I'm not sure about prominence. We're just looking for relevance at this point. I truly felt like UNH had a good platform to bounce quickly from Umile to the new guy to remain in the top 5. He's essentially now led UNH to the 40-55th place in hockey relevance. Every recruit at this point has no memory of UNH being anything other than a bottom 4 team in HE. If you are a recruit and want to stay NE but aren't BU/BC/Northeastern quality, you go to Providence or U.Conn or U.Mass. Those aren't falling anytime soon. So UNH is going to have to slowly establish itself as relevant, and hope for a Quinnipiac model of slow success. That trajectory will be 5 years to the 5-8 range (like what Maine is hoping to do), and then 5 years to move into that top 5 contention. That's a 10 year plan if it works out. And come April, the MacPhersons and Sadowski may well decommit when a new coach comes in. So it really will be a complete start from nothing like U.Mass/Carvel, with no obvious candidates to overtake for that first 5-8 climb.
So, Umile took a two story house with the construction material for a 3rd floor, built the 3rd story, and then in his final years tore the whole thing down and put his nair-do-well nephew who had no construction background in charge. Let's see if a new construction manager can ever find potential buyers willing to invest in more than a starter home. (Put that on Umile's "builder's" trophy.)
When we are back to banging out Whitt attendance we can revert to complaining about long bathroom lines, poor concession quality, and lack of close proximity parking.