In February, Mike Pereira got a call that scratched an itch he didn't know he had.
Mathieu Darche, the Tampa Bay Lightning's assistant general manager and director of hockey operations, was a part of the search committee trying to find the next boys head coach at Choate. Darche pitched the idea to Pereira, who was a month away from completing his second season as an assistant coach at UConn.
"He was the first guy I had in mind when [Choate] asked me to help them," Darche said.
Pereira said he would take some time. It became apparent this was an opportunity he had to pursue.
"As the season started to wind down a bit, it just started to become more and more appetizing to me to be a head coach," Pereira said. "To have the opportunity to build something on my own."
Pereira looks perfectly positioned to do that as Choate's new boss. Even at just 32 years old, Pereira might as well have a master's degree and a Ph.D in coaching.
Five years as an assistant with John Gardner at Avon Old Farms, where he played his prep hockey. Then came two years at UConn with Mike Cavanaugh. Pereira's roots ran deep at UConn, too, given his brother, Joe, had been there for nine years as both an assistant and associate head coach.
With Gardner, it was about learning to manage kids at this stage in their life. Pereira strengthened his eyes for recruiting at UConn — both from doing it and watching his brother work in the job before him. He saw how Gardner and Cavanaugh, who have a combined 83 years of coaching experience between them, managed successful programs.
"Both guys were incredible motivators," Pereira said.
Those skills will be put to the test at Choate. The Wild Boars have won 10 games over the past three seasons. After going 16-7-5 in 2014-15, Choate is 42-135-23 since, becoming an afterthought in the always-competitive Housatonic.
"They've had really good success in years past and it's about aiming and striving to get back to where they were," Pereira said. "It's a challenge for me. I like challenges."
When Pereira returned to Avon Old Farms as an assistant prior to the 2017-18 season, the Winged Beavers had an up-and-down previous four years, missing the postseason from 2013-15, while earning the No. 1 spot in the Elite 8 Tournament in 2015-16 and winning the Large School title the next year.
"I thought the challenge for me was building it back to being a blue chip company," Pereira said. "In the words of [Joe Pereira], you want to build a blue chip company, not a dot com company. A blue chip company that's knocking on the door every year and competing and that kids want to go to. I think you see a product that now at Avon, not that it's never been that way, but they're competing for a championship every year.
"That's what I have in my vision of building at Choate. It's not going to happen overnight. But at the end of the day, you want to build a blue chip company around a blue chip school."
So, how does that happen?
"It's all about the people that you bring in," Pereira said. "You want kids who want to be at Choate and they want to play for Choate. I think that's important."
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Pereira's background in recruiting will come in handy with this job. There will be heavy competition for talent, both near and far, among Choate and its rivals.
One of Pereira's biggest pitches will be using what he learned at UConn to simulate a college atmosphere during the hockey season.
"Now that I've been in college and I've seen Avon, my goal is to try and simulate as much of a college atmosphere as possible during the season and even leading up to the season," Pereira said. "We simulate their season in terms of games and number of times on the ice for practices. We definitely have to take advantage of that because we're a college preparatory school and that's what kids are looking for.
"The game has gotten so big now that it just allows you to cast a little bit of a wider net."
Choate is known for its high-level academics, which, when done right, can be an added tool to entice top talent.
"Some people see it as something that makes it harder to have a good program," Darche said. "To me, it's an asset. It should be a plus. It should be that you're trying to sell these kids and families about a great hockey program and one of the top schools in the country.
"A lot of families are looking for a great school and great hockey. If you can build both, they will come."
Pereira also has the advantage of age. Relating to players has never been more important than it is now. At 32, that shouldn't be an issue.
"He's young, he's dynamic," Darche said. "I think the kids will connect to him."
The next step is standards. Every good program has a set of standards, and Pereira was part of that at Avon Old Farms and UConn.
Choate's new standards will center around two familiar traits.
"Compete and discipline," Pereira said. "You want to be disciplined as a team and I think you can't really quantify success, right? But at the end of the day my thing is you want the other team we play, whether they won or lost, says at the end of the game that it was a tough game. If we can sustain that and get one percent better every day, I have a feeling that we'll be in the thick of it and moving ahead to compete for trophies and the Elite 8."
As for the future of prep hockey, Pereira understands he's the new kid on the block. He isn't going to come in and immediately be the one to change the league. He also likes the format of prep hockey and what it does for its players.
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One area where he would like to eventually see more progress, however, is starting the season earlier.
"I've always been a big believer that if you start a couple of weeks earlier, that allows you to maybe play in a couple of jamborees or a couple of different showcases to help expose your guys," Pereira said.
But Pereira knows he's the new guy and that those discussions have been happening for the better part of the last decade.
He also knows his first order of business will be putting Choate back on the map.
