Career
Addesa was the head coach of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute men"s ice hockey team from 1979 to 1989. Addesa played collegiate football at Holy Cross. In 1974, Addesa became an assistant ice hockey coach at Holy Cross.
He was elevated to head coach in 1976 and stayed in that position until the end of the 1978–1979 season, when he was hired by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Addesa was hired by RPI to replace Jim Salfi who had coached the team from 1972 to 1979. He was fired from RPI in 1989 for making racist comments towards two black players on his team, one of whom was future National Hockey League player Graeme Townshend: "If you don’t stop acting like a nigger, I’ll start treating you like one.” He has apologized for the comments.
However, Townshend criticized the apology as insincere and stated that he had been forced into accepting it by RPI: “Addesa tried to pass our relationship off as a father/son thing. I hated the guy.” Addesa would later go on to say that he had not meant the comments "racially" and to describe his firing from RPI as a "scam" which had made it impossible for him to continue coaching.
Mike worked as a scout for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League from 1990–1995 and the Calgary Flames from 2011–2013.
On August 4, 2015, Addesa was named as a scout for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League.