St. Lawrence U.

[Engineers]

Can anyone provide some sort of rationale or reason as to why SLU has fumbled everything since Marsh left? I have some family that are alums of the school and watching them spiral to what they are now has been disheartening and confusing. First they let Carvel walk after 4 stellar seasons in 2016. Apparently he wanted to stay, but negotiations were terrible and he left for his wife's hometown area of Amherst, Mass. Then they hire Mike Morris which was lazy of them and he runs the program into the ground. They then try their best to lure Eric Lang, king of the program rebuilds. Even with a massive renovation to Appleton to bring it up to the specs of many other D1 rinks in the ECAC and what I assume would be an upgrade in both pay, facilities, and institutional prestige from AIC, he chooses to remain with the yellow jackets in Springfield Mass in the lowest league at the D1 level, Atlantic Hockey. Regardless of how good he got AIC, they played in front of crickets at the Mass Mutual Center. It was also pretty well known that they paid one of, if not the lowest salaries in D1. I don't understand how St. Lawrence didn't give him a blank check and say get to work. What happened to Lang? What didn't they do to persuade him? They then go and hire their current coach who has done absolutely nothing but lose, lose, and lose. To add insult to injury, Ben Barr was not at Maine yet when they were interviewing Lang. They could have had him as well. What is going on up at Canton? How in the world have things gotten this bad to the point where it almost seems irreparable? Who do they need to get as a coach after this season to actually have some hope to turn things around? Who would want this job AND be willing to stick around for more than 4-5 years and not program hop? I am very interested to hear anyone's responses as I have not talked about this with anyone before. This forum seems like the spot where I can vent and get some ideas as to what happened.

Idk? But my daughter is a junior at SLU and the team has been terrible all three years!!

I think like you said the morris hire was a lazy hire and they did the same thing with Brekke. SLU Looked 10 miles down the road for the next coach. Rumor has it with Eric lang is the university was not willing to let him clean house and wanted a say in the roster? Not sure if that is true but that was out there. It’s not irreparable but they better get this next head coach hire right! This is a complete rebuild and they need the right coach for this job. My question is SLU able to $$ a rebuild. What they did with Appleton is great but they need complete buy in from the president on down. Otherwise it will never work.

 

[Engineers]

Can anyone provide some sort of rationale or reason as to why SLU has fumbled everything since Marsh left? I have some family that are alums of the school and watching them spiral to what they are now has been disheartening and confusing. First they let Carvel walk after 4 stellar seasons in 2016. Apparently he wanted to stay, but negotiations were terrible and he left for his wife's hometown area of Amherst, Mass. Then they hire Mike Morris which was lazy of them and he runs the program into the ground. They then try their best to lure Eric Lang, king of the program rebuilds. Even with a massive renovation to Appleton to bring it up to the specs of many other D1 rinks in the ECAC and what I assume would be an upgrade in both pay, facilities, and institutional prestige from AIC, he chooses to remain with the yellow jackets in Springfield Mass in the lowest league at the D1 level, Atlantic Hockey. Regardless of how good he got AIC, they played in front of crickets at the Mass Mutual Center. It was also pretty well known that they paid one of, if not the lowest salaries in D1. I don't understand how St. Lawrence didn't give him a blank check and say get to work. What happened to Lang? What didn't they do to persuade him? They then go and hire their current coach who has done absolutely nothing but lose, lose, and lose. To add insult to injury, Ben Barr was not at Maine yet when they were interviewing Lang. They could have had him as well. What is going on up at Canton? How in the world have things gotten this bad to the point where it almost seems irreparable? Who do they need to get as a coach after this season to actually have some hope to turn things around? Who would want this job AND be willing to stick around for more than 4-5 years and not program hop? I am very interested to hear anyone's responses as I have not talked about this with anyone before. This forum seems like the spot where I can vent and get some ideas as to what happened.

SLU should be scoping out who has interest by January/February. The earlier they get the new coaching staff in place the better for the team/ transfer portal. Brekke should be fired literally the day after the season ends, No need to wait around for that. He’s the worst coach in SLU history. lol

 

[apple2k]

SLU should be scoping out who has interest by January/February. The earlier they get the new coaching staff in place the better for the team/ transfer portal. Brekke should be fired literally the day after the season ends, No need to wait around for that. He’s the worst coach in SLU history. lol

SLU should be scoping out who has interest by January/February. The earlier they get the new coaching staff in place the better for the team/ transfer portal. Brekke should be fired literally the day after the season ends, No need to wait around for that. He’s the worst coach in SLU history.

 

[apple2k]

The facts definitely show that Brekke is the worst SLU coach. For context, the previous coach who lasted more than just a few years was Paul Patten, coach from 1971-1979. His record was 94-127-5 (8 seasons). Brekke has been coach from 2019-2026, and so far, his record is 61-116-23, (7 seasons, including the Covid year).
Even allowing for the ECAC tournament win in the Covid year, Brekke's record is awful.
No other D1 coach with as many seasons as Brekke has a win percentage of .363: in fact, among coaches with 6+ seasons, Brekke is effectively alone at the bottom—everyone else with that much time is well above .400, usually above .500.
Fire Brekke!

