I hope a condition of MS7's extended agreement is a commitment to become more available to the public, the press and to potential recruits. Let's be clear, he isn't the Great Wizard of Oz who can behind the curtain of accomplishment to avoid media and fan interaction. He is a sub .500 coach with a track record that is now statistically significant. He can't just make himself available to potential donors.
All it takes is a quick look to see what Barr at Maine is doing. Weekly podcasts and pressers, participating in multi part video blogs on youtube and instagram, etc. He is making the effort to not only raise the profile of his program, but showcasing the program to potential recruits and the public at large. You'd think that low cost activities like these would be adopted by UNH, leveraging the talents and (free) labor of students. The basic things that UNH doesn't do to promote the school and the hockey team makes me scratch my head.
Welcome back, my old friend. I kinda knew we'd be hearing from you soon. Don't be a stranger, please!
Anyway ... moving past the decision, since it's been made, and there is no going back ... I think this captures one of the areas that rankled my cage over these last few weeks/months ... MS7's visibilty, or lack thereof, at least until he was forced to launch a public campaign to save his own professional skin. Now that he has accomplished this, there can be NO going back to his "invisible man" routine that's marked the better part of his nine (9) years behind the UNH bench.
The time MS7 would have ideally started doing the "Barr" things listed by Grouchy would have been the first three years, when he was coach-in-waiting. What a perfect opportunity to start to set things up in and around the program, so that his program could later benefit from that investment of time. So ... what was done during this stretch?? Pretty much nothing. Even Coach Umile - hardly Mr. Personality in the community - did a weekly radio show. MS7 sat on his hands and has done nothing to try to resurrect the defunct "Friends of UNH Hockey" support system, also attributable to his predecessor(s).
Delving into the "why not?" part of that equation ... when you are basically gifted the job not because of what you've accomplished, but largely because of who you are, and who you know ... then it's probably easier to dismiss the importance of doing the hustling necessary to grow the program, because you didn't have to extend yourself to get the job in the first place. And for a while, it works. New scoreboard - check. New smaller ice surface - check. In your mind, things will just happen, and you will maintain without really exerting ... until you don't ... and then panic sets in.
Then, you spend evety waking moment working the niche college hockey media, providing them your talking points. Now it's the conditioning stuff, the locker room, etc. that "needs" upgrading. You can't bring yourself to go, hat in hand, on the final year of your expiring contract, and ask for more stuff from the AD. Instead, you approach TDL and you let it look like it's HIS idea, and you are just the fortunate beneficiary of the largesse, and oh BTW, TDL is my bestie, there may be more behind Door Number Two in the future, it'd be a shame if I wasn't around to be your liaison for more stuff?? And to top it all off, you suddenly discover that the long-time TV broadcasting duo for the NHL team down in the nearest big city ... are fellow UNH alums??? So you trudge on off to Boston for some additional visibility to trumpet how the program you've personally turned into a cellar-dweller is suddenly alive again, and you get the added bonus of a free trip to the same facility you've been unable to access with the accomplishments of your program for over a decade. The irony, as they say, runs thick.
I guess the saving grace here is, MS7 has been forced to show just how much this job means to him personally, and what other things besides doing weekday practices, running the games, and coming in to clinch the recruiting deals that your two lieutenants do the hardest work on (for half of your dough) can and should be done to get your program to where you profess you want it to be. In another stunning little bit of irony, you've stumbled onto the difference(s) that separated Walshy from your former head coach. You know, the guy who deprived you of a national title in '99 with a less talented roster than yours, and still in the aftermath of NCAA sanctions that made sure his roster was weaker. But he still beat you and your predecessor when it mattered. As someone who was apparently thinking about becoming a D-1 head coach after your underwhelming "pro" playing career finished ... did it never cross your mind to look at how a guy who literally hustled you out of a D-1 title as a player managed to pull that off? Or was one dash Umile, one dash Luce, and a sprinkling of rote Belichick coachspeak your formula??? Nine years later, and one 6th place finish, a distant 3rd place in this year's COTY voting, with a 5-0 embarassment in the playoff QF's to show for it ... any plans to change???? Or will you be heading back into the bunker for a couple more seasons, only to emerge when the contract is in jeopardy yet again???????
To those whom much is given, much will be expected. It took awhile, but you eventually stopped sitting on your hands. This offseason, make a copy of the "Barr" list Grouchy put together above, and start to make that all happen here.
Chop chop, time's a-wasting ...