Couch: Adam Nightingale and Pat Ferschweiler took similar paths – including next to each other – to lead MSU and WMU hockey

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. – How well do Michigan State hockey coach Adam Nightingale and Western Michigan coach Pat Ferschweiler know each other?

For two NHL seasons, from 2017 through 2019, they sat next to each other on the Detroit Red Wings team plane during road trips. That’s a lot miles in close proximity, even in the plush of seats of Red Bird III.

“Every flight,” Ferschweiler said Thursday. “We just had a lot of hockey talks and really, honestly, life and leadership talks. How do we do things? What’s a way to make it better? What’s the best version of what we’re doing? (He’s) pretty impressive.”

They had no idea then — when Nightingale was a video coach in Detroit and Ferschweiler an assistant coach — that they’d soon be leading their alma maters. That they’d both be among the best examples in college hockey. Or that they might be facing each other in the NCAA tournament — as they are Friday evening in the first round in suburban St. Louis. Face-off is scheduled for 5 p.m., televised on ESPNU.

There’s a kinship between these two that is perhaps as deep as the friendship. Neither of them came up the coaching ranks easy. “Nothing gifted,” as Nightingale put it in describing Ferschweiler. They both cut their teeth coaching kids.

Ferschweiler, who played at WMU in the early 1990s, started and built the renowned Russell Stover AAA Hockey program near Kansas City for six years before joining WMU’s staff under Jeff Blashill in 2010. He stayed on staff after Blashill left, before joining him with the Grand Rapids Griffins and Red Wings and then coming back to WMU for two seasons under Andy Murray, before taking over the program in 2021. He’s since taken the Broncos to three straight NCAA tournaments.

Nightingale left a six-figure job as a construction superintendent in 2008 to coach at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Minnesota for $16,000 a year, while also coaching lacrosse, teaching economics and supervising a dorm, before working his way up — to MSU as a video and operations guy for four seasons, back to Shattuck-St. Mary’s in a more high-profile job, and then to the NHL's Buffalo and Detroit, before getting the U.S. National Team Development Program coaching gig, prior to coming back to MSU.

“I don’t think either of us ever decided to do this because he wanted to be the coach at Western or I wanted to be the coach at Michigan State,” Nightingale said. “We just loved coaching. To me coaching is coaching, whether you’re coaching 14-year-olds or coaching in the NHL, you’re coaching people. Having gone through it, that’s where I really respect a guy like Fersch, who’s worked his way up from the grass-roots level.”

They first met when Ferschweiler was an assistant at WMU and Nightingale was a video/ops guy at MSU. But the friendship grew after Blashill brought Nightingale onto his Red Wings staff, where Ferschweiler was an assistant.

“Both have a firm belief in what they believe in, but both are willing to debate and listen to other’s ideas,” Blashill said Thursday. “Both, I think, connect with people, connect with young men. I think those people that they're coaching now see how much they care about them.

“They're both compassionate, caring people who are also fun to be around and good guys, and certainly both really, really smart from a hockey standpoint.”

That clicked on those long flights from western Canada years ago. Nightingale appreciated how welcoming Ferschweiler was. “He was really good to me.”

When Nightingale took the MSU head coaching job, one of his calls as he looked to build a staff was to Ferschweiler, who’d been a part of a successful — and rapid — rebuild at WMU with Blashill 12 years earlier.

“My advice was to hire people that you want to be with every day,” Ferschweiler said. “Your players, they’re going to feel it and you’re going to enjoy your job and it's really going to help. It's got to be a great environment and great culture. You have to build that first before you can have success.

“Because the players can feel how tight the staff is, how much they like each other, how much they like being there, how excited they are to run this program. We have similar thing here. And I think he's created that same environment there.”

They talk regularly, including Wednesday night, both having arrived in the St. Louis area for their NCAA tournament date.

“It was just congratulations on such a great season and the amazing job he’s done,” Ferschweiler said. “And for getting the Brinks truck to back up and drop off at his house with his new contract, which he’s certainly earned. He told me he’s buying next time.”

They also talked about rekindling a regular-season series between the two programs, former conference rivals in the old CCHA, for the sake familiar opponents for each fan base and quality out-of-conference competition.

If the styles of play look similar Friday, well, they spent a lot of time together, talking hockey philosophy.

“There are probably a lot of things we try to do with our team that I learned from him,” Nightingale said. “He’s someone who’s really helped me grow as a coach.”

“We come from a lot of the same hockey background as far as coaching goes,” Ferschweiler said. “So I think our teams play similar styles — we play fast, we play attacking, we give our players freedom to make decisions on the ice and so I think that it's going to be a heck of a matchup.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU hockey's Adam Nightingale, WMU's Pat Ferschweiler are good friends