D1 Coaching Changes

[Sieve1]

There is a St. Thomas prep school, and the rink that they share is on that campus. It is very close to where I live, so plague-willing, I should find my way to a few of their games. Unless the caliber of play is painful to watch. It shouldn't be as bad as the first year of Lindenwood, when they were just powerless to stop someone from setting up in front of their net and doing what they wanted.

Maybe they picked up some D1 players from transfer portal. Goalie Alexa Dobchuck is transferring from Colgate. Not sure about any others...but I would wager that some Gopher commits are being wooed. Just a hunch

[Lindsay]

Thanks for the explanation ARM. While the level of play is tbd, assuming they get decent eventually it should be a fun situation to have two teams in the Twin Cities and eventually a rivalry would be there. Plus at least one extra non conference team coming to town each year . I am hearing people mention NCAA’s already for this team which is absurd, so your reference to quality of play is a nice sanity check!

[Timothy A]

https://tommiesports.com/news/2021/7...ssistants.aspx

Tommies get their assistants. Makes sense. Who will be the Tommies inaugural D1 fan and make them a thread? Or is that in a future year perhaps. Do they play in an off campus rink, think I read that. Any Gopher fans switch affiliations, or do you just watch more games now?

The Tommiettes have a very impressive staff. It will be fascinating to see how they use the portal to get a jumpstart on not being the 8th place team. St. Cloud & Mankato have to be feeling the pressure.

[ARM]

St. Cloud & Mankato have to be feeling the pressure.

How much pressure can there be on SCSU? They've been a doormat for so long that it has become an accepted thing. At least one can see MSU improving, even though it doesn't show up in the standings that much. I think it is a matter of when, not if, that St. Thomas passes both of these programs, and likely, Bemidji State as well.

What if ... Johnson gets the Olympic gig and USA wins gold. That would likely place St. Thomas in the top half of the WCHA in terms of attractive destinations for recruits. If JJ can get comparable talent, then I think his teams will compete very well with the top teams.

[Timothy A]

How much pressure can there be on SCSU? They've been a doormat for so long that it has become an accepted thing.

If I'm a St. Cloud Booster and St. Thomas jumps us right away or after year 2, I'm making a lot of noise. The men's side has no problem being more than competitive, there is no reason why the women's team can't do the same. The same could be said for MSU and BSU. Muzzy has raised the bar @ OSU and their facilities are probably worse than the 3 teams mentioned above. A lot of MN HS talent heads east, there has to be a way to keep more of that talent in the state.

[Lindsay]

Agree with Timothy A. It’s already a little weird that some of the Minnesota schools are good on the men side but mid pack to weak on the women’s side. If the Tommies
sky rocket to 5th in the WCHA that’s not a good reflection on the other Minnesota schools, no matter how good a coach j Johnson is

[shelfit]

If I'm a St. Cloud Booster and St. Thomas jumps us right away or after year 2, I'm making a lot of noise. The men's side has no problem being more than competitive, there is no reason why the women's team can't do the same. The same could be said for MSU and BSU. Muzzy has raised the bar @ OSU and their facilities are probably worse than the 3 teams mentioned above. A lot of MN HS talent heads east, there has to be a way to keep more of that talent in the state.

Looking at their history SCSU had competitive records until 2010-11 when they posted a glorious record of 1-33-1. That was following their 2009-10 season record of 15-14-8. That's an unbelievable dropoff. It's almost a complete failure in 2010-11 with only not losing 2 out of 35 games. It came exactly 5 years after the departure of Jason Lesteberg so it looks like once his recruits graduated Jeff Giesen failed miserably as a recruiter and as a coach. The buck stops there. They have been a doormat ever since he made his impact on the program. There have only been 2 seasons since that collapse year of 2010-11 where they have won 10 or more games and that was under the next coach Eric Rud. It's easy to destroy a program. It's very hard to reverse that and make a program competitive again.

[Rightnut]

Agree with Timothy A. It’s already a little weird that some of the Minnesota schools are good on the men side but mid pack to weak on the women’s side. If the Tommies
sky rocket to 5th in the WCHA that’s not a good reflection on the other Minnesota schools, no matter how good a coach j Johnson is

I think that is due to how women players view colleges. Most men are looking for a road to the NHL. Women don’t have that so most are looking for the best education and college experience along with playing hockey. Some of the schools in Minn and other places are not attractive under that analysis. If you are a good women’s player, a school like SCSU or Bemidji is probably not that attractive unless you live locally as there are more desirable options. So those schools will always have recruiting challenges.

