Maine Offseason 2020: We Stay Home But Swayman Leaves

[Jackcurtis23]

Longtime fan of the program and follower of this chain. I am cautiously optimistic they will make the correct choice (personal top 3 Barr, Lang, Bennett) and really like the way the search committee is set up. I also thought the AD said all the right things in that interview yesterday. The fact that Montgomery (the obvious choice to anyone with a pulse) was his first call makes me think he may actually know what he is doing.

[Sean Pickett]

A lot to unpack about Cam Ellsworth

Well looks like this Horse race has a winner already with Guite in the winners circle....but hold on, after reading the article I don't think that Guite is a Shoe-in....nope...I have a long shot for all of you: Cam Ellsworth, former UMass-Lowell River Hawk assistant under Norm Bazin and now Head Coach at Norwich...Ellsworth recruited and was the goaltending coach @ UML...he went over to Norwich to gain Head Coaching experience to some day gain a Div.1 Head Coaching job...now lets turn this into a Poker Game and I am pushing all my chips in and betting that on May 8th Cam Ellsworth will be the New UMaine Hockey Coach.

VERY interesting take. Ellsworth seems to tick an awful lot of boxes, and his family's adjustment to Downeast Maine probably wouldn't be such a huge issue, given his recent time spent at Norwich. Plus, I'm assuming it would be a pay raise for him if he were hired, which might not be the case for a lot of the other potential would-be candidates.[/URL]

Yes, it would be a pay raise ast neither Coach McShane or Coach Ellsworth are listed on Norwich's Form 990 for 2017, '18 or '19 and the top five highly compensated employees all earned far less than what Maine is offering as salary.

Ellsworth is a proven recruiter and head coach. I wonder if he is on Ralph's list? The Maine position would definitely be a step up for him.

Not that I disagree, but Coach McShane remained at Norwich for 23 seasons after 14 seasons coaching at SLU at PC. And Coach Beaney spent 29 seasons at Middlebury, even though his name came up numerous times when there were DI job openings. So, Coach Ellsworth might be happy to remain where he is.

I looked up Ellsworth and don't think he would be a great fit based on his record. UML declined quite a bit during his time there and even though he has had success at Norwich that was business as usual for them.

Historically, winning was not business as usual for Norwich until Coach McShane took over as head coach. Here is the school's cumulative winning percentage since WWII. Coach McShane turned a truly mediocre program into a winning program. Furthermore, Coach Ellsworth has increased Norwich's cumulative winning percentage each of this first three seasons, something that gets harder and harder to do over time.

I think you missed my point. UML has clearly had success during the Bazin regime. What I'm talking about is that they, at least in my opinion, were more successful at the start when they had some of Blaise's guys versus when it was all Norm/Cam's guys. One thing Ken Ralph said which I strongly agree with is that they want to hire someone who can have sustained success over the long term. If you look at Norm/Cam's time at UML they've gone from very successful to fairly mediocre(I'm including the years after Cam left for Norwich) which is a pretty big red flag for me.

Getting back to UML, I think it's hard to determine how many of the players from Coach Bazin's first seasons were from Coach MacDonald's recruiting, although I'm sure some UML fans know. Yes, Coach Ellsworth's last season at UML was the worst of the ten under Coach Bazin, but before that they had a good first six seasons. As for the three seasons since Coach Ellsworth leaving, I wouldn't call a 0.581 or 0.618 season mediocre, although this past season's 0.525 could qualify. However, I think the fact that Coach Bazin's cumulative winning percentage has dropped the past three seasons undercuts your argument and supports the argument that Coach Ellsworth was instrumental in helping Coach Bazin have so much early success.



As for length of tenure Coach Gendron's eight seasons was between the median of 7 and the average of 9 seasons for DI coaches with two or more seasons coached. Five seasons had the most coaches leaving with 39, followed by two seasons with 35 and then four seasons with 33. Of current active coaches Here is the list:

Seasons	Coaches
1	3
2	5
3	7
4	7
5	3
6	3
7	1
8	2
9	3
10	5
11	1
12	1
14	1
16	2
17	2
19	1
20	1
21	1
22	1
24	1
25	1
27	2
28	1
29	1
33	1

Good luck to Maine with their coaching search, I hope that they hire a good one who also wants to stay for the long haul.

Sean

[mickeyj65]

Longtime fan of the program and follower of this chain. I am cautiously optimistic they will make the correct choice (personal top 3 Barr, Lang, Bennett) and really like the way the search committee is set up. I also thought the AD said all the right things in that interview yesterday. The fact that Montgomery (the obvious choice to anyone with a pulse) was his first call makes me think he may actually know what he is doing.

