UNH- How Far West Do We Go?

[deltabravo62]

We speculate about coaching, locker rooms, and transfers all the time here (which seems to give you a great deal of oxygen). Not sure why this situation is so off limits. I agree with Emily. You do not offer any fan support to the collective (coach, players, fans), which is far worse (according to your gatekeeper rules) than your accusations.

What you are really saying is that this group of players cannot win because they aren't talented enough. I disagree wholeheartedly.

To piggyback off this and add a point I have made in years past. The number of players who arrive here with talent and do amazing things out of the gate to fall off drastically over their 4 years is staggering. I'm not going to name names but there is a glaring example this year who arrived like a gangbuster and has become less and less of an impact over his freshman season. I don't believe for a second these players don't have the skill or magically lose it... So what does that leave, the system they are being coached either doesn't work or doesn't fit the skill set of the players we have. You don't need a roster full of 1st round picks, you need someone with an eye for talent that will fit a system.

 

[Sparkee]

Maine's current coach showed the way to fixing that "paid way below league average" problem. WIN. Look at that Barr has a contact because he proved he was worth it. MS7 has proved he isn't worth it, it this point for what he does he is extremely overpaid.

I don’t disagree with you. However, if you continue to accept mediocre results because the price is right then you are guaranteed to get more of the same. Maine saw this with Gendron, he always got low end of the range in college hockey for head coach salaries and Maine got more of the same. Barr was a first time head coach, so it is understandable you can pay him low to start with. He’s got fewer options because he hasn’t proven what he could do as head coach. Once he did, Maine ramped his contract.

For UNH, they are in the Gendron mode of holding tight because the program still makes money even if the results are mediocre. Perhaps they could find a solid recruiter lead assistant like Barr and pay him low at first but make his contract with bonus perks for performance. Then when he proves himself then ramp his contract.

I don’t know really who UNH fans would consider a good new young hungry head coach. But I hope they find one. I don’t want UNH to ever have the upper hand on Maine. But I would like to at least have clashes between the two programs in Boston. If you ask old time UNH fans they would say that was the funnest time of their program. I loved the days when it was a four way battle between Maine, UNH, BC, and BU. There was a stretch when you could count on 3 of those 4 teams making the hockey east semifinals in Boston. It was great. Last year was wonderful for Maine. But having Northeastern and UConn as opponents just didn’t bring the excitement that UNH, BC, or BU brings. So, on that level I think even Maine fans at this point want UNH to move on from MS7.

 

[JB]

What you are really saying is that this group of players cannot win because they aren't talented enough. I disagree wholeheartedly.

I think this team is an interesting mix of talent, which makes me disappointed in the coaching. Too often the team looks to be running around, unstructured, undisciplined in keeping any intended structure. Early in the year that is on the players, later in the year that is on the coaches for not creating the culture.

coaching is always about "...take that talent and use it inside a system that's designed for the betterment of the team..." Herb Brooks.

If you look at the stretch when UNH was winning, aggressive forecheck and "hard" to play against is what I was seeing. I think teams have adjusted to the particular forecheck, so the forecheck needs a tweak. Other times it just feels like UNH is playing passive. The hard to play against looked like it was starting to appear again against BC, maybe it is a positive sign... unfortunately MC is better at "hard" to play against than UNH.

Does UNH have 1999 level talent this year? No. Do they have better talent than the record shows? I think so. I just don't think they have the systems and coaching for the talent. Bill Parcels "you are what your record say you are" still holds. I believe the problem is not the players on the ice.

 

[JB]

I don’t disagree with you. However, if you continue to accept mediocre results because the price is right then you are guaranteed to get more of the same.

...

For UNH, they are in the Gendron mode of holding tight because the program still makes money even if the results are mediocre.

...

I think UNH hockey would be a great business school case study.

