BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

[BU Fan 84]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

That's a pretty irresponsible statement. You say some people told you he is well-respected, but where is anything specific to back up the suggestion that he was responsible for a mediocre first half? We see enough claims backed up by nothing from a big white house in D.C.

I guess you can't read? I said I wondered how much he was responsible for it. As in, I don't know. I didn't make any claims. But let's not deny that this was a guy who did not have much success as a coach, he's the new one around the team, and poor results followed immediately.

And please, everyone here knows the first half was terrible, not mediocre.

[brassbonanza]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

Hynes is already under contract with a team in a higher league. Imagine how ****ed his bosses would be if they heard he was interested in skipping out on his contract to take a lesser job for less money. If you put out a couple feelers through "back channels," your bosses are probably not going to find out about it and you can deny ever having spoken to anyone at BU if they do find out about it. Of course, now that Wodon has been reporting on it ....

The Hynes situation is very puzzling. He just took his team to the playoffs and has a decent roster to build on, yet he's looking to take a lower-paying college head coaching job? I wrote before, if I'm the AD when I receive that phone call my first reaction is what's the catch? Too good to be true.

[srsterrier]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

And in other news, it’s being reported that Josh Lawrence has decommitted and will play in the Q. That should not be a big surprise based on where he was drafted.

[RoughEmUp]

The Hynes situation is very puzzling. He just took his team to the playoffs and has a decent roster to build on, yet he's looking to take a lower-paying college head coaching job? I wrote before, if I'm the AD when I receive that phone call my first reaction is what's the catch? Too good to be true.

I think it’s possible that some people would find the BU job a better one than the NJ Devils job. Money is the obvious NHL advantage, but If someone can make ends meet on say, $500k/year, I could see how the list of pros and cons tilts in BUs favor. The security and legacy one could build at BU shouldn’t be lightly dismissed.

[buoldtimer]

And in other news, it’s being reported that Josh Lawrence has decommitted and will play in the Q. That should not be a big surprise based on where he was drafted.

How old is he?

[J.D.]

That's a pretty irresponsible statement. You say some people told you he is well-respected, but where is anything specific to back up the suggestion that he was responsible for a mediocre first half? We see enough claims backed up by nothing from a big white house in D.C.

You're good at it too, Rogie. See: Eeli Tolvanen

[J.D.]

And in other news, it’s being reported that Josh Lawrence has decommitted and will play in the Q. That should not be a big surprise based on where he was drafted.

Caught my eye when he went in 1st round. Not surprising at all.

[Scarlet]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

Bingo. There have been zero on-the-record quotes from any of the candidates. Seems like Wodon has been grasping at straws for days based on 2nd hand info as well as his own imagination.

And to Sean's point earlier, the DU situation was very similar, yet where's the criticism against DU? Or when Brad Berry was promoted almost immediately after Hakstol left NoDak?

It's quite the interesting agenda he seems to be pushing.

His concern over our program is quite touching.

Apologies - I couldn't find the sarcasm font for that statement.

[mookie1995]

How old is he?

Who cares.

Maybe when he gets sick he can get at appointment with Dr Angelo Esposito
Pay in trade with his Ethan Werek nhl gamer

[wysi]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

Looks like I am in the distinct minority here, but I absolutely want the BU coach to have a degree. I assume the coach will consistently push student athletes to make solid progress towards a degree, and their credibility would be shot without holding a degree themselves.

Further, I would like to see more coaches make the effort to attain an Ed.M in coaching, or sports psychology, or development...something along those lines. Coaching could be so much better if they brought an educator’s or psychologist’s training to bear in addition to having “played the game” and “paid their dues” through the traditional paradigm.

Agree completely. If these guys are "student-athletes", then the coach needs to set a good example of having been a successful student.

[Rogie21]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

You're good at it too, Rogie. See: Eeli Tolvanen

The info about Tolvanen came from a BC source who also remarked "Why do you think a talent like that had no other offers?"

[J.D.]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

Haha ok Rogie, sure thing.

[defkit]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

Caught my eye when he went in 1st round. Not surprising at all.

Two thoughts on this "decommitment":

- it's one thing to decommit and look for a different college - that would mean that losing Quinn meant losing Lawrence. But completely changing gears and going MJ makes one wonder how strong his commitment really was. Quinn didn't have a single MJ defector that I am aware of prior to this (not counting someone who played at BU, then went MJ, like Bellows). But it definitely reeks of the old MJ draft play that we used to see by so many guys like Esposito, DeAngelo, etc - say you're going the NCAA route to avoid going high in the draft to the bad teams, get drafted late in the first round by London, Remparts, etc., and then all of a sudden, you change your mind!
- Which brings me to my second point - how ****ed are the other Q teams that passed on him? He would have gone no lower than #5 if teams thought they could get him out of his NCAA commitment. And what has it been since the draft, two weeks?

