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Union College: 2021-2022
- Thread starter Dutchman
- Start date
With only 4 more games in the regular season, it's going to be easy for us to slip into the bottom 4 and be on the road for the first round which is where I expected us to be at the beginning of the season. This past weekend, being at home, we really missed an opportunity. 2 wins would have put us just behind Cornell for a top 4 slot possibility. During the course of the hockey season, some teams develop faster than others. We started the year with an experienced D and a solid goalie but a big development challenge. Next year we will be graduating that experience D. In the future? A bottom half ECAC team, winning some but losing most.
ecachawkeyfan
New member
WTEN did a long story on Bennett's tenure at Union: https://www.news10.com/news/examining-rick-bennetts-tenure-and-impact-at-union/
While some players praise him, others (like Liam Morgan) had disparaging things to say. An anonymous player also detailed a disturbing incident that Bennett didn't remember.
While some players praise him, others (like Liam Morgan) had disparaging things to say. An anonymous player also detailed a disturbing incident that Bennett didn't remember.
Thanks for forwarding it. Not clear she knows anything about Hockey or what it takes to produce a winner for a DIII school in a DI league. It's not Rick Bennett that changed, but the administration. Time to drop back to DIII and focus on being woke.
Examining Rick Bennett’s tenure and impact at Union
by: Liana Bonavita
ABC News 10
That is absolutely not correct. Bennett needed to change. There's a reason that Union fell off a cliff after 2019, and it didn't look like it was going to get any better. I'm not saying his coaching was the problem, maybe scholarships were the problem, but something needed to change because Union is not a good ECAC team right now. And I don't think they will be until they improve their recruiting
Recruiting is very important, all other things being equal. Recruiting at Union is hard because Union has little to offer DI prospects. Union hockey coaches have always needed to develop DI talent. If recruited talent were the only determinant for success, Harvard would be a "Frozen Four" team every year as they consistently recruit a large number of NFL draft picks. Union has always struggled with nurturing and developing a DI athletic program in an otherwise DIII school. This was true with Ned Harkness and is still true today. Even in 2013 / 2014, this was an issue. The school's governance model gives more weight to academic control of athletics than administrative control. Unlike schools that exhibit both outstanding academics and athletics (Stanford, Notre Dame, etc.) the school cannot seem to balance both. In the past governing boards had a healthy representation of former Union Athletes. That is no longer the case.
I had picked my Dutchmen to be a bottom 4 ECAC team this year but it looked like Bennett had some success in developing them and they were on their way to a possible top 4 finish, also in part because of how weak the league is.
The school does not see how much the program has benefited and strengthened all aspects of the school's well-being.
If Union stays a bottom 4 team, local paying Schenectady fans will not return. The program will lose money and the pressure will grow to end the DI hockey program. Union's faculty will be incensed that the school is investing money in a losing athletic program when they could be investing in their courses around gender studies. End of story. Union will once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as it has throughout its history.
sk8tronthepond
Registered User
Sezenack, as an RPI student, what makes you an expert on coaching/recruiting?? You are contradicting yourself in your statement. You say Bennett needed to change, yet you say you're not saying his coaching was the problem. It's not like your Engineers are knocking it out of the park. Have you solved their problems too?
I lived in Schenectady many years ago (Slapshot bar era…) and always enjoyed watching Union hockey. I hope that the addition of scholarships levels the playing field and brings Union back to the top. (It is amazing they were able to compete without, IMHO) There are many legacy non-Div 1 schools playing Div 1 hockey and Union should be able to recruit with the best, going forward.
I was unaware that you had to be an expert on coaching/recruiting to post on a fan forum, my bad!
He needed to change his recruiting that's for sure; don't think his coaching was the problem. Like I said though, maybe that wasn't his fault and the lack of scholarships had a big impact. That we'll never know for sure.
RPI finished 4th 2 years ago and are trending towards 6th this year. Obviously not knocking it out of the park but still a top half ECAC team.
Not sure why you felt the need to reply to this and be rude and condescending for no reason
sk8tronthepond
Registered User
Interesting analysis of what I stated. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. Maybe I should resign from this message board.
Thomas Kaine
New member
Dutchman, your grudge against Union and its “woke” president cloud your judgment. The current board of trustees has plenty of “athlete representation,” and is chaired by a former Union athlete for whom the football stadium is named. It’s the current board and president who finally sought and won scholarships for the hockey program, something neither Hull nor Ainley was ever willing to do. Stanford and Norte Dame are absurd peer comparisons with endowments 40-80 times the size of Union, vastly larger student bodies, and elite national profiles. (Middlebury and Williams are much better examples of small LACs balancing athletic and academic success, but I expect they are both far too woke for your taste.) The faculty endured 20 years of truly abysmal hockey before Leaman finally had success. And Bennet did not have Union “on their way” to a top four finish. Union was 6-12-2 when he was put on leave; Ronan has been 5-5-2 since.
But sure, “gender studies” is wrecking the program.
Thomas: I do not have a grudge against Union and neither do two of my classmates whose combined annual giving, I was told, was in excess of $50,000 a year and was halted because of the current administration and its focus on pronouns and finger painting. Your comparison to Middlebury and Williams makes my point. Yes, they can handle both athletics and academics in harmony because they are D-III schools in all sports and all liberal arts. Neither have engineering. Clarkson is a better example. I don't have a grudge against Union. I love the school, always have, and always will. Its governance model seems to prevent sustainable excellence in any area of any academic or athletic endeavor. By the way, how many students that are accepted at both Middlebury and or Williams and Union end up coming to Union?
