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RPI 2024–25: Come for the Hockey, Stay for the Football

rpi82 said:
Perhaps it’s because Bob Conway was my work-study boss and a great friend since I was 16, but this appointment concerns me. I hope this lady does a great job but I see nothing in her background that qualifies her for the role. She apparently has no experience in academic support or at an academically challenging school like RPI. Despite the title, it is far more than advising. Bob created a support structure and programs that enabled our athletes, across all sports, to not just stay eligible, but have generally superior academic achievement despite dedicating a large portion of available time to their sport. Just look at Dean’s list and academic all-league rates. We can be proud that our players really are student-athletes. I hope she’ll be able to continue that tradition.
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Unlikely to find someone with Bob Conway's pedigree for this type of role these days. And Bob excelled in the role despite not majoring in the sciences or math. This is a job that requires good administrative skills and ability to work across different sectors of the organization to create resources. The quality of these skills are not really visible from someone's resume, at least that's what I've found in my career, and can be dependent on whether other people want to cooperate with you (I'm hearing anecdotally that RPI is a better place to work under the new president, which should help with the latter). I wish Michelle the best at RPI.
 
Wicked Slappaahs said:
I noticed that Colgate has added a recruit from the OHL ....Tyson Doucette from the Sarnia Sting - he currently leads the team in scoring. Given all of the talk Smitty was giving to having been "on top" of the players in the CHL, I'dve thought we'd have a recruit or two by now...
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According to NZ, currently 58 total commits from CHL teams to NCAA DI (not all are 2025). Of that number, 10 are listed as heading to ECAC teams: Quinnipiac (1), Clarkson (3), Cornell (1), Union (1), Yale (1), Colgate (1), Princeton (2)

https://neutralzone.com/ncaa-commitments/
 
Sorry to hear recent news about Bob Conway's death. I used to see Bob once or twice a week at weekday noon Mass when I was assigned to an Albany parish 2018-2020. His deep love for RPI was only exceeded by his care for the student athletes he interacted with almost daily. I will miss him... and the stories he would share.
 
DavidNardolillo said:
TU preview of UNH game (no paywall, I think): https://www.timesunion.com/sports/a...0NGQ1LThmZmMtNmU0N2YzNjZjMGQy&sharecount=MA==

Some brief injury news contained within. Coach Smith says that Muzzatti is "out a while" with an undisclosed injury. Tonelli and Borgault are mentioned as not having played this season due to injury, but no further details given. Also, team will only practice 2 days before game after returning from break.
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Yes, there was no paywall!
 
DavidNardolillo said:
TU preview of UNH game (no paywall, I think): https://www.timesunion.com/sports/a...0NGQ1LThmZmMtNmU0N2YzNjZjMGQy&sharecount=MA==

Some brief injury news contained within. Coach Smith says that Muzzatti is "out a while" with an undisclosed injury. Tonelli and Borgault are mentioned as not having played this season due to injury, but no further details given. Also, team will only practice 2 days before game after returning from break.
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Have to think these 3 boys would be making some difference for us - how much? Not sure since i am not convinced they could make the special team defensive play that much better. Could be helpful more on ofense.
 
DavidNardolillo said:
TU preview of UNH game (no paywall, I think): https://www.timesunion.com/sports/a...0NGQ1LThmZmMtNmU0N2YzNjZjMGQy&sharecount=MA==

Some brief injury news contained within. Coach Smith says that Muzzatti is "out a while" with an undisclosed injury. Tonelli and Borgault are mentioned as not having played this season due to injury, but no further details given. Also, team will only practice 2 days before game after returning from break.
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Work the kinks out! Congratulations to UNH on a easy blowout
 
engineerhockeyfan said:
And Lee stayed in for the rest of the game. I don't get it.
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Me either.
I don’t get how a team can be so underprepared as this team. The game was over after the first period. UNH came out to play and RPI came out to puck watch play soft in all 3 zones. UNH basically did whatever they wanted. The second period was better but it was over already. Going into the 3rd game was 4-2 then RPI falls apart again letting UNH put 3 more in the board. 7-2 most of the 3rd then RPI scores a couple at the very end which the players looked completely defeated after scoring. Not much excitement. It would be a miracle if this entire coaching staff isn’t fired this spring.
 
You know at the beginning of the year heck before that a former player reached out to the AD and told Her if she was operating on the premise that this can't get any worse She is making a big mistake she ignored his advise and here we are. This program needs a total make over the product on the ice is not only bad but the recruiting has been abysmal and for all intense purposes non existent so the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train ! Both the Coach and the AD need to move on. SU football is a perfect test case it was DOA couldn't recruit because of location and facilities, went thru several coach's, losing players in the portal and hadn't went to a Bowl in several years then the AD put his big boy pants on started asking the right people the right questions and came up with a LEADER to take over the program and turned it around quicker than anyone imagined. We passed on 2 opportunities BB and KM this program isn't dead yet but it is on life support and we probably won't survive a 3rd strike so Schmidt needs to get this right and going on past performance I'm scared to death he won't.
 
