Re: UNH Wildcats 2016 Offseason Thread - Searching for Direction
You make a fair and somewhat relevant point but it is not apples to apples. We have been better in the long run and equivalent or better for all but the past 3-4years compared to all of these schools. Vermont was in Frozen Four and was very good for a few years. Merrimack was very good for a 3-4 year period as well. None of those schools win recruiting battles with the top schools either. Please find me more than 3 kids that the top schools wanted over the past 10 years that went to the above schools. Providence definitely used their admission department to find a way to get marginal student-athlete hockey players into school. Union's championship was Leaman's recruits and I do not want to belittle the Providence coach in any way. Lowell has found some older kids who were not top students and built a very good program based on an aggressive trapping system and relying on referees not calling everything as they would be in the box for 50 minutes per game. UNH might be better if they followed Lowell and Providence's training regimen. They have another gear that UNH does not seem to have. We are 500 or above against Lehman and dreadful against Bazin but better over the past couple of years. Quinnipac has been very good over the past few years and I congratulate Coach Pecknold. He has a lot of work to do if he wants to be compared to UMILE as they all do.
I guess what I am saying is that none of these schools get many bona fide stars as it is the right players for your program that makes the difference. The top schools have all of the draft picks and players that every other program wants. They would all have life a little easier if they had the caliber of players that BC/BU/Denver/Michigan/Notre Dame/North Dakota/Miami/??? have every year. The saving grace is most of the above schools and UNH have a large majority of players staying all four years. Please tell me how many UNH kids in the glory years were heavily recruited by top schools (that would include Maine). I would gladly beg President Huddleston to give you all the keys to the hockey franchise if you really had reasonable solutions to our on ice problems.
Please give Mike Souza a chance as he is a great recruiter and coach. We are about to embark on a new era of NCAA annual appearances in the near future.
Condolences to the Borek family over the loss of their son Gordon this weekend.
You make a fair and somewhat relevant point but it is not apples to apples. We have been better in the long run and equivalent or better for all but the past 3-4years compared to all of these schools. Vermont was in Frozen Four and was very good for a few years. Merrimack was very good for a 3-4 year period as well. None of those schools win recruiting battles with the top schools either. Please find me more than 3 kids that the top schools wanted over the past 10 years that went to the above schools. Providence definitely used their admission department to find a way to get marginal student-athlete hockey players into school. Union's championship was Leaman's recruits and I do not want to belittle the Providence coach in any way. Lowell has found some older kids who were not top students and built a very good program based on an aggressive trapping system and relying on referees not calling everything as they would be in the box for 50 minutes per game. UNH might be better if they followed Lowell and Providence's training regimen. They have another gear that UNH does not seem to have. We are 500 or above against Lehman and dreadful against Bazin but better over the past couple of years. Quinnipac has been very good over the past few years and I congratulate Coach Pecknold. He has a lot of work to do if he wants to be compared to UMILE as they all do.
I guess what I am saying is that none of these schools get many bona fide stars as it is the right players for your program that makes the difference. The top schools have all of the draft picks and players that every other program wants. They would all have life a little easier if they had the caliber of players that BC/BU/Denver/Michigan/Notre Dame/North Dakota/Miami/??? have every year. The saving grace is most of the above schools and UNH have a large majority of players staying all four years. Please tell me how many UNH kids in the glory years were heavily recruited by top schools (that would include Maine). I would gladly beg President Huddleston to give you all the keys to the hockey franchise if you really had reasonable solutions to our on ice problems.
Please give Mike Souza a chance as he is a great recruiter and coach. We are about to embark on a new era of NCAA annual appearances in the near future.
Condolences to the Borek family over the loss of their son Gordon this weekend.