I think a winning program could support 2x+ for a head coach salary. The money they are loosing with tickets (free tickets to get so bodies in the place) and lost concessions revenue (unsolid tickets and empty seat STH) is silly. I go to all the games and there have been multiple where UNH reports a gate of 4k+ people when there is no way that many in the building.

They have also lost the community out reach from the head coach. Umile would go the the Durham Rotary club at least once a year and do a breakfast talk. Why because that drives community engagement and donations to the FOH. Any business school case study on what is wrong would probably find a disengaged coach as part of the problem.

 

[Potluck]

This team has scored 22 goals in 13 league games. That's last in HE and laughably bad when compared to the average team in HE. Conmy led UNH in scoring last year as a sophomore. Nevertheless, Meathead and Emily think Conmy was a problem. Let's just say they are both next level dumb.

As for the beef I have with Emily's and Meathead's criticism of Conmy? It's called hearsay and textbook yellow journalism. Name your sources or shut up. It's also a personal attack. Idiots like Emily and Meathead don't understand what that stuff means, but for those of us that actually are educated, it's pure garbage.

 

[HockeyRef]

I don’t disagree with you. However, if you continue to accept mediocre results because the price is right then you are guaranteed to get more of the same. Maine saw this with Gendron, he always got low end of the range in college hockey for head coach salaries and Maine got more of the same. Barr was a first time head coach, so it is understandable you can pay him low to start with. He’s got fewer options because he hasn’t proven what he could do as head coach. Once he did, Maine ramped his contract.

For UNH, they are in the Gendron mode of holding tight because the program still makes money even if the results are mediocre. Perhaps they could find a solid recruiter lead assistant like Barr and pay him low at first but make his contract with bonus perks for performance. Then when he proves himself then ramp his contract.

I don’t know really who UNH fans would consider a good new young hungry head coach. But I hope they find one. I don’t want UNH to ever have the upper hand on Maine. But I would like to at least have clashes between the two programs in Boston. If you ask old time UNH fans they would say that was the funnest time of their program. I loved the days when it was a four way battle between Maine, UNH, BC, and BU. There was a stretch when you could count on 3 of those 4 teams making the hockey east semifinals in Boston. It was great. Last year was wonderful for Maine. But having Northeastern and UConn as opponents just didn’t bring the excitement that UNH, BC, or BU brings. So, on that level I think even Maine fans at this point want UNH to move on from MS7.

We'd love to play amd whoop you at the Garden...

 

[RENCEB]

As for Scott Borek at Merrimack, which gets a lot of play here, take a factual look at his accomplishments. He's completed 7 seasons as head coach and had 5 losing seasons and 1 NCAA tourney appearance. The one great season was impressive - second place in hockey east. But Merrimack got smoked in the first round of NCAAs. FWIW, Merrimack's backroom facilities are better than UNH.

Can't refute your facts, but as the resident (only?) Merrimack fan on this board, let me add some context.
Borek's 1st couple of seasons were not great, but he at least began to get them headed in the right direction. Went from 7 wins to 9, then the shortened '20/'21 season only 5, but in '21-'22 he jumped them up to 19 wins and in '22-'23 hit 23 wins and 2nd place in HE. He was early on to leverage the portal and had a terrific mix of veteran transfers and good young talent.
Things have settled in the last 2 years with back-to-back 13 win seasons, but they're already at 12 this year so I'm reasonably confident they could hit 15 or 16 and ALL of their best players are underclassmen. Borek has recruited pretty well.
Regarding "drive home safely", the last Wildcat win at Lawler was a shootout victory on 1/23/21, Patrick Grasso with the winning goal.
Overall Borek is 8-7 vs UNH during his tenure at 'Mack (hope I have that correct).

 

[Whalers]

Name your sources or shut up. It's also a personal attack. Idiots like Emily and Meathead don't understand what that stuff means, but for those of us that actually are educated, it's pure garbage.

