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Osiecki wins Distinguished Service Award for coaching hockey

Le Ann Finger
April 23, 2002

Women's Hockey Coach Tom Osiecki has recently been awarded the Lake Conference Distinguished Service to Students and Programs award for his continued contribution to hockey and women's athletics in the State of Minnesota.

Since 1964, Osiecki has been involved with teaching and coaching ice hockey. He coached at his high school alma mater, St. Agnes from 1964-1966 and then began an incredible tenure at Burnsville High School from 1966-1990. When Osiecki retired from high school coaching in 1990, he became a scout for the Minnesota North Stars and later the Dallas Stars from 1990 to 1995. He returned to coaching in 1996 as the head Burnsville girl's hockey coach and began the women's hockey program at St. Olaf in 2000.

Osiecki's teams have won championships in the Central Catholic, Missota, Southern Minnesota, and Lake Conferences. While at Burnsville, his teams won two state championships and were runners-up in 1983 and 1987. His Burnsville teams won five consecutive section championships from 1983-1987 and again in 1990.

As Osiecki developed the Burnsville hockey progeam, it became one of the premier hockey programs in the state. As the program grew and became more successful, Osiecki likewise became more widely respected. As a result, he was elected to the Minnesota Hockey Coaches Association Executive board in 1986, elected to Vice President in 1987 and served as President in 1989-1990. He was induced into the Minnesota Coaches' Hall of Fame in 1995 and received the prestigious Cliff Thompson award in 2001.

Osiecki has long been recognized as one of the strongest advocates of boy's sports in the 1970's and 1980's, and has become the most visible supporter of girl's sports in Minnesota in the 1990's.

There are ten schools that comprise the Lake Conference and Osiecki will be honored at a banquet including Lake Conference Athletic Directors, School Superintendents, and School Principals of all ten schools.

Tom and his wife Bev are both retired educators from the Burnsville school district. He and his wife live in Burnsville and have two sons, Mark and Matt, and two grandchildren.

Contact Le Ann Finger at 507-786-3315 or finger@stolaf.edu.