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2016 UMD Season Thread

Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

Any thoughts about UMD as a parent of a prospective player?
- good coaching?
- how does UMD rate as a school, academically?

Any info/concerns (good or bad) would be greatly appreciated.
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

hockeydad23 said:
Any thoughts about UMD as a parent of a prospective player?
- good coaching?
- how does UMD rate as a school, academically?

Any info/concerns (good or bad) would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

-good coaching - good school - nice campus- cold winters- Go for it if you can
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

hockeydad23 said:
Any thoughts about UMD as a parent of a prospective player?
- good coaching?
- how does UMD rate as a school, academically?

Any info/concerns (good or bad) would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

There are no objective ratings for academic standards...only opinions that pretend to be objective and opinions that are obviously subjective, as in "I went there and it was awesome!"

Best for the student athlete to first determine if the university in question offers academic programs that she would be interested in majoring in, the feel/impression/comfort level she gets on her fly down/visit to the campus, impression of the coaching staff and feel for what the team is all about and where it is headed...although most of this is subjective as well. But that's the way life is more often than not. You try to figure it out with your head and go with your gut.

There is a lot of life left over after hockey.

Best to prepare for it as best as one can.
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

hockeydad23 said:
Any thoughts about UMD as a parent of a prospective player?
- good coaching?
- how does UMD rate as a school, academically?

Any info/concerns (good or bad) would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

At great personal risk:

- Don't know where you're from, but horrible location for most things with rough winters. If your daughter is looking for something beyond just playing hockey and going to classes, then this would be a tough place for her.
- Coaching is still TBD. Potentially good but it will take another 2 or 3 years to really know. The coaching staff did little with last year's decent team (6 of 8 in the strongest conference), but that team was a mess after a coaching fiasco and on a downward trend before that so not fair to draw an absolute conclusion from last season. Recruiting success seems limited to date. I'd say it is 50-50 at this point whether the staff will be successful. Also - pick the school first then see if the hockey works - the school is way more important, bringing us to...
- The school is average at best. If you have a specific major in mind it is possible that UMD is highly accomplished in that particular academic area, but generally just OK. While others dispute the various unaffiliated rankings, they exist for a reason which is to identify the relative quality of schools and give potential students the opportunity to compare schools without going everywhere. They play a role in the process and are valuable - probably even more so post-graduation as recruiters and people in the real world look at the same rankings as prospective students. When I recruited engineers years ago for instance, I can tell you definitively that I was way more interested in a B student from MIT or Caltech than I was in a B student from U Mass Amherst or Rutgers because I knew that the first two schools attracted better students and produced better engineers and the rankings reflected this. They matter and you should look at them.

All that being said, the "feel" of the school and the potential student's fit is really the ultimate decider (as Blackbeard says). If it passes the rankings review and your daughter would be happy there than by all means....
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

HockeyEast33 said:
At great personal risk:

- Don't know where you're from, but horrible location for most things with rough winters. If your daughter is looking for something beyond just playing hockey and going to classes, then this would be a tough place for her.
Click to expand...

This assumes that the daughter in question has no interest in outdoor activities, and especially winter outdoor activities, to occupy the little spare time that these student/athletes have available to them.
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

TonyTheTiger20 said:
Well, that settles it then! :D
Click to expand...

It may not settle it, but I was surprised by her comment. Coming from someone who has played with the best of the best (Olympics) I was expecting her to down play the 'Dogs a little bit. She had nothing but respect for them and thought they were much improved from last year.
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

HockeyEast33 said:
- Don't know where you're from, but horrible location for most things with rough winters. If your daughter is looking for something beyond just playing hockey and going to classes, then this would be a tough place for her.
Click to expand...

(it may be unfair for me to say, because I was only there for a weekend - 2012 Women's Final Four - and I was only 'downtown', and never saw campus, etc; but...)

Duluth is/was my least favorite city that I have ever visited. Cold (and I grew up in Wisconsin), gray, 'rocky'; the downtown was a mix of pawn shops and tattoo parlors, and not much else. The 'joke' that kept running though my mind was "Now I know why UMD has so many foreign players on their roster; they must commit to coming here 'site unseen', because anyone who actually comes here first...."

By ALL means, make an in-person visit before committing!
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

rough crowd!

robertearle said:
Duluth is my least favorite city ... the downtown was a mix of pawn shops and tattoo parlors, and not much else.
Click to expand...

if your idea of a beautiful town is shopping centers and strip malls, head west out of town on 53
yeah, downtown has a seedy quality to it, but then what large city doesn't?
ever been to Milwaukee or Chicago?
makes Duluth look like Mayberry

robertearle said:
By ALL means, make an in-person visit before committing!
Click to expand...

true for any school

cold? considering where the vast majority of athletes come from ...
people from Winnipeg & Saskatoon consider Duluth the French Riviera (especially after visiting UND)
NE US gets more snow and can be just as cold

a kid from CA, FL, or the SW is going to have to learn to like the cold & snow no matter where they go
 
pokechecker said:
rough crowd!



if your idea of a beautiful town is shopping centers and strip malls, head west out of town on 53
yeah, downtown has a seedy quality to it, but then what large city doesn't?
ever been to Milwaukee or Chicago?
makes Duluth look like Mayberry



true for any school

cold? considering where the vast majority of athletes come from ...
people from Winnipeg & Saskatoon consider Duluth the French Riviera (especially after visiting UND)
NE US gets more snow and can be just as cold

a kid from CA, FL, or the SW is going to have to learn to like the cold & snow no matter where they go
Click to expand...

Take a trip down to Canton or Potsdam and Duluth will look like Paris!
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

I wonder where you went . . . but, downtown Duluth is in the middle of quite a transformation. Maybe you'll come back some day. I also grew up in Wisconsin but the kind of cold Duluth can have is just different - Lake Superior adds an entirely different dimension. I love Duluth - the Lake is something to behold - vicious in the winter; sublime the rest of the year. Anyone that visits can be transfixed.
 
Re: 2016 UMD Season Thread

binnyrus said:
I wonder where you went . . . but, downtown Duluth is in the middle of quite a transformation. Maybe you'll come back some day. I also grew up in Wisconsin but the kind of cold Duluth can have is just different - Lake Superior adds an entirely different dimension. I love Duluth - the Lake is something to behold - vicious in the winter; sublime the rest of the year. Anyone that visits can be transfixed.
Click to expand...

Duluth is taking some tough hits here! Definitely not everyone's cup of tea. But a lot of people love Duluth.
 
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