In 2021, David Nies completed his third season as an assistant for USHL Omaha when Lancers ownership began making extreme budget cuts and other bizarre moves.
The well-documented juniors soap opera culminated in the coaching staff resigning and players refusing to dress in November of that year.
Fortunately for Nies, he was known and respected by Anthony Noreen, then the coach of rival Tri-City and now Miami’s head coach.
Noreen hired Nies away from the flaming wreckage that was Omaha the off-season before that mutiny.
The tandem coached together for two successful seasons with Tri-City, making Nies an easy assistant coaching choice for the RedHawks after Noreen was hired this spring.
“The guys love him,” Noreen said. “His connection with the guys – to be able to find that fine line of having a relationship with them but also holding them accountable. Like, not being a soft shoulder but being able to push them, but also being a guy that the guys just love and think the world of. That’s a fine line in coaching, to be able to find that balance, and David’s as good as I’ve seen at that.”
Nies spent last season evaluating talent for the U.S. National Development Team, and he is listed as a recruiting coordinator for the RedHawks. This will be his first Division I position for the 2013 Southern Maine graduate.
“Coming from junior hockey and coaching that type of player with that age has probably made it a little easier to recruit because you kind of know what’s in these kids’ minds,” Nies said. “One of the biggest things that I’ve learned throughout my years is that these kids don’t really care about where you played and where you come from, they just want to know that you’re making them better and that you care of them. And I think that’s what our kids are going to see from our staff.”
Nies grew up in Brookline, Mass., two miles from Fenway Park in college hockey mecca — a short drive from Northeastern, Boston University and Boston College, and he regularly took in games at all three.
He played hockey, baseball and football through his sophomore year of high school and committed to Division III Southern Maine for the 2009-10 season, the same school as fellow assistant Troy Thibodeau.
“I wanted to continue to play, no matter where, and Southern Maine could’ve been Antarctica and I probably would’ve gone at that point,” Nies said. “I was 21 and didn’t have a school to go to and I needed a place to play, and (Southern Maine) took a chance on me.”
He committed on his visit even though Southern Maine told him he could take his time making a decision.
“It was a really quick and easy process for me just because I wanted to go to a place where I was wanted, and I was desperate to find a school,” Nies said. “It ended up being an amazing four years for me, and obviously I formed some great relationships – (Thibodeau) being one of them – so I consider it a big-time success.”
The forward racked up 47 points in 99 games with the Huskies and was captain his final two seasons. He had a couple of classes to complete after he had exhausted his eligibility, and his head coach, Jeff Beaney, asked if he wanted to help out in a coaching role.
“That’s kind of where I got the bug to coach,” Nies said.
After spending a season helping out with his alma mater and bouncing around in various positions with several organizations — including Ohio University — Nies landed with USHL Omaha in 2018 following a one-year stint with Amarillo, a lower-tiered NAHL juniors program.
Kirk Luedeke, a decades-long veteran member of the USHL brass and now the general manager for USHL Green Bay, recommended Nies for the job in Omaha, a program headed by seven-year NHL veteran David Wilkie.
Nies met with Wilkie and joined his staff with the Lancers at the exact time Thibodeau was driving to his new position with Tri-City, and the two passed the Kearney, Neb., exit at about the same time while Nies was motoring from Amarillo to Omaha.
“It’s funny how those things work out, but it worked out perfectly,” Nies said.
The Lancers missed the playoffs in 2018-19, but in Nies’ second season with the team, Omaha finished second in the Western Conference before the playoffs were canceled due to COVID.
Omaha was seven games over .500 in 2020-21, and ownership issues permeated the junior hockey landscape toward the end of the regular season.
With the organization slashing its budget by absurd means — forcing kids to purchase their own sticks, trying to use a billet family as equipment manager, defaulting on scouting software and forcing a driver to complete a 14-hour bus ride from suburban Pittsburgh back to Omaha — Nies was the first fiscal casualty.
Noreen was aware of Omaha’s strong draft keyed by Nies and Tri-City had an open slot, as one of Noreen’s assistants had taken a head coaching job.
