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The Barr Has Been Raised at UMaine
- Thread starter acs64
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I was really pleased with the press conference. Ben came across as very likable and caring towards the players. He definitely isn’t the smoothest speaker in the world and it’s likely that worked against him in the other head coaching jobs he applied for, I doubt it impacts his job performance though.
It was nice to hear his thoughts on the current team and my I suspect were closer to where we want to be than many realize. I’m happy he’s not big into transfers as I don’t think that’s the right way to go either(not that you shouldn’t get any.)
I’m a lot more encouraged than I was this morning. Hopefully Ben and Alfie end up in good situations and I feel confident the players are in good hands. The biggest thing at this point is making sure they stay.
Will he go for Tyler Walsh as one of the assistants? I think it would be pretty cool if it happens.
It was nice to hear his thoughts on the current team and my I suspect were closer to where we want to be than many realize. I’m happy he’s not big into transfers as I don’t think that’s the right way to go either(not that you shouldn’t get any.)
I’m a lot more encouraged than I was this morning. Hopefully Ben and Alfie end up in good situations and I feel confident the players are in good hands. The biggest thing at this point is making sure they stay.
Will he go for Tyler Walsh as one of the assistants? I think it would be pretty cool if it happens.
umhockey91
Well-known member
Throwing out some names for top assistant coach. These may or may not make sense in terms of pay, but I thought that I would take a stab at it....
Kevin Swallow - UNE HC (Maine alum)
John Ronan - Union AC (Maine alum)
Joel Beal - Providence AC (Union alum)
Mathew Deschamps - Chicago Steel AssocHC (Maine alum)
Tyler Walsh could be a candidate, but maybe more likely as Assistant #2?
Kevin Swallow - UNE HC (Maine alum)
John Ronan - Union AC (Maine alum)
Joel Beal - Providence AC (Union alum)
Mathew Deschamps - Chicago Steel AssocHC (Maine alum)
Tyler Walsh could be a candidate, but maybe more likely as Assistant #2?
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BlackBearFan19
Active member
Good list, Swallow would be a great hire but I think the pay is probably going to be low compared to what he’s getting at UNE. Deschamps would be excellent as well.
Barr has been so been so many places that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s people we’ve never heard of.
I thought his press conference was great. He seems like a really genuine and humble guy, so it’s no surprise he’s a great recruiter. His philosophy was really interesting to, he doesn’t seem like he’s chasing recruits and trying to convince them, he wants guys that believe in the program and want to be here. He also impressed me by saying it won’t be hard to recruit at Maine, the other programs he was at didn’t have the stature of Maine prior to his arrival. That was a nice change of tune from what people have been saying.
It feels like we have the next great coach, his resume speaks for itself and his press conference was affirmation of that. I love that he’s not crazy about the portal and that he wants guys that will stick around.
I have no doubt that this is the guy to bring us back.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Never underestimate the power of hockey moms. Coach Barr looks like someone who can not only tick all the boxes on the hockey side of the ledger, but (like Nick Saban in football) can waltz into a recruit's home and absolutely charm the socks off the recruit's mom with his sincerity and his appearance. I'm assuming he'll want to keep himself at the forefront of recruiting for the first few years in Orono anyway, and then migrate more to the "closer" role once he gets comfortable with one or both of his assistants' abilities to keep top notch recruits in play.
It'll be interesting to see what impact his absence has on the UMass program in 5 or so years ...
It'll be interesting to see what impact his absence has on the UMass program in 5 or so years ...
Sean Pickett
2009 NCAA Champions
Congratulations of your new coach and I hope that it works out for Maine. However, just a note of reality: of the 384 current and former head coaching stints since WWII I have researched only 186 (48.4%) have a cumulative winning percentage over 0.500 and just 81 (21.1%) have a cumulative winning percentage over 0.600. Also, you should be patient as most coaches had their worst cumulative winning percentage either their first (152 - 38.8%) or second (84 - 21.9%) seasons.
Sean
Ralph Baer
Let's Go 'Tute!
Ronan is at Union.
umhockey91
Well-known member
Thanks for the correction.
as someone who attended classes with Ben at RPI, his work ethic is top notch. He’s someone who always wants to succeed off and on the ice. His hockey knowledge is bar none (no pun intended). Great hire. On the coaching side, if Nolan Graham is able to, I’d imagine that he’d get a call. He and Ben were teammates at RPI and had great on-ice chemistry. I don’t know if Nolan’s recovery is complete or, if it is, wants to get back into coaching, but I’d at least consider him.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Party pooper. ;-)
On the flip side, probably zero (0) of those 384 HC stints have followed an assistant coaching career of recruiting for multiple D-1 championships at multiple D-1 programs. I think Barr will be fine.
