Being the man behind the bench isn’t a job for everyone. You prepare the players as best you can, you can mentor them and you can lead them to water, but you can’t force them to drink. In the end, you send them out there and have to trust that they can play the system, deal with the adversity and come away victorious. 

Coaches are showered with accolades when things go well and bludgeoned with insults when things go wrong. But for Adam Nightingale, the opportunity to coach the United States National Development Program for the past two seasons was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. 

“I loved working at U.S. Hockey," he said. "It’s such a great place to work. The age of the player, the level of the player — it's been very rewarding.”