“Had there been no issues — I think everything happens for a reason – I probably wouldn’t have ended up in Tri-City,” Nies said. “They were rivals to us, so for me, when I saw the purple from the Tri-City Storm, I wasn’t always thrilled, but then that quickly changed, as these things do. I really enjoyed my time (at Tri-City), and it was a stark difference from Omaha to Tri-City. I learned a lot from Wilkie, and I think he’s a good coach, and he helped me and shaped me into who I am today and a lot of the things that I teach and coach is things that I learned from him. Same could be said for Anthony too. I had an amazing time in Tri-City, I learned a lot from him, so I got the best of both worlds – I was in Omaha when it was a pretty good situation and then obviously Tri-City was a good situation when I was there.”
Nies had also impressed Noreen with his prowess coaching the Lancers’ penalty kill.
“We had a pretty good power play at Tri-City and we always struggled against them, and so you’re always trying to look at: Who’s running what, and where, and why are they good?” Noreen said. “We just always thought he did a good job on the draft and a good job on the kill.”
Noreen said that in Nies’ first season running the defensemen at Tri-City, the Storm were tops in the USHL Western Conference on the penalty kill and in defensemen scoring.
With a desire to concentrate on scouting, Nies accepted a recruiting position with the U.S. National Development Program last September, largely thanks to the reference of Noreen and Nies’ long-time relationship with current USA U-18 assistant GM Rod Braceful.
“I love scouting players, I love watching and evaluating players – I think it’s one of my strong suits – and I thought, what better job than to go after this?” Nies said.
Nies’ lifestyle changed immediately. In five seasons of coaching in the USHL, he said he averaged 2-3 road trips a year.
Last season, he said between September and May, he was on the road all but one weekend.
“I was watching a lot of hockey,” Nies said. “I was up in Minnesota, I was down in Texas, New England a decent amount, Michigan a decent amount, Chicago, Fargo…it was awesome. I got to see a lot of hockey cultures, meet a lot of new people and good people in the hockey community, and the hockey community is small.”
Miami has slipped from a national championship contender in 2015 to NCHC doormat in nine years, going 1-21-2 in league play last season and winning 35 games the past five campaigns.
So how much tougher does that make recruiting?
“A lot of young kids get lured in by what’s happening now, so we’re kind of asking for a little bit of blind trust when we’re recruiting these kids, because we thoroughly believe we’re going to get it going here,” Nies said. “For us, one of ‘Anth’’s biggest strengths is his ability to coach talented players, and with Troy and holding them accountable, I think we have a lot to offer.”
Nies’ presence is already reaping major dividends for the program, which has landed several high-level 15- and 16-year-old recruits since the current period opened on Aug. 1.
In the week since, Miami has landed four highly-lauded commits in Jimmy Rieber, Ilya Morozov, Trevor Theuer and Nate Pederson.
“He’s spent the last year, not just watching but developing relationships with all the best ‘08s, ‘09s (berths), their families, their advisors in the country,” Noreen said. “For us, going into recruiting, obviously a lot of the kids that at a recruitable, committable age are just off the board. And you never know what can change, and things with the transfer portal, but a lot of the older players – right now, unless they’re late bloomers – they’re just committed, and that’s the world we live in. So the guys that are available to commit for the first time on Aug. 1, most of which are ’08 birthdays, are the kids that he’s been primarily watching, recruiting, building relationships with all year.”
Nies said the facilities, the rink, the weight room and the campus make Miami a solid sell to would-be RedHawks, as well as the opportunity to play in the top conference in Division I.
“I think it helps, I love it,” Nies said. “As much as Denver, North Dakota, Duluth, UNO, they’re opposition, but our counterparts as well. I think as much as we can sell our university, going up against those guys is a huge piece of it.”
Several reputable college hockey recruiting sites are already praising Miami’s Nies-led commits in the first few days of commits.
Like the other coaches on this team that did not play at a high level, Nies had to work that much harder to earn the opportunity to coach Division I hockey, and he embraces the challenge of resurrecting this program.
“I pinch myself, honestly,” Nies said. “To be at an institution like Miami University and to be coaching in the NCHC against such great programs and coaches is an honor.”
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