UNH- How Far West Do We Go?

[Darius]

How about them apples?! Wow! Did not see that coming, but I’ll certainly take it!

The way they’ve been playing defense the past 2 games, they can play with anyone scoring less than three (two?) goals. It reminds me of how they played against Maine and Dartmouth earlier this year.

…Can we get greedy tomorrow?

The end of this season is starting to get interesting. Confidence can take you far in this league.

Looking forward to tomorrow! It certainly will be a happy bus ride back to Durham!

FYP

 

[Chuck Murray]

The Hardy family story is a tough one. For those that don't know I went online and found this old story: UNH Today Lessons of Loss

I knew Josh. It was hard to hear of Nate passing (or to read this story when it came out) not because I knew Nate other than in passing rather I knew his older brother and could only imagine the pain of their father losing 2 sons.

War is hell for "in peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons" Herodotus. Fathers aren't supposed to bury their sons, and to do it twice...

My Over -50 team plays our games sometimes on a field at the SUSC Epping field complex that is named after Nate.

 

[Chuck Murray]

For me it is the stories of Walsh in his early days at Maine. He was extremely hands on in recruiting: 1) he knew how from his time at MSU (?) and 2) he understood you had to have great talent evaluation, needed the best ingredients and in particular when building (or rebuilding) a program you had to get it right fast. Famously Standbrook recruited for Maine, but only after he proved himself to Walsh. I don't believe Umile ever had to be that hands on, Kullen and Coady had the ship turning by the time Umile arrived. Umile ultimately was to build on what was started, we didn't know it then, hindsight. Now Umile certainly made some excellent hires. You have to wonder if he understood his own blind spots and knew the things he needed, that he wasn't. It would make Umile self aware and might be part of explaining several decades of success, along with another pivot that happened after 97-98.

Don't ever doubt for a second that Coach Umile was completely self-aware during his time in charge at UNH. I truly believe the only time he took his foot off the gas pedal in terms of hiring quality assistants was at the very end, after Borek left and Dick had to know his own time in charge was running down. Blue Skies had already eliminated obvious successor options like McCloskey and Borek, and Lassonde had moved on to bigger and better things too.

In the stretch run of his career, I'm sure Coach Umile's focus went from having a long-term coaching plan with complementary (not complimentary) parts, all working in unison, to figuring out a succession plan using relatively inexperienced guys. Hence the "I'll need three years to teach these guys, Marty", which not so coincidentally dovetailed with The Quest for The NRN. That his teams faded competitively as he got deeper into his career, I chalk up to him losing out on the borderline upper tier kids he used to draw, who were probably swayed to some degree by the "can't win the big one" narrative.

Let's put it this way ... if someone told you UNH's next HC hire post-MS7 - be it this Spring or next - was gonna hang around for a quarter century and win you close to 600 games, get you to Boston more often than not, ditto the national tourney, and win some cool hardware along the way ... who doesn't sign up for that?!?

 

[Chuck Murray]

UNH only rarely fires coaches or non-renews their contracts. The relatively recent non-renewal of their men’s basketball coach was inexplicable, whereas the firing of their women’s ice hockey coach for a bench altercation with a recalcitrant player was totally bizarre.

Snives, I know you are a fan of irony and karma ... as to the irony, it should be noted that Coach McCloskey's accuser, who by all accounts was insubordinate and running her mouth with a profanity-laced tirade directed at him at the time of the jersey tugging "altercation", finished off her mediocre UNH on-ice career without further incident. She went on to secure her post-grad degree at UNH Law/Franklin Pierce (with a Sports Law certificate!) and is currently an attorney in Arizona. Her mom was/is a paralegal, and her dad was/is a regional VP for a large international business, a position that traditionally brushes up against legal issues frequently.

In retrospect, it's not too difficult to connect the dots between the incident, the oversized reaction to same on the legal front, and the cowardly response from UNH and its AD at the time - the former totally wilted, and bent in the "victim's" favor by Woke dogma, and the latter unwilling to buck his Woke overseers, while suddenly seeing an opportunity to get out from under a recent contract extension to the "assailant".

Karma, of course, is both the Women's and Men's Hockey programs have gone down the competitive tubes since. As has been said, everything Woke turns to sh!t.

 

[HockeyRef]

Snives, I know you are a fan of irony and karma ... as to the irony, it should be noted that Coach McCloskey's accuser, who by all accounts was insubordinate and running her mouth with a profanity-laced tirade directed at him at the time of the jersey tugging "altercation", finished off her mediocre UNH on-ice career without further incident. She went on to secure her post-grad degree at UNH Law/Franklin Pierce (with a Sports Law certificate!) and is currently an attorney in Arizona. Her mom was/is a paralegal, and her dad was/is a regional VP for a large international business, a position that traditionally brushes up against legal issues frequently. Not too difficult to connect the dots between the incident, the oversized reaction to same on the legal front, and the cowardly response from UNH and its AD at the time - the former totally wilted, and bent in the "victim's" favor by Woke dogma, and the latter unwilling to buck his Woke overseers, while suddenly seeing an opportunity to get out from under a recent contract extension to the "assailant".

Karma, of course, is both the Women's and Men's Hockey programs have gone down the competitive tubes since. As has been said, everything Woke turns

The coach should set the example and in that hot moment he failed to do so. Plus didnt he grab her by the face mask?
Anyway...doubt these 2 programs failure to be successful have anything to do with that unfortunate incident...the loss of McCloskey to UNH hockey was unfortunate but I heard he was a hot head and it was only a matter of time...
That doesnt mean Marty wasnt waiting for the moment to fire him..but as I said that coach had options.

 

[Darius]

Snives, I know you are a fan of irony and karma ... as to the irony, it should be noted that Coach McCloskey's accuser, who by all accounts was insubordinate and running her mouth with a profanity-laced tirade directed at him at the time of the jersey tugging "altercation", finished off her mediocre UNH on-ice career without further incident. She went on to secure her post-grad degree at UNH Law/Franklin Pierce (with a Sports Law certificate!) and is currently an attorney in Arizona. Her mom was/is a paralegal, and her dad was/is a regional VP for a large international business, a position that traditionally brushes up against legal issues frequently.

In retrospect, it's not too difficult to connect the dots between the incident, the oversized reaction to same on the legal front, and the cowardly response from UNH and its AD at the time - the former totally wilted, and bent in the "victim's" favor by Woke dogma, and the latter unwilling to buck his Woke overseers, while suddenly seeing an opportunity to get out from under a recent contract extension to the "assailant".

Karma, of course, is both the Women's and Men's Hockey programs have gone down the competitive tubes since. As has been said, everything Woke turns to sh!t.

There was woke back then? Who knew?