[zambonidriver]

Looking at their history SCSU had competitive records until 2010-11 when they posted a glorious record of 1-33-1. That was following their 2009-10 season record of 15-14-8. That's an unbelievable dropoff. It's almost a complete failure in 2010-11 with only not losing 2 out of 35 games. It came exactly 5 years after the departure of Jason Lesteberg so it looks like once his recruits graduated Jeff Giesen failed miserably as a recruiter and as a coach. The buck stops there. They have been a doormat ever since he made his impact on the program. There have only been 2 seasons since that collapse year of 2010-11 where they have won 10 or more games and that was under the next coach Eric Rud. It's easy to destroy a program. It's very hard to reverse that and make a program competitive again.

The big reason more girls don't go to SCSU is because the state and national camps are there. The kids come out of those camps thinking that SCSU is kind of a dumpy campus. For girls it is about the whole experience not just the athletic facilities. The U of M better get the crime issues on campus figured out or they are going to lose a lot of recruits to the purple and gray. St. Thomas is a pretty safe campus. It is really scary to head into downtown Mpls or dinkytown these days. In St. Cloud most of the crime is also around campus A professor just got shot and killed as he was grabbing his morning paper..

[Reddington]

One has to wonder if the Quinnipiac head coach is on the hot seat when they just brought in the head coach from the BK Selects to be an assistant. It is reminiscent of PSU bringing in Dean Jackson. Perhaps the Quinnipiac coach finally realized that old style hockey is not going to win anymore and needed someone to teach the girls how to play in a Fargo like system. Kudos to her if that is the case.

[Scott_TG]

Liz Keady Norton has hired former Merrimack assistant Steph Moberg to be an assistant on her staff at Dartmouth. Moberg joined Merrimack as an assistant in 2016 for their second season of play and helped lead them to their first winning season and playoff appearance in 2018-19. Prior to her time in North Andover, Moberg was leading DIII Castleton to new levels of success, with a 31-20-4 record and a conference semifinal appearance in 2 seasons. She had assistant coach stints at Colby and Connecticut College prior to taking over Castleton.

As a player, Steph Moberg was a team captain, an All-American and 2-time NCAA champion for DIII powerhouse SUNY Plattsburgh. She remains 4th in career game-winning goals, 9th in career points-per-game, and 10th in career points.

[Scott_TG]

One has to wonder if the Quinnipiac head coach is on the hot seat when they just brought in the head coach from the BK Selects to be an assistant. It is reminiscent of PSU bringing in Dean Jackson. Perhaps the Quinnipiac coach finally realized that old style hockey is not going to win anymore and needed someone to teach the girls how to play in a Fargo like system. Kudos to her if that is the case.

I was actually looking at Brent Hill's bio and his D1 connections go even deeper than recruits he's developed at Selects Academy. He was the inaugural Associate HC at Merrimack and was there until 2017, and it says he recruited a significant amount of the players who made that program's jump to D1 in 2015 to make sure they had the roster size. Prior to Merrimack, he was an assistant at RPI.

The bio mentioned that he also coached with USA Hockey, including the U18 squad at the IIHF Women's Worlds, where he coached defense and penalty kill and his Team USA U18 beat the Team Canada U18 squad coached by incumbent Quinnipiac coached Cassandra Turner (HC) and Amanda Alessi (AC). At least they have the sense of humor and humility to give him his props on that!

[Scott_TG]

I noticed that DIII William Smith's interim head coach Kate Gallagher resigned recently and the article says she is pursuing other opportunities. Gallagher is a 2012 graduate of Union, which currently lists no assistant coaches, so that may be where she ends up. Gallagher was the assistant coach at William Smith for six seasons prior to taking the head coaching reigns in 2020...

[Lindsay]

I think that is due to how women players view colleges. Most men are looking for a road to the NHL. Women don’t have that so most are looking for the best education and college experience along with playing hockey. Some of the schools in Minn and other places are not attractive under that analysis. If you are a good women’s player, a school like SCSU or Bemidji is probably not that attractive unless you live locally as there are more desirable options. So those schools will always have recruiting challenges.

That sounds reasonable. The rural ness of Bemidji seems kind Of nice... but everyone’s looking for different things I suppose.

[Lindsay]

Maybe they picked up some D1 players from transfer portal. Goalie Alexa Dobchuck is transferring from Colgate. Not sure about any others...but I would wager that some Gopher commits are being wooed. Just a hunch

Kind of curious to see what Taylor Wente does. Said she’s not playing pro hockey next year but also got drafted (which prompted her to say not going pro).

edit: I see as of May she’s coaching a u12 team in the fall, so maybe she’s done.