Fluffer, now that is priceless. A personal attack? Against whom? An anonymous keyboard warrior who loves to attack, talk sh!t& and disparage people who show their identity, or now offer to meet said anonymous poster in person to have a beer. Then further attacks others as uneducated, of lesser stature or financial standing, all the while remaining delightfully anonymous. Others need to name sources but He (?) doesn't, hmmmm.

Maybe we shouldn't call you Fluffer. "Deep Throat" might be more fitting.

 

[norbert]

This team has scored 22 goals in 13 league games. That's last in HE and laughably bad when compared to the average team in HE. Conmy led UNH in scoring last year as a sophomore. Nevertheless, Meathead and Emily think Conmy was a problem. Let's just say they are both next level dumb.

As for the beef I have with Emily's and Meathead's criticism of Conmy? It's called hearsay and textbook yellow journalism. Name your sources or shut up. It's also a personal attack. Idiots like Emily and Meathead don't understand what that stuff means, but for those of us that actually are educated, it's pure garbage.

You understand sources right? How about you tell us who you are?

 

[Potluck]

Fluffer, now that is priceless. A personal attack? Against whom? An anonymous keyboard warrior who loves to attack, talk sh!t& and disparage people who show their identity, or now offer to meet said anonymous poster in person to have a beer. Then further attacks others as uneducated, of lesser stature or financial standing, all the while remaining delightfully anonymous. Others need to name sources but He (?) doesn't, hmmmm.

Maybe we shouldn't call you Fluffer. "Deep Throat" might be more fitting.

It’s called irony. Didn’t think you’d get it.

 

[Potluck]

You understand sources right? How about you tell us who you are?

The fact that you don’t understand what’s going on says it all. Ever hear of irony?

 

[emily422]

Fluffer, now that is priceless. A personal attack? Against whom? An anonymous keyboard warrior who loves to attack, talk sh!t& and disparage people who show their identity, or now offer to meet said anonymous poster in person to have a beer. Then further attacks others as uneducated, of lesser stature or financial standing, all the while remaining delightfully anonymous. Others need to name sources but He (?) doesn't, hmmmm.

Maybe we shouldn't call you Fluffer. "Deep Throat" might be more fitting.

Bingo

 

[FlagUp17]

To piggyback off this and add a point I have made in years past. The number of players who arrive here with talent and do amazing things out of the gate to fall off drastically over their 4 years is staggering. I'm not going to name names but there is a glaring example this year who arrived like a gangbuster and has become less and less of an impact over his freshman season. I don't believe for a second these players don't have the skill or magically lose it... So what does that leave, the system they are being coached either doesn't work or doesn't fit the skill set of the players we have. You don't need a roster full of 1st round picks, you need someone with an eye for talent that will fit a system.

I agree this has been an issue for a number of years under MS7. So many promising underclassmen who appear to flame out once they get to be a junior/senior.

Good teams are often able to neutralize some of the other teams biggest weapons. After a hot start, I imagine “the book” starts to come out on a guy, and teams are able to game plan against him. This can often lead to a “sophomore slump” albeit in our case it seems to moreso be a Junior/senior slump. There are exceptions to this rule, where guys come out of nowhere as an upperclassmen with a significantly improved year (Cronin last year comes to mind, Blaisdell the year before).

In these scenarios (hot start, then appearing to flame out), I put it more on the coaching than the player. The player is hoping the coach can help recognize where teams are taking advantage of his weaknesses, and good coaches should be able to identify and work to alleviate these issues. This continues the cat/mouse game of players improving, and the enemy figures out new/different holes in their game. It’s part of the quest to continue developing as a more well rounded player.

As many posters have pointed out, there does not appear to be many instances of this happening under Souza. It almost makes me feel like they’re trying to ram a round peg into a square hole… and just stick to the original plan for a player, even if it isn’t working (or producing) anymore…

Evidence from players who have recently left and flourished elsewhere (Sardarian and Muszelik are two that come to mind) I believe further points to the coaching staff doing an inadequate job of furthering the development of the talented players the already have. Additionally, how many of Souzas graduates moved on to the AHL/NHL?