At the Innovation + Disruption Symposium in Higher Education in 2017, Harvard Business School Professor Christensen specifically predicted that “50 percent of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. will be bankrupt in 10 to 15 years.” Christensen was not alone in thinking that online educational resources will cause traditional colleges and universities to close. The U.S. Department of Education and Moody’s Investors Service project that in the coming years, closure rates of small colleges and universities will triple, and mergers will double. Christensen says and HBS research showed that there is one thing that online education will not be able to replace. In his research, he found that most of the successful alumni who gave generous donations to their alma maters did so because a specific professor or coach inspired them. Among all of these donors, “Their connection wasn’t their discipline, it wasn’t even the college,” says Christensen. “It was an individual member of the faculty who had changed their lives.” “Maybe the most important thing that we add value to our students is the ability to change their lives,” he explained. “It’s not clear that that can be disrupted.” Do we have an administration that understands forces that are shaping higher education and how Union can prosper going forward or do we have an administration whose focus is on gender identity, pronouns, binary something or other, etc. Middlebury with excellence in foreign languages, Williams with its incredibly loyal alumni, (the most loyal alumni of any college in the country), and Clarkson, with its graduate engineering programs, will all survive. Will Union? I hope so.
Thomas Kaine
New member
Trust me, I envy the loyalty of Williams alumni. Too many Union alumni, like your classmates, are loyal only to a vision of what they think college should be, and not what it is. (And many were loyal to their fraternity and not the college, and have boycotted giving for decades after their fraternities lost their houses.)
Again, my point is that Union’s challenge is not its wokeness. It’s challenges are its location in one of the worst cities in the northeast, it’s attempt to hold on to a engineering program that renders makes little sense cobbled on to a LAC, and a poor alumni giving base. And with all due respect to Clarkson, a 78% acceptance rate and $150 million endowment is not exactly a role model for Union.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm posting because I noticed your reference to Harvard and as an alum, I thought I might lend some perspective. I'm sure this was a typo, but it would be hard to imagine us getting to the Frozen Four consistently with NFL draft picks.
Since the '89 championship squad, Harvard has been to exactly two Frozen Fours. 1994 and 2017. There was a period of time in the late nineties where we were bottom feeders. Recruiting had fallen off and Ronn Tommasoni, an RPI alum by the way, lost the locker room and eventually departed. Mark Mazzoleni came in and his best moves were to hire Ron Rolston and Nate Leaman. Mazz alienated the alumni, and he was soon replaced by Ted Donato, our current coach. Through it all, the program has been up and down and looked like it was headed to an abyss when Paul Pearl was hired to help Ted bolster in game coaching. It worked and we've been on the upswing ever since.
We don't offer scholarships and the hockey program has taken a back seat to the basketball program since Tommy Amaker was hired as head coach. People think that just because we're Harvard, we naturally recruit and attract the best of the best. Not true. Very often, our best athletes find out about the program and the school through trips with their AAU or U-15 programs. Do we have legacies? Of course, but you can say that about any school in the country. In speaking with parents at games over the years, the comment I hear most often is that their sons or daughters were unsure if they had the academic creds to get in. And we are recruiting against BC, BU and Northeastern as well as the other Ivies. So, there's a lot of competition for blue chip talent. The pandemic cost us Matty Beniers and Alex Kuntar as well as defections from squad members who either turned pro or left for the USHL. We can't replace talent as easily as BC or BU because we don't run our athletic programs as a one and done school. I've done academic interviewing for the admissions department, and they positively HATE athletes who act as mercenaries with pro aspirations.
From where I sit, it's not just the Union men's team that's fighting an uphill battle. The women have finished either last or near last since coming into the league as a D-1 program. No one would question Union's commitment to academics. It was great to watch you guys win the whole thing and I hope you are able to figure out a way to stay competitive. It's good for the league and the NCAA.
Princeton is 2-8 in their last 10 including 6 straight losses. However, they do pretty well on the road (relatively) 5-9. They give up a lot of goals. The first period is usually their best. We beat them twice in the regular season. I don't see any of the top 4 ECAC teams not making it to Lake Placid. If we get past Princeton we would most likely face Clarkson.
Scouting Report Clarkson:
On January 15 Clarkson defeated us 8-2. Since then they are:
9W - 2L - 2T
7W - 2L - 1T in their last 10.
Clarkson is 12-2-2 Home
Clarkson is 2-2-4 away
Strong Penalty Kill but Weak in coming from behind and late scoring, only 1-6-3 when trailing after 2
Strongest period - 1
In NCAA
Clarkson 10th in team offense (3.32) - Union 45th (2.40)
Clarkson 9th in team defense (2.21) - Union 37th (2.40)
Clarkson 16th in pairwise
Union 45 in pairwise
Clarkson should take it in two. If we could force a third game that would be great.
On January 15 Clarkson defeated us 8-2. Since then they are:
9W - 2L - 2T
7W - 2L - 1T in their last 10.
Clarkson is 12-2-2 Home
Clarkson is 2-2-4 away
Strong Penalty Kill but Weak in coming from behind and late scoring, only 1-6-3 when trailing after 2
Strongest period - 1
In NCAA
Clarkson 10th in team offense (3.32) - Union 45th (2.40)
Clarkson 9th in team defense (2.21) - Union 37th (2.40)
Clarkson 16th in pairwise
Union 45 in pairwise
Clarkson should take it in two. If we could force a third game that would be great.
sk8tronthepond
Registered User
Estes, Sidorski, and Nieto have entered the transfer portal.
FLHockeyMom
New member
And Gleb Murtazin.