Engineers said:
Me either.
I don’t get how a team can be so underprepared as this team. The game was over after the first period. UNH came out to play and RPI came out to puck watch play soft in all 3 zones. UNH basically did whatever they wanted. The second period was better but it was over already. Going into the 3rd game was 4-2 then RPI falls apart again letting UNH put 3 more in the board. 7-2 most of the 3rd then RPI scores a couple at the very end which the players looked completely defeated after scoring. Not much excitement. It would be a miracle if this entire coaching staff isn’t fired this spring.
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In our three games against Hockey East opponents, we were outscored 19-6 and outshot 144-64. As you know, back in the day we would beat BU, BC, NE, now we're not even competitive.
 
AspyDad said:
In our three games against Hockey East opponents, we were outscored 19-6 and outshot 144-64. As you know, back in the day we would beat BU, BC, NE, now we're not even competitive.
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And to make things even worse, all three games were played at HFH. If they were all road games, it wouldn’t be that surprising.
 
AspyDad said:
In our three games against Hockey East opponents, we were outscored 19-6 and outshot 144-64. As you know, back in the day we would beat BU, BC, NE, now we're not even competitive.
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We’re not even remotely competitive. Honestly they need to drop down to D3 at this point. Unless they’re serious about becoming competitive why are they doing this shit?? Just drop to D3 if you’re not going to even try.
 
troyboy said:
You know at the beginning of the year heck before that a former player reached out to the AD and told Her if she was operating on the premise that this can't get any worse She is making a big mistake she ignored his advise and here we are. This program needs a total make over the product on the ice is not only bad but the recruiting has been abysmal and for all intense purposes non existent so the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train ! Both the Coach and the AD need to move on. SU football is a perfect test case it was DOA couldn't recruit because of location and facilities, went thru several coach's, losing players in the portal and hadn't went to a Bowl in several years then the AD put his big boy pants on started asking the right people the right questions and came up with a LEADER to take over the program and turned it around quicker than anyone imagined. We passed on 2 opportunities BB and KM this program isn't dead yet but it is on life support and we probably won't survive a 3rd strike so Schmidt needs to get this right and going on past performance I'm scared to death he won't.
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I agree with almost everything you said. But the AD should stay long enough to recruit her own coaching staff.
Being a new AD, I don't believe she had the backing to just get rid of these coaches. If they don't allow her to replace these guys now, then we are in big trouble.
She deserves a chance to put her own team (coaches and players) on the ice next year.
 
Engineers said:
56 seconds into the game lee takes a penalty. UNH scores lol
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Yup. "It's either coaching or its tolerated..." I'm quoting Rex Ryan who was on the radio this morning talking about the Jets and their 16 (?) penalty performance vs. the Bills. But the point remains that Smith has had this issue all season (all career for Lee) and has chosen to ignore it. And that's how you end up getting drilled 3-0 in the first period en route to a 7-4 blowout.

In the old days, the AD would've met the coach in the tunnel between periods and had a very short, one sided conversation with the coach.... I doubt that happens these days, at least not at RPI.
 
engineerhockeyfan said:
I agree with almost everything you said. But the AD should stay long enough to recruit her own coaching staff.
Being a new AD, I don't believe she had the backing to just get rid of these coaches. If they don't allow her to replace these guys now, then we are in big trouble.
She deserves a chance to put her own team (coaches and players) on the ice next year.
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I agree with this. Clearly nothing is going to happen in-season. If nothing happens in the off-season, then I will likely be taking in the shiny confines of Union's new rink next fall...and I'm not even joking. This has gone on for too long without anything resembling progress.
 
Granted Lee has taken a lot of penalties and many were unnecessary. However, we saw this game and that first penalty taken early was his attempt to stop a dead on shot from the slot from about 12 feet out. All game long UNH was getting totally clear free shots from that same distance and location. You cannot allow that and if you do, there is a good chance you will get run out of the building since from that location, the shoot has quite an advantage over the goalie. Unfortunately we did not want to start the game with an early penalty but I would excuse his aggression for this one (but not for others during the season). Even taking this kind of penalty trying to prevent a clean shot would not be necessary if our overall team defense was not allowing them all game long. Add to that the fact if we could even mount some semblance of defense when we were defending short handed, these penalties would not be so devastating for us on the score board.
We did not get run out of our own building because of a little aggressive play from #18. We got run out by allowing a team to take 22 shots in the first period, most of them from scoring locations and from having a porous weak defensive posture from an entire team effort.
 
DrDemento said:
...We did not get run out of our own building because of a little aggressive play from #18. We got run out by allowing a team to take 22 shots in the first period, most of them from scoring locations and from having a porous weak defensive posture from an entire team effort.
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Not ready to play. Period.
 
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