I think Souza has been doing a decent job recently for recruiting (always room for improvement, but I think this current batch of freshmen have a lot of intriguing characteristics). Once you have them, you gotta continue their development!

Gotta right the ship this weekend against MC. Anything less than 4 points and the nosedive continues to pick up speed…

 

[emily422]

This team has scored 22 goals in 13 league games. That's last in HE and laughably bad when compared to the average team in HE. Conmy led UNH in scoring last year as a sophomore. Nevertheless, Meathead and Emily think Conmy was a problem. Let's just say they are both next level dumb.

As for the beef I have with Emily's and Meathead's criticism of Conmy? It's called hearsay and textbook yellow journalism. Name your sources or shut up. It's also a personal attack. Idiots like Emily and Meathead don't understand what that stuff means, but for those of us that actually are educated, it's pure garbage.

I’ll happily name my sources when you agree to meet in person. But you won’t because one, you don’t even go to games and two, you’re a coward who will continue to sit behind his anonymous account.

“Those of us”… I don’t think anyone on this board wants to be grouped in with you

 

[norbert]

The fact that you don’t understand what’s going on says it all. Ever hear of irony?

I’m not giving someone who I don’t know and has been nothing but a douche any info. You say you are a dedicated and supportive fan but hide behind a keyboard and know nothing of what is actually going on. If you were actually around it would be obvious to understand who some of us know.

 

[Chuck Murray]

I’ll happily name my sources when you agree to meet in person. But you won’t because one, you don’t even go to games and two, you’re a coward who will continue to sit behind his anonymous account.

potty is not nearly as anonymous as potty thinks.

“Those of us”… I don’t think anyone on this board wants to be grouped in with you

potty is still rolling off the high of getting IM support on some of his positions a few years ago, under a different ID, and still thinks a few of those folks on here can be swayed with his amped up rhetoric, like there's a plan to doxx those folks. potty has hinted some of it (a lot even?) was purportedly aimed at me, and so I've gone on the record here assuring any and all posters that I don't give a crap about what anyone said years ago on a stupid IM. Truth is, if potty ever had any support, potty has blown it by his oafish, narcissistic conduct on these boards. His only pal is MS7 at this point. Stay tuned, his coming out party may be coming up pretty soon lol

 

[Snively65]

Fluffer does have a connection, at least to the head coach. I see he has been posting his 'interference' lately to distract from the real issues. He likes to frustrate, unless he is Fluffing.

Heard the student section was chanting for a new coach. Those fans stuck in the 1950's as well? They must think Rube Bjorkman will be walking back thru the door?

Rube Bjorkman, you say, Whalers?

Reuben Eugene Bjorkman is alive and apparently well at age 96 in Warroad, Minnesota, where he retired almost 50 years ago after a so-so head coaching career at U North Dakota (1968/69-1977/78, 146-186-11, one trip to the WCHA East finals in 1970/71). He was a more successful head coach during his one year at RPI in 1963/64 and four years at UNH from 1964/65 to 1967/68 (40-14-0 last two years after UNH moved up to ECAC from ECAC-2). Having grown up in Durham, I got to watch Rube put UNH on the college hockey map, his last three years in the newly constructed Snively Arena, by superb recruiting.

Rube’s recruits included Steve Drapeau, Brad Houston (scored the first goal in Snively Arena), Dave Savage (Durham townie, one of the answers to my quiz question a few pages back), Dave O’Connor, Dave Hagerman (goalie from Plymouth, NH, HRef, who rented an apartment with his spouse from my parents), Dude Thorn, Joe Bartlett, Bill Noble, the William Rothwell cousins (same first names), Colin Sutherland, Bob MacCarthy (we took intro history together), Colin Clark (made 70 saves in one game), Rick Metzger (another goalie, where there was incredible depth), Bob Brandt, Rich David, Dick Walsh, Mickey Goulet, Graham Bruder (still lives in Dover), Dave Sheen, Mike Ontkean (of the movie Slap Shot fame), Pete Stoutenberg (R.I.P., married a beautiful ORHS classmate), Bob Grant (another Durham townie), besides setting the table for Charlie Holt by adding Louis Frigon and Mike McShane (one of all-time winningest college coaches at Norwich University) for the 1968/69 season, who both played with Dick Umile and Guy Smith the following year.

