Rick Filighera enters his sixth year as Cortland's women's ice hockey head coach in 2021-22.
During the 2018-19 season Filighera led the Red Dragons to a 15-9-3 mark that established an all-time school record for wins and post-2000 school records for lowest goals-against average (2.27) and shutouts (8). Filighera was named the Northeast Women's Hockey League (NEWHL) Coach of the Year after guiding the team to the NEWHL tournament finals. The following season, he guided the Red Dragons to a 14-10-2 mark and the NEWHL semifinals.
Filighera joined the Red Dragons with an extensive coaching background having served as the girls’ ice hockey head coach at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Ohio, for 12 years. Prior to the Gilmour Academy, he was hired as the inaugural women’s ice hockey head coach at Division I University of Maine in 1997 and led the squad through the 2003-04 season. He was nominated for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) Coach of the Year during his first season behind the bench and finished as the runner-up for Hockey East Coach of the Year in his final campaign.
Previously, Filighera held his first collegiate head coaching position with the Rochester Institute of Technology women’s ice hockey team from 1995-97. He helped guide the program to a pair of ECAC playoff semifinal appearances, including a runner-up finish in 1996. He began his career as an assistant coach at Brockport High School in Brockport, N.Y., and eventually assumed the head coaching position from 1993-95.
Throughout his career, Filighera has attended multiple clinics and mentored at several regional and national ice hockey camps. He also served as the head coach of the Gilmour Gladiators, a girls’ U14 Tier 2 team, from 2014-16, guiding the team to a Mid AM District title and quarterfinal appearance at the USA Tier 2 Nationals in Lansing, Mich., in 2015.
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Filighera received a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Brockport in 1991 and earned his master’s degree in educational leadership at Maine in 2004. He and his wife, Palma, have two children, Kyra and Griffon.
