Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Agreed. I think the year WF left the team was Coach Umile's "senior checking first line" snafu.
What an absolute total cluster$*@& that turned out to be, eh?
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UNH 2021 Off-Season Thread: Finally!?!
- Thread starter Darius
- Start date
Agreed. I think the year WF left the team was Coach Umile's "senior checking first line" snafu.
What an absolute total cluster$*@& that turned out to be, eh?
NCAA watcher
Registered User
Umile's last decade? Definitely.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Yup. Some folks just don't know when they're too old, and it's time to step aside. Sometimes they lack self-awareness, and they're the last to know that their abilities are waning. They stick around too long, and cause immeasurable damage to the things they claim to love above all else. Sometimes they're also easily manipulated by those they surround themselves with, who cynically choose to enable the empty shell of a leader to further their own toxic agendas.
Take, for example, the last six-plus months with the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Oh, and Coach Umile too. ;-)
NCAA watcher
Registered User
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
UNH doesn't do sibling loyalty (not post-Umile anyway), and UNH doesn't do legacies.
It's just one-shot deals, over and out, been there/done that, here in Titletown USA ...
Whatcha mean, Chuck? MS7 coached younger sib CK for three seasons, and younger sib BvR for one season, before the latter bolted to play his final year with the NU Fuskies, seeing how he was already in MS7's doghouse.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Yeah, both guys took the first train to Clarksville out of Titletown once they had the opportunity.
But you can't beat "The Influence of USCHO" when it comes to offseason WIS *entertainment*. ;-)
Confused emoticon.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
There's been some "editing" (censoring) going on over the last few days, with the removal of the "Influence" thread (which was basically a series of satirical takes on the corpulence of the new UMaine associate head coach), and then the removal of some comments I posted afterwards on the "Barr" thread. I guess the days of off-season satire on USCHO have come to an end. Unless, of course, it's limited to "your team's" thread, and doesn't touch any PC "third rails".
C'est la vie.
NCAA watcher
Registered User
Starting to see that pecking order.
U.Conn adds Matthew Wood, son of former UNH Women's HC and assistant Jamie Wood.
Of course, Jamie dealt with Marty Scarano, so UNH had very little shot.
UNH remains shut out of the top 05 pool, like Merrimack, Vermont, and Lowell.
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Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
... but unlike Lowell, UNH doesn't have a coach who can wring a winning record out of a less talented pool of players. Then again, neither can Luce from Storrs, despite having access to those "A" pool players ...
UNH just waiting to pounce on the 05’s that struggle to develop and eventually see their scholarships pulled or decide to transfer! The beauty of being at the bottom of the pecking order, those top kids fall all the way down into your lap when they turn out not to be the top kids after all!
Id almost say it exhibited genius foresight (if it was working)...
—
Devlin added for this fall.
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NCAA watcher
Registered User
Big Pop on the first week of recruiting season. [TABLE="class: Table, width: 100"]
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #cccccc"]Wildcats snare hot Mass. prospect June 10, 2000 By CHRIS MARCUCCI[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The University of New Hampshire hockey team stole away another hot prospect for the 2001-02 season, receiving a verbal commitment from Reading (Mass.) High School star forward Sean Collins. Collins, a 17-year-old junior who is widely considered one of the biggest prospects in Massachusetts, gave UNH his verbal earlier this week. The Rockets’ leading scorer potted 37 goals this season in 22 games for Reading, a perennial contender in Massachusetts’ elite Division 1A "Super Eight" tournament. "He’s a one-in-a-million type of talent," Reading coach Peter Doherty said. "He’s a great, great hockey player, he can play any position on the ice. Growing up, he played on two different teams, and on one he played defense and on the other he played forward. And he’s an unbelievable goal scorer." With 214 points in three seasons at Reading, Collins is on pace to shatter the Middlesex League record (218) held by former teammate Stephen Saviano, who is headed to UNH this coming fall. Former UNH captain Mike Souza, a Wakefield High grad, previously owned the record.
Collins also impressed scouts at the National Midget Championships in Pittsburgh in early April, scoring five goals in the semifinals and five more in the final to lead the Eastern Mass. Senators to the tournament title. Collins finished with 17 goals in the tournament. The next highest scorer finished with 12 total points. "And that’s against the best midget-aged players in the country," Doherty said. "He’s got great vision, he’s tough as anything and he’s got a great shot. He has to be one of the most heavily recruited kids in Greater Boston. It’s a great coup for (UNH coach Dick Umile) to get him."
Many Division I programs were trying to get Collins, who had it narrowed down to UNH, Maine, Boston College and Boston University before deciding on Durham. "It was incredible having four schools like BU, BC, UNH and Maine looking at me, so it took me a while to take it all in and come to terms with it," Collins said. "But once you do, you have to decide what school is best for you and I felt UNH was that school. "Just the atmosphere alone at UNH — you walk into the rink and watch a game, and there are over 6,000 people there. It’s pretty exciting," continued Collins. "(My decision) changed every week. UNH was up there, BU was up there, too. Wherever I chose, I knew it would be a win-win situation, and the heart was telling me UNH was the place to be."
