UNH 2024/2025 Goldberg Edition

[HockeyRef]

In contrast to his former boss Nate Leaman, whose Friars won it all ten seasons ago, something MS7 will never come close to doing. In fact, MS7 may never get his team to the Garden or the NCAA’s, thanks to Umile.

Providence..they've never been HE Champs? Too lazy to look. Of course when you win it all who cares about a conference title. Funny the only highlight in my 10 year "fandom" is beating them at da Gahden in '14 and thwarting them again in '15. Good times!

Oh and beating Maine which is always a pleasure (wink).

 

[Snively65]

Providence..they've never been HE Champs? Too lazy to look. Of course when you win it all who cares about a conference title. Funny the only highlight in my 10 year "fandom" is beating them at da Gahden in '14 and thwarting them again in '15. Good times!

Oh and beating Maine which is always a pleasure (wink).

Good point. I should have written that Leaman and his team “won a Natty” rather than “won it all” in the 2014/2015 season. Indeed, those were good times when we could beat PC even on their home ice.

 

[Chuck Murray]

In contrast to his former boss Nate Leaman, whose Friars won it all ten seasons ago, something MS7 will never come close to doing. In fact, MS7 may never get his team to the Garden or the NCAA's, thanks to Umile.

Just a couple of minor points of disagreement ... first, let's not hold Leaman in such awe vis a vis Coach Umile, had UNH enjoyed PC's amazing good fortune and seen Michaud "pull an O'Connell" in the '99 FF Finals, UNH/Umile would have the same ultimate notch in their belt as PC does.

Now more "back in the real world" stuff ... why do you feel MS7's lack of success is "thanks to Umile"? I hope you really don't think MS7 was tapped by Umile/Blue Skies because they envisioned Souza would be a steaming heap of mediocrity, and he would never lead his team into any meaningful post-season play over his first decade behind the bench? Whatever of this current mess was "on Umile" probably expired about 4-5 years ago, pre-pandemic IMO. Players used to actually develop and improve under Umile. Umile's teams were relatively "easy on the eye" for long stretches of a season (and sometimes even longer) because he could actually coach in a meaningful way.

Sure, getting his guy named as his successor was the ultimate vanity project, for a guy who had literally (almost) everything. But there were generally three possible outcomes, and Umile benefits from two of them. One, the guy equals his success, and Coach Umile gets to see how it wasn't just him to win everything but the Big Tuna ... two, his hand-picked successor DOES win the Big Tuna, and now Umile gets to add a term like "visionary" to his already impressive professional CV as he basks in the reflected glory out by Bow Lake ... and three, his guy falls flat on his face, and worse even, gets extended (twice?) to prolong the agony. I refuse to believe that Umile is either responsible for, or happy with, the current state of UNH Hockey. If he has any future "skin in the game" for the program he played for and coached, it has to be success-oriented. Beaming down onto the ice from a luxury box at some arena in Boston or elsewhere while UNH wins big hardware. I mean, how can it not be??

As to Providence's history with the HEA Trophy ... it's named after their former HC/AD (and league commish?) Lou Lamoriello, perhaps in part due to the fact that PC won the first HEA Tourney title circa 1985 by way of an acrobatic weekend performance from one Chris Terreri. I think they also won another one in the early/mid '90's in the Paul Pooley Era (not looking that up to confirm), but yeah - Leaman has zero (0) so far.

 

[HockeyRef]

As per the 'this is on Umile' isn't it tho? Or is it on Marty who didn't allow for a national search??? We will never know just how the deal was actually struck. I'm sure DU wanted to leave his stored program in good hands...but I can't help but wonder if vanity got in the way.

I mean...if you opened the job up gee someone who had non UNH affiliation just might come in and bring UNH back to the competitive teams of his hey day. Which is not to denigrate his stellar career.

It's all water under the bridge of course but one thing is for sure...he (Du) can't be happy about how things have panned out.

And I had high hopes for MS7 and..I'd like to think it could still be a good thing. Hope springs eternal..right?

 

[Scott]

Souza has had NINE, count 'em, NINE years to build this team back into a respectable national power. Let's be clear folks, a zebra never changes its stripes.