Can we ask Alfond to offer Montgomery some extra money on the side to come be coach? ($1m?)

[Sean Pickett]

There is a reason alums are more successful than non alums.

You don't give your definition of successful: Does winning a national championship but having a 28 season career winning percentage of 0.463 qualify? In my opinion that isn't successful, but you may think it is. In any case, I quickly counted up all those coaches I considered successful or not and came up with 46 of 94 (48.9%) alumni being successful and 105 of 270 (38.9%) non-alumni being successful. I didn't include 13 current coaches (8 alumni, 5 non-alumni) who I think the jury is still out on. So yes, alumni coaches are more successful, but they still are not successful over half the time by in my opinion. If you want to give me your detailed definition of successful (i.e, winning a national title, a 0.501 career winning percentage, More winning seasons than losing season, etc.) I'll rerun the numbers.

Sean

[theprofromdover]

Ellsworth has applied for 3 Div 1 jobs since he’s been at Norwich.

[KrbFlint]

Ellsworth has applied for 3 Div 1 jobs since he’s been at Norwich.

And was offered one before he arrived

I think it's only a matter of time before he is a D1 head coach.

[Chuck Murray]

Longtime fan of the program and follower of this chain. I am cautiously optimistic they will make the correct choice (personal top 3 Barr, Lang, Bennett) and really like the way the search committee is set up. I also thought the AD said all the right things in that interview yesterday. The fact that Montgomery (the obvious choice to anyone with a pulse) was his first call makes me think he may actually know what he is doing.

... or it could mean AD Ralph checks out this thread (and other similar sources) so he can gauge in which direction the winds of public opinion are blowing?

[Chuck Murray]

Ellsworth has applied for 3 Div 1 jobs since he's been at Norwich.

UVM, Dartmouth and ... UMaine???

[Chuck Murray]

And was offered one before he arrived

Merrimack???

[Runsub5]

... or it could mean AD Ralph checks out this thread (and other similar sources) so he can gauge in which direction the winds of public opinion are blowing?

I am impressed with his approach to hiring a new coach in terms of who he has consulted with and who he has on the search committee. He says and does all the right things and is a very smooth PR guy. It could all be a charade and he plans on hiring Guite right from the start. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. As someone else here said, it's hard to understand how he was bringing back Gendron after hearing what he said in the radio interview.

[Ma#1ne Hky]

UVM, Dartmouth and ... UMaine???

Thinking that Alaska was one of the three and #4 could very well be Maine. Maybe???

[NorthMike]

I am impressed with his approach to hiring a new coach in terms of who he has consulted with and who he has on the search committee. He says and does all the right things and is a very smooth PR guy. It could all be a charade and he plans on hiring Guite right from the start. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. As someone else here said, it's hard to understand how he was bringing back Gendron after hearing what he said in the radio interview.

Putting some amount of belief into what Ralph has laid out about the search, if Guite gets the job then he was the best candidate that the committee had in front of them. Which would then lead me to believe that there are structural problems with the hockey program (other than salary) that kept other coaches from pursuing it. Its just that its hard to believe that there arent better entry level coaches out there who could bring more to the program than Guite. But, its more complicated than it seems, and the make up of the search committee is highly qualified to assess things.

If it was a done deal that Red was back on the bench for another year or more, it was all very weird why the AD was so cagy and noncommittal about it up to Reds passing. If it was certain that Red was going to be back why not just say so. I suppose unless they were negotiating the length of the extension would be the only logical conclusion to the silence. But it was still strange.

[Chuck Murray]

If it was a done deal that Red was back on the bench for another year or more, it was all very weird why the AD was so cagy and noncommittal about it up to Reds passing. If it was certain that Red was going to be back why not just say so. I suppose unless they were negotiating the length of the extension would be the only logical conclusion to the silence. But it was still strange.

Agreed. Maybe it was part of the negotiation "dance"? Or maybe just saying the plan was for Red to return now, after he's passed and it's obviously a moot point, is the polite thing to say? As I hinted at a page or two ago, regardless of what the AD says now, he's the only person who truly knows how the search was gonna end for Red. And what he says publicly now may not be the truth. C'est la vie.

[theprofromdover]

Thinking that Alaska was one of the three and #4 could very well be Maine. Maybe???

Yup.

[KrbFlint]

Thinking that Alaska was one of the three and #4 could very well be Maine. Maybe???

Yes, was offered and declined the Alaska job while still an assistant at UML.

What is the 3rd job he has applied for since being at Norwich? Inconsequential, just curious