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RPI Off-season

DrDemento said:
Hab- As usual I agree with most everything you have posted. I do think that we will be a much better team defensively and can only help that can make up for any weakness in goal early in the season. I am hopeful that as the season progresses we find the goalie situation improving as someone settles in as the #1 and as they gain experience, become as dependable as they will need to be once we get into the always tough ECAC part of the schedule. I do think scoring will have to be more by committee than we have come to see over the past seasons but if the defense shows itself to be as good as i am expecting, we might not need as much in most contests. We may see a team that just keeps games low scoring and tight and perhaps then, anything can happen each time.
I am more concerned with the coaching situation and agree that the lack of assistants poses a real problem. Not sure where to put the blame for this but although I like coach Vines, he has to shoulder much of that responsibility. In any case, really looking forward to seeing this team on the ice. on paper they have quire a bit going for them and the size to match up with anyone. But then again as we have always said, this game is not played on paper.
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Their website only shows a posting for one assistant coach. Would they have separate first assistant and second assistant job postings? Unless I didn't read it thoroughly enough, this posting doesn't say anything about 2 positions being available. I wonder what's really going on at RPI. Does nobody want to work for this head coach?
 
shelfit said:
Their website only shows a posting for one assistant coach. Would they have separate first assistant and second assistant job postings? Unless I didn't read it thoroughly enough, this posting doesn't say anything about 2 positions being available. I wonder what's really going on at RPI. Does nobody want to work for this head coach?
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The two AC's left at different times, The first could have been filled already, or the 2nd might not have shown up yet.
 
shelfit said:
Yes it's very important to keep things top secret when you're such a top end program. Wouldn't want anyone stealing the secrets to your success! LMAO
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Dr. D and Ralph are right , and as usual Shelfit is trying to stir the pot. OF COURSE you cannot release info about the reasons that people leave the program. I may have been too harsh in my suggestion that Vines can't retain top notch assistants. Connelly was here for 7 years and contributed a lot to the program, (I think). There could be all kinds of personal reasons why she decided to move on, and it was not fair of me to suggest otherwise. It is not like there is a revolving door on assistant coaches here.

And when it comes to player loyalty...it seems that a lot of Engineers want to grab a graduate year to continue to play for this team...and we get some good transfers coming in as well.

Having said all of that, it is extremely important for the program that they find an assistant coach (or 2) who have strong connections to the strong feeder teams. That is tough to do but should be job #1 for Vines.
 
hab said:
I have been a supporter of Vines as head coach, and still am. I think that he has done a lot to develop the team and should be given more time.
However....there are three glaring weaknesses that he needs to correct:

1. he needs to prove that he can recruit and retain assistant coaches who will develop player skills, recruit new players, and potentially be successors
2. he needs to find a way to recruit players at top levels (e.g. US and Cdn U18). He is not alone in this failure...his predecessors were no better
3. he needs to build relationships which will result in some tough non-conference match-ups which will develop the team's skills.
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How long has Vines been the Head Coach?

With the exception of Connelly, there seems to be an issue keeping Assistants. Shelby Perry - and now Ben Murphy - only stayed one season and then left. Is it Vines? Is it the athletic department? Is it the environment? Since only one assistant job is posted hopefully one assistant was already hired. Running a D1 program alone is not ideal for Vines or the program.
 
AlwaysCold2 said:
How long has Vines been the Head Coach?

With the exception of Connelly, there seems to be an issue keeping Assistants. Shelby Perry - and now Ben Murphy - only stayed one season and then left. Is it Vines? Is it the athletic department? Is it the environment? Since only one assistant job is posted hopefully one assistant was already hired. Running a D1 program alone is not ideal for Vines or the program.
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Might consider the financial aspect too. If i was a coach of any sort, I wold be considering a plethora of things like location, advancement, history of a program etc etc. But in these days of inflation I would think salary might go quickly to the top of the list. I have no idea what RPI offers and i am even less sure of what they could afford to pay if someone with extraordinary credentials was interested, but the last 20 years have put quite a bit of a bind on the finances of this once highly endowed institution. Even after all these years the old adage still holds true - 'Money Talks'
 
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hab said:
Thanks Dr. D.
As someone with less knowledge of RPI I have to ask what you are referring to in this statement?
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I left out a work typing a bit fast - should have read as - 20 years. Will edit and correct.

I suspect that money available to the women's hockey program has been limited by the deterioration of the overall financial situation that we have seen at RPI.
 
DrDemento said:
Might consider the financial aspect too. If i was a coach of any sort, I wold be considering a plethora of things like location, advancement, history of a program etc etc. But in these days of inflation I would think salary might go quickly to the top of the list. I have no idea what RPI offers and i am even less sure of what they could afford to pay if someone with extraordinary credentials was interested, but the last 20 years have put quite a bit of a bind on the finances of this once highly endowed institution. Even after all these years the old adage still holds true - 'Money Talks'
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If it really is a money problem, then all the more reason to be sympathetic towards what Vines has been doing to build the program with resource constraints. But is Dartmouth that much better endowed that they could wave more cash in front of Connelly (who seemed to identify strongly with the RPI program).

I find this all a bit surprising. I thought that RPI was pretty well endowed but I know much less about this than you do Dr. D.
 
hab said:
If it really is a money problem, then all the more reason to be sympathetic towards what Vines has been doing to build the program with resource constraints. But is Dartmouth that much better endowed that they could wave more cash in front of Connelly (who seemed to identify strongly with the RPI program).

I find this all a bit surprising. I thought that RPI was pretty well endowed but I know much less about this than you do Dr. D.
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With a bit of research I answered my own question. RPI is a pauper compared to Dartmouth. But here is a better question: why cant we build a program as good as, or better than Clarkson, another pauper.
 
hab said:
With a bit of research I answered my own question. RPI is a pauper compared to Dartmouth. But here is a better question: why cant we build a program as good as, or better than Clarkson, another pauper.
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Going back many years, RPI was always thought to be one of the most financially stable of universities. Although never in the realm of the Ivies, they had always been favored by donors, both private and industrial, to the point that money always seemed to be plentiful or at least available for so many things. That situation has changed drastically over the past couple decades (I along with some others have our own thoughts about the reasons).
As mentioned in another post, the north country does indeed live and breathe hockey but I must mention that there was a time (the 60's, 70's. 80's and 90's) where at least the men's program was revered! Just search for the history of the hockey ticket line, the attendance at HFH, the importance of the Big Red Freakout as an example. So much has changed - all the reasons may not be obvious but the onset and the time frame for all of this is determined rather easily. A quick look at the winning percentages for RPI hockey coaches from 1955-2000 and that same statistic for 2001-2023 gives you a rather starting comparison. Pretty darn good snapshot of the program.
 
Saturday we have an afternoon game against Windsor. Any information on that opponent would be appreciated. it is an exhibition but would like to know a little about what we can expect and whether this is any sort of test of what to expect from our ladies this year.
 
DrDemento said:
Saturday we have an afternoon game against Windsor. Any information on that opponent would be appreciated. it is an exhibition but would like to know a little about what we can expect and whether this is any sort of test of what to expect from our ladies this year.
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They're a USports team coming off a 5-1 loss in an exhibition against a minor team in Ontario.
 
Scott_TG said:
They're a USports team coming off a 5-1 loss in an exhibition against a minor team in Ontario.
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Thanks for the info. probably means that as with most exhibitions, we won't be learning much. We lost some rather valuable young ladies after last season, especially in goal. And some coring and face off performance. But overall I think we might be at least as good with a better defense in a brutal league where moving up into the top 8 would be a worthy task.
 
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