It's sad that AD Sugarbritches decided to award new three year contracts to two UNH hockey head coaches with below .500 coaching records no matter what "breakout" seasons that they enjoyed last year. Especially on the Mens side, a team all but intact from last year's 20 win season, adding new goalies with D-1 game experience....what the he11 has happened?

I repeat: A zebra never changes its stripes.

This is a team that has solid-not-top-tier talent. Plenty of enough talent to a win a large fair share of its games. It boils down to game preparedness and individual coaching to generate the most from your players, and Souza has shown very little progress in neither one since taking the reins, and it has shown in every single game this season. Yeah I get it, "but Scott, they had several key players that were injured at the start of the season, yada, yada, yada"....maybe, but the depth is still there. It's a pretty simple....either the players don't give a rat's derriere at game time (not likely) or the Souza et.al. simply can't or won't instill any inspiration to push these athletes to play at top potential. That's how BC's Greg Brown and Maine's Ben Barr are getting the job done on the ice.

And down at Stonehill, Bill Herrion must be laughing his azz off at this administration and the choices that they make.

A zebra never changes its stripes. Enjoy the "ride" this season and the next two folks.

 

[Snively65]

Now more "back in the real world" stuff ... why do you feel MS7's lack of success is "thanks to Umile"? I hope you really don't think MS7 was tapped by Umile/Blue Skies because they envisioned Souza would be a steaming heap of mediocrity, and he would never lead his team into any meaningful post-season play over his first decade behind the bench? Whatever of this current mess was "on Umile" probably expired about 4-5 years ago, pre-pandemic IMO. Players used to actually develop and improve under Umile. Umile's teams were relatively "easy on the eye" for long stretches of a season (and sometimes even longer) because he could actually coach in a meaningful way.

Sure, getting his guy named as his successor was the ultimate vanity project, for a guy who had literally (almost) everything. But there were generally three possible outcomes, and Umile benefits from two of them. One, the guy equals his success, and Coach Umile gets to see how it wasn't just him to win everything but the Big Tuna ... two, his hand-picked successor DOES win the Big Tuna, and now Umile gets to add a term like "visionary" to his already impressive professional CV as he basks in the reflected glory out by Bow Lake ... and three, his guy falls flat on his face, and worse even, gets extended (twice?) to prolong the agony. I refuse to believe that Umile is either responsible for, or happy with, the current state of UNH Hockey. If he has any future "skin in the game" for the program he played for and coached, it has to be success-oriented. Beaming down onto the ice from a luxury box at some arena in Boston or elsewhere while UNH wins big hardware. I mean, how can it not be??.

All good points. I should have written “…. thanks to Umile and Blue Skies.” This head coaching transition was more Blue Skies fault. There must be other like examples, but I cannot think of one at the moment. Simply bizarre part of UNH men’s hockey history.

 

[StillKIA2]

This didn't age well:/)

Gets better with age

 

[HockeyRef]

Souza has had NINE, count 'em, NINE years to build this team back into a respectable national power. Let's be clear folks, a zebra never changes its stripes.

It's sad that AD Sugarbritches decided to award new three year contracts to two UNH hockey head coaches with below .500 coaching records no matter what "breakout" seasons that they enjoyed last year. Especially on the Mens side, a team all but intact from last year's 20 win season, adding new goalies with D-1 game experience....what the he11 has happened?

I repeat: A zebra never changes its stripes.

This is a team that has solid-not-top-tier talent. Plenty of enough talent to a win a large fair share of its games. It boils down to game preparedness and individual coaching to generate the most from your players, and Souza has shown very little progress in neither one since taking the reins, and it has shown in every single game this season. Yeah I get it, "but Scott, they had several key players that were injured at the start of the season, yada, yada, yada"....maybe, but the depth is still there. It's a pretty simple....either the players don't give a rat's derriere at game time (not likely) or the Souza et.al. simply can't or won't instill any inspiration to push these athletes to play at top potential. That's how BC's Greg Brown and Maine's Ben Barr are getting the job done on the ice.

And down at Stonehill, Bill Herrion must be laughing his azz off at this administration and the choices that they make.

A zebra never changes its stripes. Enjoy the "ride" this season and the next two folks.

Great post Scott...hey how do you get emoji? Yeah you are right on. If it was going to happen it would've. I'm talking about getting back to the Garden...Regionals...