[TR]
[TD="bgcolor: #cccccc"]Wildcats snare hot Mass. prospect June 10, 2000 By CHRIS MARCUCCI[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The University of New Hampshire hockey team stole away another hot prospect for the 2001-02 season, receiving a verbal commitment from Reading (Mass.) High School star forward Sean Collins. Collins, a 17-year-old junior who is widely considered one of the biggest prospects in Massachusetts, gave UNH his verbal earlier this week. The Rockets’ leading scorer potted 37 goals this season in 22 games for Reading, a perennial contender in Massachusetts’ elite Division 1A "Super Eight" tournament. "He’s a one-in-a-million type of talent," Reading coach Peter Doherty said. "He’s a great, great hockey player, he can play any position on the ice. Growing up, he played on two different teams, and on one he played defense and on the other he played forward. And he’s an unbelievable goal scorer." With 214 points in three seasons at Reading, Collins is on pace to shatter the Middlesex League record (218) held by former teammate Stephen Saviano, who is headed to UNH this coming fall. Former UNH captain Mike Souza, a Wakefield High grad, previously owned the record.
Collins also impressed scouts at the National Midget Championships in Pittsburgh in early April, scoring five goals in the semifinals and five more in the final to lead the Eastern Mass. Senators to the tournament title. Collins finished with 17 goals in the tournament. The next highest scorer finished with 12 total points. "And that’s against the best midget-aged players in the country," Doherty said. "He’s got great vision, he’s tough as anything and he’s got a great shot. He has to be one of the most heavily recruited kids in Greater Boston. It’s a great coup for (UNH coach Dick Umile) to get him."
Many Division I programs were trying to get Collins, who had it narrowed down to UNH, Maine, Boston College and Boston University before deciding on Durham. "It was incredible having four schools like BU, BC, UNH and Maine looking at me, so it took me a while to take it all in and come to terms with it," Collins said. "But once you do, you have to decide what school is best for you and I felt UNH was that school. "Just the atmosphere alone at UNH — you walk into the rink and watch a game, and there are over 6,000 people there. It’s pretty exciting," continued Collins. "(My decision) changed every week. UNH was up there, BU was up there, too. Wherever I chose, I knew it would be a win-win situation, and the heart was telling me UNH was the place to be."
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ticapnews
Never Forget!
Satire is fine. A bunch of fat jokes aimed at one person is not.
Yeah, but ....... does Luce station two forwards behind the opposition's net during 5 on 3 power plays?
Seems like yesterday, as the past 20 years have flown by. Interesting to me that Sean's teammate at Reading and UNH Steve Saviano played hockey for 13 seasons in Europe after 2 years in the ECHL, whereas Sean apparently hung up his skates after just 4 years in the ECHL and CHL. Career-ending injury? But, those two were so much fun to watch at the Whitt and at Frozen Fours.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Not a shot at Collins, but I think the whole Saviano-Collins thing points out how difficult it is to project what a young player is going to look like down the line. Collins was the quintessential "can't miss" prospect who ended up having a very good career at UNH, but never quite developed into the all-world talent he was projected to be in some circles. It's probably what Eddie Caron might have turned out to be, had he been able to keep his head in hockey and avoid the distractions. Saviano was the typical undersized overachiever type who developed beyond our wildest expectations, considering that he was just seen as a tag-along to Collins at the time he arrived at UNH. Bobby Butler was another under-the-radar guy.
So, it just shows, you never know ... which is why I rarely chime in on the pros and cons of recruits before they arrive on campus and start to play real D-1 games. In my own coaching days, I did have the opportunity to select players, and it was never done on a "pure talent" grading system, for that reason. Projecting future development tracking is much harder than it looks.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Luce apparently can still get his nose in under the "elite prospects" tent by dropping a few references to his BC days, and how they (BC) haven't won the big enchilada since he left (which he's been known to do/say, which I have on very reliable source authority). Of course, the fact that his career at UConn has been the definition of mediocrity for well over two full recruiting cycles since tells its own tale. And he's hardly been sending a stream of well-developed talent to the NHL over that period either. How he's even in the elite pool mix (much less got an extension at UConn) based on his own track record is puzzling, to say the least. Maybe he spins a few tales, offers some retroactive financial aid, and plum Storrs admin jobs for relatives?
But based on a scale of (1) access to talent, and (2) results with that talent, Luce is close to (if not at) the bottom of HEA. There's no reason UConn shouldn't be a Northeastern or Providence by now, at least, if Luce was a quality D-1 HC. Instead, he's still fighting it out with the lower tier, and a guy like Bazin (who doesn't get access to the kids Luce does) beats him like a drum every single season. And that's not even touching the UMass Carvel/Barr thing, where UMass and UConn were both at the bottom of the league when Luce started out, and they're still not far removed from that station, whereas Carvel/Barr took a moribund UMass program to the very top of D-1 in less than half the time Luce has languished in Storrs mediocrity.
If UConn likes Luce, they can have him. One less team to worry about leapfrogging UNH to national prominence that way, ditto for the Borek/Merrimack thing too ...