Played1981NAIA National ChampionsAugsburg
Played1982NAIA National ChampionsAugsburg
Coached1986Alaska State ChampionsLathrop High School
Coached1998MIAC Champions · NCAA Final FourAugsburg
Honored2019MN Coaches Hall of FameMinnesota

The banners are his. The next ones are yours.

Eastwood Hockey builds better coaches for youth hockey associations — clinics, program assessments, and season-long mentoring from a coach who has stood on every bench between a Fairbanks high school and an NCAA Final Four.

Book a first clinic See the services

USA Hockey Coach Developer 1–4
Master Level 5
Since 1995 national clinician
Two-time national champion, Augsburg

The gap in the program

Your association develops players. Nobody develops your coaches.

Most youth associations are run by volunteer boards. Most coaches are parents who played the game but were never taught how to teach it. The USA Hockey modules cover the baseline. They don’t cover a playing-time conversation with an angry dad, a locker room going sideways in January, or a coach who is quietly drowning while nobody on the board knows how to bring it up.

Eastwood Hockey works for the board and the hockey director — the people accountable for coach quality across a whole program, without the time or the outside judgment to build it alone.

The work always comes back to the same two things: getting players to think the game differently, and teaching coaches how to prepare. Everything else is detail.

Very few people advising a youth association have coached mites, high school, junior, college, and the pro game. That is the whole difference.

Kids and parents skating on a boarded backyard rink on a winter afternoon — Where most of them start. Somebody has to teach the person running the practice.

What you can hang in your own rafters

Five ways to work together

Start small. Grow into a deeper engagement as trust builds. Every engagement is scoped and quoted for your association before it begins.

Single Clinic or Workshop
Half or full day with your coaching staff — practice planning, age-appropriate teaching, parent communication, team culture. In person or virtual.
Custom quote, scoped to your association
Association Coaching Assessment
A structured review of your coaching program — practice observation, staff and parent interviews, and a written report the board can act on.
Custom quote, scoped to your association
Season-Long Mentoring
Coach mentorship across a season — monthly check-ins, on-ice visits, and a direct line for your hockey director when a situation needs outside judgment.
Custom quote, scoped to your association
Custom Curriculum or Program Build
Purpose-built programs — new-coach onboarding, a culture and character curriculum, or an association-specific coaching guide.
Custom quote, scoped to your association
Keynote & Speaking
Talks for banquets, coach kickoffs, and district clinics — preparation, character, and what forty years behind a bench actually teaches you.
Custom quote, scoped to your association

Travel and lodging quoted separately. Every engagement is scoped in writing before it begins.

Players and coaches gathered at center ice at TRIA Rink after an on-ice session

USA Hockey national clinician since 1995 — still on the ice, still running the sessions himself.

Think the game. Then prepare for it.

What your players and coaches get, not just his résumé.

Mike Schwartz has coached every level between a Fairbanks high school and an NCAA Final Four — grade school through professional. That range is what shows up in your gym: the same teaching, scaled to whatever age group is standing in front of it.

Preparation isn’t the practice plan. It’s knowing what you want a fourteen-year-old to be thinking about at the blue line — and building backward from there.

A K–12 physical education degree and years as an elementary and secondary PE teacher and athletic director are why the teaching lands the same way with a squirt team and a varsity staff: meet players where they are, then build up from there.

The same two questions run through every clinic, every assessment, and every mentoring call: what do you want your players thinking, and what did you do this week to get them ready for it.

Read the full career record and every honor →

Mike Schwartz in his COACH letter jacket in a Minnesota high school corridor

TEACHING THE GAME · EVERY AGE · EVERY LEVEL

Every banner in the rafters

Nothing left off.

Forty years, verified

The record, in brief

Read the full career record and every honor →

1996–2006: Head Coach, Augsburg College — NCAA Division III. 1998 MIAC Champions; 1998 NCAA Division III Final Four, Plattsburgh, New York; National Coach of the Year; MIAC and AHCA Coach of the Year.
1992–96: Head Coach, White Bear Lake High School — State AA tournament appearances in 1994, 1995 and 1996. Section 3AA Coach of the Year three times.
1990–92: GM & Head Coach, Sioux City Musketeers — USHL. Professional head coach at Renon, Italy. San Jose Sharks scout, 1990–92.
1986–90: Head Coach, John A. Johnson High School — 64-30 record. Conference Champions and Twin City Champions, 1989 and 1990.
1986: Head Coach, Lathrop High School, Fairbanks — Alaska state champions. Alaska Coach of the Year. The roster included a girl.

1981, 1982: Two-time NAIA national champion — As a player at Augsburg.
Current: USA Hockey Coach Developer, Levels 1–4, plus Master Level 5 — The top of USA Hockey's coach-education structure. National clinician since 1995. National Select Festival and Team Minnesota coach.
2019, 2023: Minnesota High School Coaches Hall of Fame — 2019. Dave Petersen Award, 2023. Member of two elementary school Halls of Fame.
Ongoing: Coaching columnist, The Coaches Site — K–12 physical education degree. Elementary and secondary PE teacher and athletic director.