[Sean Pickett]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

So, I read Adam Wodon's commentary and I have spent far too long on a reply, which I just posted and I am posting here as well. Please post any critical (or supportive) feedback


I’m not sure why you are going after Athletic Director Drew Marrochello and the BU administration so hard for hiring Albie O’Connell. You certainly didn’t go after Denver for their hiring of David Carle, despite at least one top candidate, UMass Lowell head coach Norm Bazin, applying for the job. I also don’t recall you saying anything when North Dakota hired Brad Berry within 48 hours of Dave Hakstol resigning in 2015. You complain about BU not considering several candidates seriously, yet North Dakota didn’t even bother to have a national search, let alone consider any other candidates seriously and no comment from you

As for BU, you imply that any candidate that has had professional coaching or general manager experience should automatically be seriously considered. Why? Professional coaching is quite a bit different than college coaching, with which you agree, but then dismiss. And while a number of NHL general managers and assistant GM’s have had coaching experience I would think that years away from the bench would be a negative, not a positive.

You specifically mention former Terriers Joe Sacco, Jay Pandolfo, Clark Donatelli, Steve Greely and John Hynes. I have heard that Sacco and Pandolfo applied from other sources, but not that Donatelli or Greeley applied. Do you have sources that can confirm that both applied for the job? And as for Hynes, he “put word through back channels that he would be at least willing to talk about the job,” yet he was unwilling to call Drew directly. I have no problem with Drew not getting back to Hynes since he probably had enough actual applications, as well as dozens and dozens of direct phone calls about the job. If Hynes wanted the job that badly I would have expected him to call Drew directly.

As for outsiders, it has been reported that Coach Bennett was a finalist for the job, so he was considered seriously yet you still question that. Furthermore, you have made it seem that BU has so much money lying around that paying Union half a million dollars to buyout his contract could be paid out of petty cash. I’m sorry, but according to EADA data for 2016-17 the men’s team’s total expenses were $3,438,964, so half a million would be 14.5% of that, quite a significant amount, despite your attempts to make it otherwise.

Also, Coach Bennett was promoted by Union with no head coaching experience (as was David Carle and Brad Berry). I don’t know why it was OK for Union (and Denver and North Dakota) to do so, but not BU.

As for you trying to dismiss BU requiring a degree, that has come under much discussion on the BU thread over of USCHO. Several posters have stated that it is an NCAA requirement, although I haven’t found anything that states it is. If so, your attacking BU and President Brown is disingenuous. If not, I’m still not sure why you are acting like BU should overlook a standard requirement of all, or almost all schools. You mention Wisconsin making an exception for Coach Granato, but how many other schools have made such an exception for hockey head and assistant coaches? Why should BU make an exception that is so rare it is almost unheard of?

You further state that the applicants not selected have paid their dues, implying Coach O’Connell has not paid his dues. You also make it seem that to be a head coach you must already have been a head coach, but if that was the case I once again refer to Coaches Bennett, Carle and Berry.

And what is wrong with Drew wanting a coach that will stay for the long term? If you look the most successful head coaches in college hockey almost all of them stayed at one school for over a decade and many for longer. And why do you imply that the best coaches will leave while those that stay the longest are not the best? Why can’t a coach be both the best and stay the longest?

As for your comment that if Coach O’Connell wins a NCAA title the NHL will come calling, I find it highly unlikely. Otherwise I would have already expected Minnesota-Duluth’s Scott Sandelin, North Dakota’s Brad Berry, Providence’s Nate Leaman, Yale’s Keith Allain and Union’s Rick Bennett to all have already been courted by NHL teams, if not hired by them.

And as for Coach O’Connell’s past infractions at Northeastern, if you had paid attention to the NCAA report it was not just Albie and the other hockey coaches, but also the track and field head coach and the men’s basketball team that had violations. I have not read the complete report on the basketball violations, but overall it appears reminiscent of Maine’s violations in the early nineties. And like Coach Walsh, Coach O’Connell paid for his mistake and has moved on.

Sean Pickett

[J.D.]

Re: BU season thread volume 3.1 cause board/priceless/tippycanoe deleted ours

Holy hell, guy...crack open a beer or something