Joe Cardarelli enters his eighth year overall (including the canceled 2020-21 season) as Cortland's head coach in 2021-22. He is second at Cortland in all-time wins and has the best winning percentage in program history.
Cardarelli has coached the program's first All-American (Nick Zappia) as well as its first SUNYAC Rookie of the Year (Dan Broderick), both in the 2014-15 season. He has also guided Cortland to five in-season tournament titles in as many attempts, including the 54th Annual Codfish Bowl in 2019 with a win over host and nationally eighth-ranked UMass Boston and the 2020 Norwich Northfield Savings Bank Holiday Tournament with a win over nationally ranked Salve Regina in the semifinals and a shootout victory versus the host and eventually nationally top-ranked Cadets in the championship game.
Cardarelli previously served as an assistant coach for the Red Dragons during the 2013-14 school year where he was the program’s recruiting coordinator and responsible for coaching the defense. Prior to Cortland, Cardarelli was the head coach of the Laconia Leafs in the Atlantic Junior Hockey League and led the team to the most wins in the program’s Junior A history. In 2011-12, Cardarelli took over the Yellowstone Quake and brought the team to the Northern Pacific League’s playoff semifinals.
Cardarelli’s coaching background includes three years as an assistant coach at Oswego. As the program’s primary recruiter he brought in the majority of the players on Oswego’s 2007 NCAA Division III championship team. During his tenure, the Lakers had three All-Americans, two conference Rookies of the Year, five All-SUNYAC players and eight members of the SUNYAC All-Academic Team. Cardarelli also served as an assistant coach for American International College (NCAA Division I, Atlantic Hockey) and was the head coach at the National Sports Academy, a preparatory school for winter-sport student-athletes in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Since 2000, Cardarelli has been heavily active with USA Hockey at the local, district and national levels. He’s presented at several Coaching Education Program clinics around the country and works extensively with player development. Cardarelli has been an evaluator for the NYS Central Section tryouts as well as for the New York, Southeastern and Central Districts. Additionally, Cardarelli coaches at a USA Hockey Select Player Development Camp each summer.
