You know, if he truly didn't care, he wouldn't be here. If he was only an Appert fan, as is being intimated, why would he bother, especially when he hasn't said peep about Smith - and in fact said he holds him no ill will? This is out of line and beneath you. I would have expected this kind of tripe from some salty bedwetter like ServinisScores but not from you.
I'm in full agreement that when Appert was fired, it was for cause. I said so at the time and looking back I still can't fault the decision. But in all honesty, there's no reason to fire a guy if you don't have a concrete plan for improving without him, especially when even the haters would admit that the man had many redeemable qualities - it's just that they weren't enough to justify keeping him if you wanted the program to advance on the ice. Smith's hiring left a whole lot of us scratching our heads, especially considering the hype that surrounded a number of other candidates that the rest of the hockey world thought were outstanding possibilities for resurrecting a program that is adrift.
He's not wrong. This year's team, in the only numbers that count at the end of the day, was worse than last year's team. And yes, there's a multi-year process that it takes for a new coach to turn things around, everyone gets that, even if a good number of the bedwetting clique oddly never gave the same courtesy to Smith's predecessor. But in [current year], we do have the ability to see slightly into the future given the equally multi-year recruiting process that now exists. Combine the fact that of all the myriad recruits that we have on the list, the most common thing we're seeing and reading about them is "well, they're 21" and not "man, I can't wait for this guy to get here," and combine that with the amount of turnover we've already seen with the roster and that everyone fully expects is going to be happening again this summer, perhaps even especially you, and you CAN NOT fault a person for questioning the situation as it currently exists.
And I don't see a single person laying a shred of blame on Dave Smith. Not one, not even AspyDad, who, yes, is a guy who likes Seth Appert more than your average human being. This is all about the decision to fire a poorly performing coach without eliciting an actual path forward. Apparently the path forward is to bring in overage players and slash and burn the guys who the previous coach brought in. It's not an untried method, at least the first part. I'm willing to give it a shot, even though the amount of turmoil we're currently seeing eclipses anything Appert ever had outside of his final season (where I think he knew the writing was on the wall and eventually started throwing stuff against the wall to see what would stick).
You don't like constant whining? Welcome to my world for the past decade. It's a big reason why I rarely even bother checking in here during the regular season anymore. It's become Diet RPISPORT-L. Just as toxic with fewer calories.
