He's one of those **** foreigners we don't get in Melrose. Don Cherry warned me about them chicken swedes. Will never go into a corner. Never had one, never will. I remember when Brian first took the job and told me he wanted to recruit out in British Columbia. I told him we could only recruit in the north shore, and Ontario. Well, he took out a map and surprised me by showing that British Columbia was actually part of Canada, not England or South America. Imagine my surprise to learn they actually played hockey outside of Arlington (Chebator), Reading (Thomson, Sullivan), Waltham (Perry), Lawrence (Cooper) and Southie (Donovan, Malone), I even got a foreigner (Jim McGrath) who was from New Jersey but fooled me because he played for Cushing.
(Actually, my hiring of Brian is a funny story. I typically only hire guys like me who know the neighborhood (Serino, Tortorella) or guys I worked with at PC (Lassonde, Borek), but I had learned of Brian through Scotty. I thought Brian was a Boston Mick, and only found out he wasn't one of us until after he showed up. I never made that mistake again.)
After that embarassment about Georgraphy (or geometry, I always get those confused) I decided to leave all the recruiting to one guy who would speak the foreign language that they speak in Canada (not sure what that is. As a further aside, imagine my repeated surprise when admissions keeps rejecting my recruits because they refuse to accept "Canadian" as the foreign language requirement.).
Funny thing, we've never had foreigner here, but I see Scotty's now brought one in at Providence in his first month there. I always thought Scotty wasn't a true American - we got to look after our own.
Luckily I've got three more years to impart on Mike all the recruiting and coaching wisdom I've accumulated.
After reading this I did a quick look into the players Umile brought to Providence. My understanding is McShane was pretty hands off, though that might more refer to the post Umile years. I also don't remember Borek being mentioned much, at that point he pretty much was a coach in training. It was also a different era, he was PC's first full time 2nd assistant, Sterling did not even have one and Lou had a part time assistant his last 3 years.
Anyway PC brought in 27 players in the 3 classes Umile brought in. Of them 5 were not from Ontario (actually only 3 of them Andy Mattice, Paul Saudrcook, and Lyle Wildgoose), the other 19 were New Englanders, only Jeff Serowick not from RI or Mass. 13 from Mass, though 2 went to Mount St Charles in RI (one was Jeff Robison whose younger brother ended up at UNH). Also coincidently one of the RIers was Dave Berard, who was the last class Umile and Borek and who actually arrived after they left, however Berard would be Borek's assistant at Colby and Lake St.
Another RIer was actually a baseball player, Tim Allen, whose son is a PC commit. Another bit player was Ken Sweezey, he was from Abington, who was a recruited walk on, his sister was already at PC and on the women's team, his son Billy is a Yale commit and in the USHL right now, a good size Dman. The north shore/boston players he nabbed were mostly in the first class Tommy Fitzgerald from Billerica, tag along Dman Steve Higgins from Billerica (both actually Austin Prep) Dave Guden from Watertown (he actually had been drafted). The next class had Larry Rooney from Southie and Paul Flaherty from Dorchester. I wonder by the last class if he hadn't abdicated the recruiting to Borek as they did not fit the mold, 4 Players who played high school in RI (including Robison), 2 of the 3 Minnesota kids, and Michiganer Mike Boback. The only Mass kids were Sweezey who as I said was a bit player, and Shaun Kane who played for the Springfield Pics to which it appears Umile did have a connection as Ricky Bennett came from there
Also Watcher I don't really see a direct PC connection between Lassonde and Umile. Lassonde graduated spring of 84, Umile arrived as assistant in fall of 85. My memory says Lassonde went back to NH to teach and I assume coach. The best I come up with is Lassonde played for Lou as did Umile's older brother
As far as Borek goes at PC, its a different role. First it's a veteran voice to bounce ideas off of. At Union he had Bennett, at PC he has had even more veteran voices, Russell who had just been a head coach (though from appearances Benny Barr was actually more involved especially with recruiting, as a side note if Murray doesn't step aside first don't be surprised if someone in Hockey East scoops him up), Steve Miller and now Borek. A Lowell person posted for you the Divver tweet about Leaman himself having gone out and seeing Duhaime right off playing UVM. Borek was the last to see Conway play, there for the back to back hat trick games just before he signed, but Leaman from my understanding was doing his due diligence from the day PSU said adios which was before Borek came on board. Even Mulera of the Skipjacks had been on their radar before Borek as they were interested in his linemate who ended up at BC. My guess is Borek has input (which is taken seriously) but Leaman is the keeper of the list and all the coaches lay eyes on the serious candidates they are recruiting
or *gulp* separated at birth??
