It’s all about the facilities …especially with CHL kids now being eligible to play NCAA hockey. By facilities I mean training rooms, dedicated weight rooms for ice hockey teams, shooting rooms, goalie rooms, player lounges and dedicated cafeteria’s. The kids that are drafted will continue to gravitate to the schools that have these amenities. Say what you want about NIL right now.,.going forward revenue sharing is going to be a big thing. If you don’t think so then you are kidding yourself.
Now comes the huge gorilla in the closet…coaching salaries and length of contract . If you want a guy like Joe Dumais to leave QU where he has all the above facilities to come to a place like Durham where not only does he have to win BUT he also has to raise the $$ needed to upgrade or build out those facilities he is going to demand $450k/yr minimum and ask for a 5-6 year guaranteed contract. Let’s face it Chuck basically considers Souza and his buddy Luce equals as head coaches. One guy has all the institutional support he could want..a brand new facility with pretty much every player amenity they could ask for and fleeced his school for a extension and a $450k/ yr salary…the other guy makes $250k/yr and can’t even see his facility upgraded due to lack of fundraising. When you dive in to the deep end of the coaching salary pool the stakes get raised on the coach..we pay you $$ to win…if you don’t take care now..then you can stay in the same end of the pool looking for your replacement. When you swim in the shallow end…you get what is happening in Durham…
Since this was the jumping off point for some of the purported hilarity that has followed, let me nip this one right in the bud.
I've never, not once ever "considered" MS7 and Luce "equals as head coaches". Have I pointed out the obvious, that Luce is extremely overrated (at this point) considering what he's accomplished as a D-1 head coach? Absolutely, and that still stands. 12 seasons at UConn, and 11 of those as part of HEA.
What has he accomplished to date? Three (3) winning seasons in HEA. No regular season titles. No postseason titles. Two (losing) trips to the HEA Finals. One losing trip to an NCAA Regional. One (1) Bob Kullen COTY award. Have there been any Hobey nominees in his time? Asking, don't know. Tage T.??
What has MS7 accomplished to date at UNH? One (1) winning season in HEA. No titles, no trips to Boston (except to lobby for an extension with his UNH pals Jack Edwards and Andy Brickey winter before last), no NCAA's. no COTY awards, no Hobey nominees ... nada.
TKO, no question about it. But it's not because Luce has accomplished anything (yet) to write home about, unlike (say) Greg Carvel, whom I was pessimistic about when he jumped in at Flagship. He accomplished reams more already than Luce has, in about half the time. Having Barr as an assistant was nice.
Now let's compare the still-mediocre Luce to someone who absorbed WAY too much ridicule on here, from folks like your two uninformed buddies:
What did Dick Umile accomplish in his first 13 years at UNH? Twelve (12) winning seasons in HEA, several RS titles, two HEA Tourney titles, about ten (10) trips to the NCAA's, four Regional wins, and two NCAA title game losses. I think he ended up with 6-7 Kullen awards, and also won the Penrose (national COTY). A small handful of Hobey nominees, including one Hobey winner (Krog 1999). Pretty much everything, without the final ultimate prize. That's his albatross.
Lots of folks on these board would casually refer to Umile as "overrated", a "loser", and "mediocre" ... and he was coaching during most of that stretch against three of the greatest coaches in the histories of their programs - Parker (whole time), Walsh (until 2001) and York (1995 and after). Remind me, who among the current list of HEA HC's even approaches any of those guys? Leaman is one super fortunate break away from losing the game that made his career, also had Barr as an assistant, neither he nor Carvel have graced the FF since Barr left, Bazin hasn't been back since Hellebuyck turned pro ... this is not exactly the Golden Era of Hockey East Coaching, yet Luce is still stuck in neutral. Barr's team ate UConn's lunch in the biggest game of Luce's UConn tenure last month.
So if Umile was considered "overrated", a "loser", and "mediocre" ... what does that make Luce, against a far less daunting field of opposing coaches??
Yes, Luce is a better coach than MS7. There are nine (9) other guys currently coaching in HEA who can make the same claim. Congrats.
We can have lots of lively debates without misrepresenting what someone else has said. Notice I didn't include you in the "ridiculing Umile" category ...
