Re: Bentley Hockey 2012-2013: The New Era of JAR Pride Begins
"The consistency is, indeed, an issue, but it's hardly the coaches' fault"
"I don't fault Bentley's coaching staff for recruiting guys who 'aren't leaders.'"
I think you need to step back and evaluate this program compared to all others in the country. There is a definite reason Bentley has not received any votes to be ranked. There have been good teams to come through the program, but ultimately they can't hold it together for full seasons consistently. If you truly believe you cannot hold the staff accountable for the two things mentioned above... well you're going to have very little turnover- that's for sure. Sometimes it takes lighting a fire under someone to get them/ the program going. My argument is simple- with the current establishment (AD's, coaches, overall mentality on sports at the school), Bentley will not magically rise to be an elite program on the east coast.
I can see your argument, and I think there are valid points and concerns. You're more than welcome to your personal opinion, but I'll counter with a couple of statistics for you based on my time here (roughly 5 years). Snively - I know you and Humanoid both have been associated longer. So for older material, I'll defer to that. So I'll go down the list of things here and address them one by one to give an honest and educated response based on my experience and information I've gathered over the course of my tenure and association with the team.
1) Attendance/Backing of the administration: Five years ago, if the team drew a legitimate 150 people to the JAR, it was a lot of people. It's something I've written about at length on the website. The school has made a marked investment in the team to provide shuttle buses for the students to and from campus from and to the rink. This never existed before two years ago. The school has also made investments in terms of incentives for giveaways to make sure they're inundating the students with gratuitous merch. There have been Bentley hockey t-shirt giveaways before, but now they're doing Bentley Falcon trash cans and God knows what else. The crowd might be dead on some nights, but Bentley is now packing stands like they didn't before. Is it the ideal being off campus? Absolutely not. Far from it. But the team is drawing close to 800-1,000 during each game, including nights when the senior class has a bus going into Boston. They've developed associations with a fraternity, and they've developed a core group of supporters that didn't exist until the last two seasons. The ability to get the students to the game is a direct link to the school sinking money into the program.
2) Recruiting: The coaching staff, meanwhile, has, in the past four years, built the program back from a gutted state, which has been mentioned. What I don't think you understand about the recruiting process is that a player is, for lack of a better term, tied to a coach. When the coaching staff has turnover, which Bentley has had in the last five years - it has not, like you say, remained
status quo, with needing to replace Mark White with Ben Murphy - recruiting inevitably takes a dive. At other programs like a Boston College or even at an Air Force or even still at a Brown or Harvard, assistant coach turnover doesn't matter as much because of the school's hockey brand. College athletes come to Bentley to play for this coaching staff, and that's a reputation the staff has had to build among pipeline recruiting areas and teams. Ryan Soderquist has a reputation among those leagues, but you have to remember the bulk of recruiting is done by assistant coaching. When Mark White left, Ben Murphy became the primary source of recruiting. He's on the road while the team is playing. And that means the recruiting had to change. For Coach Murphy, this is his first Division I job. He gets this job at a school where there is only one assistant coach's slot, not including the strength coach Charlie Carkin. Most colleges have recruiting coordinators and multiple assistant coaches. Brown, where Mark White is now the associate head coach, now utilizes three assistants, including their (off the roster) goaltending consultant.
3) The team's ability to get votes in a poll: Look, Rome wasn't built in a day; you'll be hard-pressed to find any AHA teams that consistently achieve votes in the national poll. And even then, it never goes on conference record, it only goes on overall record. Bentley is still a few steps behind the Harvards or Dartmouths of the world; okay, well they have 50 years of hockey tradition and a name recognition. Their academics are stronger than Bentley on their school name (the Ivy League >>>> everyone). And, in Harvard's case, they have a national reputation that usually gets them the Notre Dame Football syndrome. AHA isn't Hockey East; it's going to have to fight that much harder to get votes. If a team had Niagara's start to the year, including the five shutouts, and they played in the ECAC, they'd be a top 10 team. Instead, NU is ranked, what, like 16th. And the first loss drops them out of the poll. That's a stigma the league has fought in recent years, but it'll always have it thanks to the lack of SOS. That's something that outweighs Bentley. I'd rather extend the statement to say that Bentley
has built and gotten better because some of the bigger names around New England are willing to gamble and play them. If Harvard or Dartmouth loses to Bentley, that's a disaster on the local radar. The fact that they're willing to play them with such a limited number of OOCs illustrates the Falcons arrival on the local scene.
4) The current establishment: Bentley has done more in the last 3 years to get this program support than it has most others. Okay, they don't have an on-campus rink, but you know what, the school has embraced the JAR for its lack of comfort. It's something of a Veterans Stadium approach down in Philly. When they do replace it, people will clamor to pull the trigger. But the dump of the JAR is what makes Bentley hockey what it is. This is a school that has one head coach, one assistant, and a second assistant who's a strength coach. When Ben Murphy's on the road, Ryan Soderquist had to get to the school to get laundry done last year and make sure equipment got from point A to point B. The facilities are less than spectacular. It's not BC. It's never going to be. And they get that.
But Bentley's buildling. You can't possibly ask the Athletic Director to all of a sudden sink every resource he has into making D1 hockey his primary focus. Bobby Defelice has done a great job in getting behind the program recently. Yes, it comes at a time after the Dana Center was made as gorgeous as it was, after the football stadium got field turf, and during a time when the school is in the middle of a rebranding that is being derided by its student base. But the rebrand, the investment into hockey with the buses, the administration going to games, it's all about getting this team built up. It's happening. Five years ago, this program teetered on nonexistence, and now there's not a doubt it will exist at this school. It's hard to see sometimes, but it's there.
I'll ask this question - if you don't think the administration or coaching staff is doing its job, then please outline the changes you would make. I'm interested to hear what you have (genuinely interested; I truly hope that didn't come across stubborn and in your face).