In 1968, Rube won New England Hockey Coach of the Year. Then, in 1997, Rube won the John “Snooks” Kelly Founders Award granted by the American Hockey Coaches Association. Besides a Wikipedia page (the HockeyDB site messes up his time frame at UNH by a year), there are three interview videos with Rube (about 20 minutes each, or an hour total) created about this time last year from his retirement home in Warroad, Minnesota. So, maybe Rube is not walking through our coaching door again at UNH, but I think that he was the key guy in the development of men’s hockey at UNH during the modern era.

 

[Chuck Murray]

The fact that you don’t understand what’s going on says it all. Ever hear of irony?

It's next level ironic that you've settled on certain posters lately, folks in the know here are laughing and pointing every time you try to bust on these folks.

You're friendless, you're clueless, and you're gutless. Quite the combo. That's no way to go through life, pal ...

 

[Chuck Murray]

Rube Bjorkman, you say, Whalers?

Reuben Eugene Bjorkman is alive and apparently well at age 96 in Warroad, Minnesota, where he retired almost 50 years ago after a so-so head coaching career at U North Dakota (1968/69-1977/78, 146-186-11, one trip to the WCHA East finals in 1970/71). He was a more successful head coach during his one year at RPI in 1963/64 and four years at UNH from 1964/65 to 1967/68 (40-14-0 last two years after UNH moved up to ECAC from ECAC-2). Having grown up in Durham, I got to watch Rube put UNH on the college hockey map, his last three years in the newly constructed Snively Arena, by superb recruiting.

Rube’s recruits included Steve Drapeau, Brad Houston (scored the first goal in Snively Arena), Dave Savage (Durham townie, one of the answers to my quiz question a few pages back), Dave O’Connor, Dave Hagerman (goalie from Plymouth, NH, HRef, who rented an apartment with his spouse from my parents), Dude Thorn, Joe Bartlett, Bill Noble, the William Rothwell cousins (same first names), Colin Sutherland, Bob MacCarthy (we took intro history together), Colin Clark (made 70 saves in one game), Rick Metzger (another goalie, where there was incredible depth), Bob Brandt, Rich David, Dick Walsh, Mickey Goulet, Graham Bruder (still lives in Dover), Dave Sheen, Mike Ontkean (of the movie Slap Shot fame), Pete Stoutenberg (R.I.P., married a beautiful ORHS classmate), Bob Grant (another Durham townie), besides setting the table for Charlie Holt by adding Louis Frigon and Mike McShane (one of all-time winningest college coaches at Norwich University) for the 1968/69 season, who both played with Dick Umile and Guy Smith the following year.

In 1997 Rube won the John “Snooks” Kelly Founders Award granted by the American Hockey Coaches Association. Besides a Wikipedia page (the HockeyDB site messes up his time frame at UNH by a year), there are three interview videos with Rube (about 20 minutes each, or an hour total) created about this time last year from his retirement home in Warroad, Minnesota. So, maybe Rube is not walking through our coaching door again at UNH, but I think that he was the key guy in the development of men’s hockey at UNH during the modern era.

So it turns out both SteveF (or FSteve for those who truly "loved" the man's antics) and Rube Bjorkman are alive and well, still with us. Reasons to celebrate!!

 

[Snively65]

So it turns out both SteveF (or FSteve for those who truly "loved" the man's antics) and Rube Bjorkman are alive and well, still with us. Reasons to celebrate!!

Yup. I just added that Rube also won New England Coach of the Year in 1968.