The BC roster is filled with kids that have no business being on a division 1 roster. NONE. Whose fault is that ? ... Its the coaches who are recruiting them. ... Where are all the Canadian players ? Where are the European players ? Where are the Minnesota players ? How about California ? Does anyone outside of New England want to come play hockey at Boston College ? Do the BC coaches ever leave Boston ?
I edited your post down to what I think are a few key points, but I don't think I'm changing the message of what you're saying; hopefully, that's okay. I do appreciate the questions that you're asking.
I agree that the core of BC's roster tends to come from closer to home than a typical contending team. That was true to a certain extent even when they were at the top, and it was noteworthy to have a Canadian player. There were also top players from around the US (e.g. Honeybaked?)
Sometimes, what changes isn't necessarily the impacted team, but what other teams do. For example, Nadine Muzerall becomes coach at tOSU and continues to recruit Minnesota heavily, something she had done while on the Gophers staff. She was able to eat away at Minnesota's recruiting advantage close to home, while also adding players to her roster from Canada, something tOSU had always done. All of a sudden, the Gophers were at a roster disadvantage to the Buckeyes, something that had not been true in the past.
I can certainly be critical of him at times, but to his credit, Brad Frost adjusted his tactics and expanded his recruiting of international players, both from Canada and Europe. This was an option because Frost does have a recruiting budget. TTT claims that BC does not, and given the Eagles only had two full-time coaches on staff for years when almost everyone else had three, that claim could be valid.
IMO, Crowley was given too much credit when she was winning and is getting too much blame now. She's been the same person the whole time.
There are factors outside of her control. Similar to the problem that UNH faced earlier and Northeastern did more recently, the rest of Hockey East hasn't always provided the level of competition that would have best served BC. Win No. 40 in 2015-16 came a lot harder that many of those earlier in the winning streak, in part because Clarkson was the best team the Eagles had seen to that point. By the Final, Minnesota had already seen Wisconsin six times, so the Eagles didn't present a radically new degree of difficulty. No coach can wave a wand and make the rest of the league more challenging. If anything, HEA has declined, not improved, in recent years. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say why; perhaps it is tied to improvement of some ECAC teams. If the perception of potential recruits is that they would rather play in a different league, then that is a factor that is difficult for Crowley, or any coach, to single-handedly overcome.
