Re: Fire Mike Eaves?
Don is coaching high school / college age kids and has done well. Plus the recent track record of USHL coaches moving to college is pretty good. Tony has coached NHL teams. Shuchuk coached some U16 teams and ran 2 small ice rinks in Madison. Walsh trained other coaches for USA hockey, I believe and hasn't coached any teams since the late 90's. Hardly an apples to apples comparison.
One of my top choices for a coach would be Mike Hastings - someone I don't hear mentioned much. I don't necessarily think it has to be a Wisconsin guy for coach and he has proven he can coach in college by turning around Mankato.
If Eaves should stay, which is apparently how you feel, how about you give us some reasons why.
He hasn't been consistently competitive, is losing wisconsin kids to other schools, has recruits leaving the program, has recruits decommitting, and he hasn't evened out recruiting classes. On top of that, there is declining attendance and a not very exciting style of play, meaning the game day experience is down too, something I see every Friday and Saturday night.
Well what are your reasons?
Interesting summary of Shuchuk's career in hockey, but regardless, the underclassmen now are the first ones he's really had his hands in recruiting and I'm reasonably satisfied with the results there. I think there are at least 6 freshman that can potentially develop into all conference type players.
Hastings, Pearson, Blasi, and others are all good coaches, but as an alumnus, I want a Wisco guy coaching Wisco hockey, period. There's no reason not to have one and I think the majority of interested alumni feel that way about hockey. As with everything else, I understand that opinions will vary.
The thing that bothers me about unbalanced classes, which is at the heart of inconsistencies year over year, is that although I've studied it upside down and sideways, I just cannot look back and see what he could have done differently short of just not bringing in players that would depart early. I've asked and nobody else has been able to tell me either. It bothers me because although I grant that it is his responsibility to fix, with all the gigantic advantages of hindsight, I can't find the specific mistakes or moves not taken that would have had a positive effect. Therefore I have a fairly difficult time time laying all the blame at his feet. And it follows that it would be difficult to argue that without that, his record wouldn't be more consistent.
All Badger fans want Wisconsin to be the #1 program in hockey, win 25+ games every year, and win multiple National Championships. That is a great goal but in the current reality of college hockey there is only one team that comes close to doing that over the last dozen years: BC. No other coach has been able to both win every year,
and win a title. I think there are specific reasons for that, but rather than go into them all here, suffice to say I feel Eaves has taken some steps in how he is doing things going forward that can put Wisco back at the top.
I asked the question of which program Badger fans would trade places with over the last 12 years. Nobody answered. Maybe they thought it was a trap, but I was actually interested in the answer because I don't know it beyond BC. I'd probably take MN's better overall record after last year's run to the title game, plus the conference titles. But frankly I've never cared about the regular season titles. (maybe because we've hardly ever won them.) I personally wouldn't take UND's much better record but no titles, but maybe some would.
Eaves teams have had some horrible starts, but I feel like the vast majority of his teams are much better at the end and play their best hockey down the stretch. Which is what I want. That's how Wisco hockey has been successful in the past and will be in the future. In short, I think Eaves is a known quantity that I think can, given the chance, win another title and I'm not convinced at this point that there's another guy out there that comes in and wins 25+ every year and multiple titles like many fans seem to think will happen. There's just no evidence for it to me.
Having said that, I certainly think that you can justify firing any coach after a bad season. I don't think Eaves will be fired regardless of the outcome this year, but it can certainly happen.
He would be a fantastic pickup for the Badgers. *tries wiping sarcasm off monitor* I personally got to watch him dismantle a proud AHL franchise, errrm, I mean guide an AHL team fresh off their fourth championship straight into the shi**er, errm, guided them .... 