It would be nice to have someone from BC on the staff. For me one of the first orders of business is to get Maine back into Ontario and BC. In the glory days we used to get a lot of players from both but that has largely dried up in recent times. They both still produce a lot of talent and would seem to be a couple places Maine could do reasonably well.
Wicked Slappaahs
I miss Tie Domi
Great hire. Benny has earned his shot and I wish him nothing but the best. I hope RPI can schedule some games vs the Bears. No idea who he'll hire as AC's but one possibility I'll throw out there is his former RPI teammate Kirk MacDonald who is coach of the Reading Royals in the E. Dunno if he'd be interested in jumping into the college grind...but he's a BC native and was a skilled forward at RPI.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
When you say "college grind" I'm sorry, I had to smile. There is no grind worse than the ECHL, throw in all the uncertainties created in lower level minor league hockey by the pandemic (I'm not even sure if Reading played this season?), and I'm sure MacDonald would walk over a few hundred miles of broken glass to take a paid assistant's job in Orono under Barr. Unless he's on someone's radar for an AHL HC or an NHL assistant/scouting job instead? Orono > Reading ECHL.
DavidNardolillo
Member
The point about the pandemic uncertainty and minor league pay is fair, but the "college grind" is really about the longer term dynamic of logging some very serious year-round hours and travel to recruit players as an assistant, versus being a professional head coach with NHL and AHL affiliates and a relatively simplified player acquisition process. There's definitely an opportunity for advancement out of the ECHL: Plenty of former ECHL head coaches are now AHL and NHL head coaches.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Never said there weren't opportunities in the ECHL, but it's still the ultimate grind - relatively low pay, lots of games, mostly bus travel, a longer season than D-1 in normal times, and heavy roster activity. It's the closest thing we still have to the old Johnstown Chiefs of the Federal League as portrayed in Slapshot. Anyone who makes it out of the Coast and into The Show has earned it. The idea that a relatively young ECHL coach would pass up the stability of a D-1 assistant's job that probably pays him more than his Coast HC job is just overlooking the realities. He may still decide he's "all in" on a pro HC job further up the ladder (Cassidy and a few others are great examples it can be done), but the "grind" of in-season/off-season recruiting pales in comparison with day to day life in the Coast. Anyone who can handle the Coast has established their work ethic, so making a few extra trips (some even by plane) to handle the recruiting will hardly shake that person's resolve, eh?
DavidNardolillo
Member
Won't argue that ECHL is easy street, but I think there is certainly recognition in the sport that a college assistant job is a special type of grind:
"Former Minnesota Duluth assistant and associate head coach Jason Herter, who stepped down this spring after nine seasons with the Bulldogs, has been told by colleagues in professional hockey there is no harder job in the sport than being an assistant coach at the college level. Brett Larson, the current head coach at St. Cloud State and former assistant with UMD and the Ohio State Buckeyes, has heard it from friends in the pros as well."
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/s...oach-is-one-of-the-sports-most-demanding-jobs
That's doesn't mean that a top assistant job at Maine would not be an appealing option for an ECHL head coach, but I can also see why an ECHL head coach might turn it down due to the nature of the job.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Ultimately, I think the difference boils down to the fact that in pro hockey, if you're coaching with an NHL/AHL team, your scouting function operates largely independently from the coaching function. In college hockey, your assistant coaches end up doing both the "scouting" (recruiting) AND the coaching work. I can see where many pro coaches would blanch at the idea of having to add scouting/recruiting to their responsibilities, and would think that's a drag on the college guys. But the college guys have shorter schedules with fewer games, less travel, and on average do better salary wise and benefits wise than guys coaching in the ECHL (if not the AHL). Not to mention, several ECHL teams are not affiliated with NHL or AHL teams. Roster turnover at the ECHL level can also be daunting, so you're constantly going through new players, whereas with college hockey, turnover really only happens in the offseason. At the AHL level, it's no "walk in the park" either, but you're so close to The Show, and that tends to keeps folks engaged.
So I suspect the alleged "grind" of college coaching as espoused by pro coaches is probably a mix of them (pros) being a bit spoiled, and probably to some degree patronizing of their college colleagues. If quality of life was the deciding factor to me, I'd take a college assistant's job over anything remotely approaching the ECHL, any day of the week. But if I needed to be a pro coach and had dreams of the NHL, then I would start wherever I needed to, do anything that was asked of me, and chase the dream as long and as hard as necessary. Horses for courses then, right?
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