 

[techtodenver]

Lang visited SLU, they couldn’t come to an agreement. The Carvel stuff is so off based, he’s always had pro hockey aspirations, UMass is a huge school that Hockey is actually the most successful program and get ample resources to compete on a national level unlike their basketball and football. The end of the SLU era for him was asking for more administrative support for many years leading up to his departure and is making 300k more than what SLU was paying him, he wasn’t staying, any logical Canton resident understood, that’s a big step up. SLU likes to treat all programs equal, they don’t let the D3/D1 labels alter anything, hence the success in lacrosse, soccer, and multiple women’s sports as well. From what I’ve been told, they obviously made a mess of the Morris ordeal and it led to shed light on things the University wanted no business with (for obvious reasons) so they take Brekke who is just an awesome human being and does everything by the book, the exact opposite of Morris, they’ve been content with that. Obviously the pressure is going to get more immense as the losses roll in, they will be making a move this offseason if this continues. Sean Flanagan and Kyle Flanagan will be getting the keys I suspect but there’s an identity crisis. SLU likes to think themselves as some Ivy and they’ll just take any prep school/MA kid, when the CHL opening happened they should’ve been pushing out players like the school 10 miles down the road and take advantage of the Canadian location, they opted to be kind and just accept what they have, that’s just not where a D3 school playing in a D1 money dominated world can survive. Clarkson has opted into the revenue sharing model, SLU has yet to do so, how much this will help will TBD but opting in shows intent to be successful. Both North Country Universities are struggling financially, but it’s very clear to tell who is trying to adapt and who is not, SLU deserves better.

 

[apple2k]

The facts definitely show that Brekke is the worst SLU coach. For context, the previous coach who lasted more than just a few years was Paul Patten, coach from 1971-1979. His record was 94-127-5 (8 seasons). Brekke has been coach from 2019-2026, and so far, his record is 61-116-23, (7 seasons, including the Covid year).
Even allowing for the ECAC tournament win in the Covid year, Brekke's record is awful.
No other D1 coach with as many seasons as Brekke has a win percentage of .363: in fact, among coaches with 6+ seasons, Brekke is effectively alone at the bottom—everyone else with that much time is well above .400, usually above .500.
Fire Brekke!

I apologize for getting the 1970's completely wrong. I made the unpardonable mistake of mixing up St. Lawrence with that OTHER St. Lawrence. Ouch.
Paul Patten did coach at this SLU but was really our football head coach; he took over as hockey coach in '47-48, and his '49-50 team was undefeated; he became director of the brand-new Appleton Arena in 1951 for its inaugural hockey game in January 1951.
The real 1970's story, thanks to Robert Graham's book Go Saints! (published by St. Lawrence, 2009) is this:
George Menard (coach when I was in school) '70-'71 had a record of 10-14-0
Bernie McKinnon '71-'76 (5 seasons) had a total record of 58-76-4
Leon Abbott '77 through his resignation in December '79 had a record of 23-40-2
Dale Henwood took over for Abbott and rode out the season with 6-26
Thus, during the '70's, SLU had a record of 97-156-6, under 4 different coaches.
This works out to a winning percentage of .386, which, while awful, is still better than the .363 of our current coach. I was right, though, that Brekke is alone at the bottom now.
Once again, I apologize for screwing up the above post.

 

[GoldenBear]

The current president wants SLU to be a high-end academic school and wants the University to move away from being a jock/party school. At a time when there is a huge shift in current potential college students moving hard to Southeast schools for three reasons: 1) Weather (nothing we can do about that), 2) Big-time Athletics, and 3) Social Life (parties, Greek life, etc.), our president is pushing the exact opposite way. And to no one's surprise, the bed numbers at the University are cratering; this year's freshman class is shockingly small. It's hard to keep up budgets, especially for a D-I sport with no income coming in.

On the NIL front, the University is supposedly going to opt in (word was it was originally supposed to start this year, but didn't for some unknown reason), as the hockey Alumni and boosters have already given a significant amount of money to get the collective off the ground.

Change is needed with the head coach, but also with the current Administration at SLU.

 

[apple2k]

The current president wants SLU to be a high-end academic school and wants the University to move away from being a jock/party school. At a time when there is a huge shift in current potential college students moving hard to Southeast schools for three reasons: 1) Weather (nothing we can do about that), 2) Big-time Athletics, and 3) Social Life (parties, Greek life, etc.), our president is pushing the exact opposite way. And to no one's surprise, the bed numbers at the University are cratering; this year's freshman class is shockingly small. It's hard to keep up budgets, especially for a D-I sport with no income coming in.

On the NIL front, the University is supposedly going to opt in (word was it was originally supposed to start this year, but didn't for some unknown reason), as the hockey Alumni and boosters have already given a significant amount of money to get the collective off the ground.

Change is needed with the head coach, but also with the current Administration at SLU.

Thanks for the analysis! Info is good, even if it's not so hot.