But Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy doesn’t consider himself one of them. After four years at Boston College and a year in Britain’s elite league with the Ayr Raiders, Dennehy decided to try something different.

“I lived in Vail for a year to make up for the four spring breaks I missed,’’ he said with a laugh.

When he returned to the area, the Dorchester native got a job in Quincy.

“I never wanted to be a coach,’’ he said. “I was selling telecommunications for a company called, ‘Network Plus.’ It’s now Granite Telecommunications.’’

He lasted just nine months.

“I was trying to convince people to change their 800 number from AT&T to AT&T via Network Plus,’’ he said. “I wasn’t very good at it and I didn’t enjoy it. But I learned how to sell.’’ That would come in handy.

His career trajectory changed when he elected to go to UMass to earn a graduate degree in teaching. That plan didn’t last either. He briefly took two classes but once he got on the ice as a volunteer assistant coach for the hockey team, he found where he belonged and withdrew from school.

“I knew that’s what I wanted to do,’’ he said. He supported himself driving a Zamboni, he worked in the IT department, he ran a senior league, and was a doorman at a bar named Rafters.

“I was living off Mom in Western Mass.,’’ he said. From there, he moved on to coach at Princeton under head man Don “Toot’’ Cahoon from 1994-99, and after a year as head coach at Fairfield, Dennehy followed Cahoon to UMass from 2000-05. Cahoon said he saw early on that Dennehy was going to be a success at it.

“Mark is one of the bright spots in my whole hockey experience,’’ said Cahoon. “He’s just a really bright kid and a forward-thinking progressive. What impressed me was that he was an aspiring coach that had a lot of other skill sets. Once you get to spend time around him, you realized what a quick study he was. I knew early on he was a whole lot smarter than I was.

“He had a strong personality and a real conviction to his beliefs and his thoughts. As good friends as we became, and as much respect as we tried to show each other, we’d go toe to toe on a lot of issues and he stuck to his guns and I think that’s why he’s a good coach.’’

When Dennehy was named coach at Merrimack in June 2005, he realized he faced a monumental task. The Warriors were coming off a record of 8-26-2 and hadn’t had a winning record in any season since joining Hockey East in 1989-90. Dennehy knew that recruiting was going to be a challenge and given the level of skill in the league, every game was going to be difficult.

“It’s always a moving target,’’ said Dennehy, referring to recruiting. “Initially, we talked a lot about, ‘Let’s pick some spots and let’s be good there.’ We can’t be everywhere, we’ve got limited resources. Let’s try to identify places where we either have connections — there are old connections or there is some history there — and hopefully areas that were trending up in terms of producing or developing young players and then let’s go and be good there. Befriend the coaches, let them get to know who we are so we can foster relationships, and that’s probably what led to our first class. Quebec and Western Canada and also a local flavor.’’

Even though he knew it was going to take time to put his stamp on the team, he went searching for players who had high expectations.

“We wanted to get guys from successful programs,’’ said Dennehy, 43. “We wanted to identify players who were playing for hardware at the levels they were playing so they could bring that type of attitude here. You have to change the culture and to do that, you have to bring in people who know what it takes to win and that have done it at a level prior to that. They know what goes into winning.’’

Some prospects were harder to bring in than others. For example, it took sophomore forward Stephane Da Costa, a native of Paris, 18 months to satisfy NCAA requirements.

“It was easier to find him than it was to get him through the [NCAA] clearinghouse,’’ said Dennehy. “He had to get his GED in English. It’s not the NCAA’s fault, the organization is dealing with so many student-athletes. But that is what teams like us have to do, we have to tip over those stones and take some chances. We didn’t think it was a chance [on Da Costa]. It wasn’t a normal clearinghouse process, that’s for sure.’’

At the holiday break, Merrimack is 7-4-4 and Da Costa is the leading scorer with 16 points and 15 games. Dennehy is encouraged but clearly not satisfied. He said he feels his program is right in the middle of its long-term plan.

“I’ve basically taken what Toot did at Princeton and what Toot did at UMass and added my own wrinkles to it,’’ he said.

Dennehy said Cahoon was a key influence on his career.

“He was an unbelievable recruiter,’’ he said. “He could walk into a rink and it wouldn’t take him but one rotation of the players to find somebody he liked — and it wasn’t always the best player, but it was someone who was going to fit a piece of his puzzle — and he could talk the sleeves back onto a vest. He’s just a tough guy not to like.’’

Merrimack athletic director Glenn Hofmann, who engineered a contract extension for Dennehy through the 2015-16 season, said the program is in fine hands.

“He’s built this program without taking any shortcuts,’’ said Hofmann. “I think that’s quite a credit to him. There are certainly temptations and you see it all the time where programs take shortcuts to success. Mark has built this program one step at a time with good academic kids and good athletes and good character individuals, which is what we’re really all about. It didn’t take long to figure out we needed to get him a contract that was going to last for numerous years so we could keep him here.’’

Senior captain Chris Barton, also a forward, said his seasons with the team haven’t all been easy but he thinks the Warriors have come a long way.

“When I got there, I wasn’t really too sure what to expect,’’ said Barton, a native of Calgary. “I didn’t know much about the league but I found out we weren’t the top team, for sure. We definitely had to work for everything we got. We weren’t very skilled and the hard work, we had to make our name with that. It was a building process. [Dennehy’s] always been a really positive guy and he always believed we could do it and he never gave up. The hard work is paying off. Everyone is buying in.’’

And the bandwagon is growing. Newly renovated Lawler Arena, which used to be practically empty for games, is teeming with students, with an average of more than 700 of the 2,000-person student body showing up. For Dennehy, it’s just another rung on the ladder.

“We like where it’s heading,’’ he said. “I think the program is on stable ground, but you have to be forever watchful. You just don’t want it to go back to where it was.’’

Nancy Marrapese-Burrell can be reached at marrapese@globe.com.