Re: Northeastern Huskies 2014 Offseason: Resurrection's Over....Now What?
As always a very glass is ½ full kind of dribble from a lot of people <40 who have been conditioned to just see the world as a big blue happy marble. This team faltered miserably down the stretch, Witt in the last 10 games was grossly average and I think we were lucky a lot of the time and really never dominant. If you measure a season in terms of wins It was historically a top 5 or 10 performance but when you realize that for a program with a ½ century sub .500 record that really isn’t saying much.
By the 3 major measures of success that I value, it may have been the worst season ever with no wins against the only 2 teams that matter BC and a hapless BU squad that struggled to win 10 games and a >¼ century drought w/o a “Pot”.
As you all know, I don't think much of Madigan likely drawn from my years as a freshman when he was in both my Into. to Sociology and American Government classes, and I suspected he was a bit of a brick, however I do see him as a good recruiter and judge of talent, ability and formula and that may be as important, if not more so. So, as long as he is able to land some blue chips to ink with the Hounds, I am ok with his sometimes lackluster performance on the bench. I am told that the players generally seem to like him. I think he lacks passion, but I am only judging him from his post game wrap ups, in which he cant seem to find another adjective to describe "intensity level". LOL
On the bright note, we have many talented players including 2 or 3 “offensively gifted” kids. That’s great. The team is soft in transition and just average on D. I really don’t see the program moving in major strides that many of you feel it has. This season in reality is similar to many flash in the pan performances experienced with similar pop up results by, Ben Smith, Crowder and even Fern. Sadly, I predict it will not be sustained, for varied reasons but most rooted in the fact that it will be more and more difficult to win in this league as it expands and top players decide on greener more traditional programs with deeper success lines into pro hockey. That’s not to say we wont have a good product occasionally and that the team wont be fun to watch, as it will always be the best value in town for your $$, but the formula at NU is not sustainable to become a hockey powerhouse because the administration is not on board for it to become one. PERIOD!
In a league with many top programs the only real way to sustain success year in and year old is with an unyielding commitment form the administration and I don’t see it. My concerns are deeper than that, they run into the stands which are never full even though the seats may be sold. That is a problem. Reasons for students acquiescence vary as a Co-op school with lots of kids on campus and working or away the cohesiveness around to program runs in drips and drabs.
I have 16 co-op students in my office this semester in Natick. Of this group, all of whom interviewed with me, even if it was only for 5 minutes a straw pole during my short time with the young eager faces does not paint a good picture of this lot, a match book tally indicates only 8 have been to a hockey game and only 4 indicate they attended more the once since they were freshman and only 2 said they went regularly. Granted <25% of these kids are from the Northeast so selling the game is a problem too.
8 said they had no intention of going even if the team was great and here lies the problem, NU is quickly becoming the NYU of Boston. It’s demographic is national not regional there is no cohesiveness with regard to sports like their would be at any state school with a immediate bond between students of proximity so that takes care of programs like Maine, UMASS, Lowell, CT, Maine, VT and NH, who are sold out. Heck in Lowell the stands are filled with families, most of whom are not even alumni. I have witnessed it personally. So, that leaves us with big three BU,. BC, ND who well because of their deep winning traditions and unwavering support of the administration for the game, so they never have a problem selling seats. We just cant draw consistently. I am fast approaching an age where with kids grown my peer group are actually moving back to the city from the suburbs to live “in town”. An acquaintance recently mentioned to me he bought a condo in the Back Bay and also purchased season tix to BU, even though he is from Indiana and has no ties to either university, when I asked why, he said, beer in the stands and more comfortable seats. BC also has free parking for all games and its and easer draw for anyone west of the city.
Then there is PC and MC both who have small barns and enrollments comparatively and thus selling 1000 or 1500 tix fills up the space quite nicely which is almost as good. NU is on an island, and all alone to this regard,, a fairly large barn which seems empty, even when you sell 2500 seats. However this year I noted something new lots of seats sold but owners not showing up, and that is concerning. The seats at $400 plus bucks for a full season are inexpensive enough for you to just walk away form a season and not even resell the seats.
Lots of issues here and you would need a few marketing majors to try and fix it. So I am cautiously optimistic for the program in general, but until Roby is gone and I don’t see the potential for any major leaps and I don’t see him gone anytime soon, so I expect more of the same.
However, I will say this I expect CT to be a powerhouse in this league and they will have success early and fast and its just another team for NU to try and hurdle. Their pockets are deep and they have a total commitment from the university alumni and administration to be the top program in both basketball and now hockey, don’t let them out of your radar their AD likes to win and he likes to make $$ too.
The CT basketball franchise is worth way more than anything at BC and their revenue numbers from cable and endorsements are bigger than many small market pro baseball teams, like Tampa and Arizona, I know I mange their endowment. Now, that money and successful thought process is being siphoned and filtered into the hockey program, NU is going to continue to struggle until they get it in the front office or they will just continue to tread water in the mediocrity of the nations top league, until they get their arms around the issues they have off the ice,
