Pio,
I believe Elmira hired Coach Saul for four reasons.
First, Elmira College is a college like none other. It's traditions and atmosphere are very unique compared to most other colleges and universities. Once you go to Elmira you truly are "part" of the college for life and they do everything in your power to make you feel that way from mandatory campus wide organized student activities, Mountain Day, Cult Day to all freshmen doing their homework together in the hallway like Columbia does etc.
Coach Saul knows these traditions and has experienced them as a student-athlete and coach so he'll already be well versed in how to deal with these questions if when they come up in the recruiting process unlike a new outside coach would.
Aaron is not only an alumnus and four year starter for the purple and gold, he also was the assistant coach for a few seasons before leaving for the Potsdam head coaching gig.
Second, Saul's wife is also an alumnus of Elmira and I'm sure is very happy to be back in the Elmira area for a variety of reasons. We all know a happy wife equals a happy home
Third, to go deeper into the first point, Elmira loves bringing back alumni to work at that school. Many of their head coaching positions have been or still are held by almuni of the school. Greg Fargo was hired as the EC women's coach last season after being a goaltending coach at Canisius for a few seasons. He took over a Frozen Four team as well so the program was no slouch to hand over to a coach with no prior head coaching experience. He did very well in his first season and was much more well liked than his predecessor who came from "outside" the Elmira community.
After Glen Thomaris stepped down as the coach after the 1999-2000 season i believe? They hired Ceglarski who was the assistant coach at the time and knew the team's systems etc. They've done basically the same thing this time hiring Saul to take over for Ceglarski who knows the program inside and out after six years as an assistant coach in Tim's system.
Fourth, don't read too far into Saul's record at Potsdam. He inherited an awful team there and turned them into a decent club with a lot of promise. I would have picked them to finish anywhere from 2nd to 4th in the SUNYAC this season had Saul returned for his third season. Potsdam was playing solid hockey down the stretch last season beating Oswego at the Campus Center on the final weekend of the season. He recruited some pretty good players there as last year they had one of the best group of freshmen in the SUNYAC.
Some people are happy to see it stay in house, some people are displeased because they feel nothing will ever change at Elmira and the team will fall flat on their faces again when it counts like has happened the past two seasons.
Obviously it's too early to tell with practice JUST finally starting today. We'll know a little bit more come next weekend when Elmira and coach Saul are thrown right into the fire with a home and home against Oswego, who is in the same boat losing 14 playes from last year's squad.
