Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Shocking (not) ... just the last in a growing line of B level prospects using the current UNH program as a placeholder while awaiting better options to develop.
I know it was a somewhat different world back then ... but UNH rarely encountered these situations over the first 20+ years of Coach Umile's tenure. Likely because, as a baseline issue, kids who were recruited to come here had reason to believe the UNH coaching staff would prepare them for the pros. No more.
IIRC Tournas was messaging would-be suitors in last June's NHL Draft that he was willing to play ball with a drafting org's preferred '26/'27 destination, including a return to his team in the Q. All mooted when he was bypassed by all 32 teams over the 7 rounds of the draft (with 224 players in total selected). In retrospect, it looks like UNH was just a Plan B for a kid who really never wanted to come here, but was covering his bases just in case a drafting team preferred him in a D-1 setting vs. a re-do in the Q, or a direct ticket to the minors somewhere complete with a 70 game grind. Easy come, easy go I suppose ...
I know it was a somewhat different world back then ... but UNH rarely encountered these situations over the first 20+ years of Coach Umile's tenure. Likely because, as a baseline issue, kids who were recruited to come here had reason to believe the UNH coaching staff would prepare them for the pros. No more.
IIRC Tournas was messaging would-be suitors in last June's NHL Draft that he was willing to play ball with a drafting org's preferred '26/'27 destination, including a return to his team in the Q. All mooted when he was bypassed by all 32 teams over the 7 rounds of the draft (with 224 players in total selected). In retrospect, it looks like UNH was just a Plan B for a kid who really never wanted to come here, but was covering his bases just in case a drafting team preferred him in a D-1 setting vs. a re-do in the Q, or a direct ticket to the minors somewhere complete with a 70 game grind. Easy come, easy go I suppose ...
