Re: UNH Wildcats 2015-2016 (Part Two) - Managing Decreasing Expectations
Greg
That's the other thing. Why am I paying top dollar to watch an inferior product when others come in paying half of what I do. I cut my ticket order a few years ago and I am just about ready to do it again, to zero.
Just the counterpart to UNH treating it as a business when they had the upper hand. You want to do that at the expense of loyalty, it works both ways.
On your other points, it will be interesting to see how UNH will honor its promises to kids. Although Umile went back on promises/assurances about what years the kids would arrive (Vecchione, Laleggia) and on rare occasions even on promises of money (Campbell, O'Neill), they have not done what most programs do -- cut kids or turn them away. I hate that part of the game, because for the most part the kids' not developing is on the recruiter, not the recruit. If teams want early commits, they should have agreements that bind both sides. That moralism aside, teams do this -- the more ruthless "professional" ones more so than others. North Dakota for example has about 10 kids who never made it on campus. Providence does this a fair amount now. Even BC, which is pretty honorable, has turned away Tiefenwerth, Evan Richardson, McMasters, Begert, Colin Sullivan.
Especially with a coaching change there is attrition. For UNH is has been uniformly negative -- the goods kids left, and with a few exceptions, we are left with Borek mistakes, those who have no real options. With them (and the current non-playing freshmen) being in the system for 5 more years, UNH is in a weaker position for a rebuild.
Just a couple of context points. Babcock was playing for Triton, which is where big recruit Bobby Corkum played. I wonder whether he was to entice Corkum, because Babcock certainly had no pedigree of his own. Roth was drafted after his junior HS year, so was not really under the radar. The Hockey News cited him as the star of the 85 Minn HS tourney. His problem was he was a linebacker, who tried to hit everything, and so was out of position. Schrader also was an NHL draft, for his size 6'3. Neither one had any mobility. Schrader, by the way, was the second best street hockey player, behind Quinton Brickley. His shot was lethal, from everywhere. Cournoyer was part of the Mt St Charles dynasty, but probably their fourth D. Again, not a real pedigree of his own, and I wonder whether UNH hoped to get one of Mt. St.Charles' real prospects.
Between Schrader, Wotton, Roth, and Al Brown, that was the slowest D I've ever seen.
