 8-1 upset on Jan. 17 – on the road, no less. Three nights later, the Saints tied Blue Hills Regional (10-4-1), 3-3 – again, in enemy territory. Sacred Heart had lost to both teams previously.

Not bad for a team that regularly uses only three defenseman (McCafferty, sophomore Leo Dowling of Pembroke and Nick Sivieri, an eighth-grader from Plymouth), and has only recently started reaping the benefits of skilled eighth-grade forward Jake Silva of Bridgewater, who lost the first six weeks of the season to injury.

 Coady insists on effort, but he’s not into heaping demands on players, either.

 “This isn’t the NHL,” said Coady, who often runs practices with assistants Ron High and Eric Johnson on The Bog’s mini-rink. “I don’t spend a lot of time on complicated systems and stuff. I just try to get the guys to improve fundamentally, to work hard, to back each other up.

“If each guy improves a little bit, our team improves. That’s what we want.”

That the Saints are on the rise is pretty apparent. And after a hockey lifetime spent in bigger programs with bigger names, Coady is enjoying this experience as much or more than those that came before it.

“It feels great – especially when you win – no matter what level,” he said. “But it feels even better when you’re coaching, and you’re on the bench, and you’re on the bus, and you’re with the kids, and see how happy they are. That feels really good.”