If we only had decent locker rooms...lol

 

[Chuck Murray]

To be 100% clear I put most of this overall - and entirely this season and beyond - on Mike Souza

Of course Umile’s vanity got him in the door. He was given the choice of who to spend his final 3 seasons working with. Souza had a CV that met the minimum threshold, Umile liked him, and that was short term through 1-2 years into retirement.

Blue Skies is partially on the hook for the first extension thru April 2024

Now it’s 100% on Souza - none of this is on his original paisan support system, unless TDL really dictated terms to AD Rich last Spring as some (not me) have rumored.

The last two Fridays, the team has been unacceptably underprepared

What I will say about some of their players is … some of them are guys now winding down their meaningful hockey careers and might arguably be undermotivated, perhaps some were once draft picks whose rights are attached to teams who are no longer monitoring them closely, so finding a new source of motivation has been challenging.

They see no great new prospects in the dressing room this season.

Whale is a step back from Hellsten, backup G also a level or two down

Unless the coaching staff gives them reasons to believe they can grow as individuals AND as a team, this may be a “mail it in” season for too many

But 100% on the current head coach

 

[Scott]

Great post Scott...hey how do you get emoji? Yeah you are right on. If it was going to happen it would've. I'm talking about getting back to the Garden...Regionals...

If we only had decent locker rooms...lol

Some of this is from memory when this Fan Forum was on an earlier server.

For the "roll eyes" emoji you type (colon)rolleyes(colon)

For the "mad" emoji you type (colon)mad(colon)

 

[Jellsville USA]

Very disappointing season so far.

 

[Drew S.]

Souza’s stock is going way up tonight.

 

[Sparkee]

Souza’s stock is going way up tonight.

Do you mean his portfolio is doing well with the big raise and signing bonus he got?

 

[TheGrouchyCat]

With as poorly as the team is playing and confidence in MS7 at an all time low, is there a legitimate pathway to raise the dollars to upgrade the Whit?

Or, is UNH Hockey going to simply fade away into obscurity

 

[NCAA watcher]

Going to?

 

[Scott]

Souza’s stock is going way up tonight.

Do tell.

 

[Scott]

With as poorly as the team is playing and confidence in MS7 at an all time low, is there a legitimate pathway to raise the dollars to upgrade the Whit?

Or, is UNH Hockey going to simply fade away into obscurity

No. and....

Yes.

We can thank AD Blue Skies for years and years of croneyism and AD SB for misplaced priorities.

Bold prediction: UNH will exit Hockey East for the Atlantic Hockey conference by 2026-27.

 

[Sparkee]

Going to?

This seems like the situation Maine was in where the AD kept extending a nice guy that was inexpensive and loved his job but just wasn’t getting his team to compete in the post season. Attendance drooped to a point it was less than half full it appeared. Now Maine brought in a promising first time head coach with a history of recruiting and building good teams and in 3rd year got to go to HE semis and NCAA playoffs and has his team headed toward that again. The donor money followed and Maine is upgrading their facilities to the tune of $80 million. Before, there was little to no donor money. In hindsight, this type of move should have happened earlier before Gendron passed away. It doesn’t appear UNH will be better than last year and likely will be worse. A buyout might be the best investment UNH can make if they find the right next head coach.

 

[Drew S.]

Do tell.

Ha, UNH basketball was killed by UMA on NESN last night so figured that helped Souza’s cause.

 

[Drew S.]

This seems like the situation Maine was in where the AD kept extending a nice guy that was inexpensive and loved his job but just wasn’t getting his team to compete in the post season. Attendance drooped to a point it was less than half full it appeared. Now Maine brought in a promising first time head coach with a history of recruiting and building good teams and in 3rd year got to go to HE semis and NCAA playoffs and has his team headed toward that again. The donor money followed and Maine is upgrading their facilities to the tune of $80 million. Before, there was little to no donor money. In hindsight, this type of move should have happened earlier before Gendron passed away. It doesn’t appear UNH will be better than last year and likely will be worse. A buyout might be the best investment UNH can make if they find the right next head coach.

The initial donation from the Alfonds came when Red was coach. Most of the talent on last year’s team was recruited by Red and co. Ben’s done a great job as coach but I don’t think people should be giving credit where it isn’t due.