Re: UNO '13-'14 Season Thread: Barnstorming Through a New League and Raising a New Ba
let his contract run out. when it does I fully expect dean to be gone. If his contract was going to be renewed it would have been already. There are plenty of coaches really good ones who have played in our barn and know what we're about and many of them will be chomping at the bit to apply. I want to move outside of Omaha and if I do I won't buy season tickets until he is gone. I wonder what George is up to.
Don't forget that Trev's runs out at the beginning of next season as well. He has gone from being very much in evidence to being non-existent. I saw him at a game once this entire season. Previously, I've saw him at practically every game. He was introduced during the fete of the UNO track athletes between periods the other night except for one thing---he was nowhere to be found--he was a no-show even though he was introduced as being on the ice.
When have you EVER seen a university undergo/begin/announce a major facility expansion/upgrade/addition in your life that wasn't done with major fanfare? UNO had no groundbreaking ceremony of any kind for the new arena, despite Coach Blais assertion during a USCHO Live interview in November where he said there'd be one in December. Tom Shatel of the Omaha World Herald told me in an email in
late December that the paper had heard squat, at that time, about any plans to have one, either.
Trev Alberts, for all intents and purposes, seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth, to the extent that I find myself wondering if he has some sort of health issue we don't know about.
As far as Coach Blais, despite a lot of what I call "public consumption" things that he says, it has always struck me to this day how he doesn't use phrases like "we" or "our team" or "us" and
continually refers to us in the third person when he talks about the program, referring to us that way as "Omaha", for example, like he has never really taken possession of the reins here. "Omaha this" or "Omaha that". Very, very odd. He reminds me of girl I used to know that every time you spoke to her at a gathering, a party, or even on the phone, she always yawned a lot and gave you the impression that she always had something better she could be doing. That is a lot of the vibe I get from Coach Blais.
Throw in the almost non-existence of any promotion of the hockey program, supposedly the school's signature sport and cash cow (and the amount done has gone downhill with each year of Trev Alberts tenure) and I find myself wondering what in the hell is going on down there. By the way, could the gameday experience at the Clink possibly have gotten any worse than it is? Notice that sponsorship of the silly on-ice stuff between periods has fallen off drastically and things they used to have, or, do disappeared? "What's in the box?", "Where's Taco Girl?", etc.? I mean, basically, they turn on the lights, play the game, and everyone goes home and for the past 4 years, less and less has been happening in that time frame. Organist disappeared, Jawa disappeared, band's disappeared, I mean, has anybody noticed all these things?
I don't know what is going on down at the UNO Athletic Department but I sure don't like what I am seeing. At all.
The only thing I can surmise is that they are broke to the point of not being able to do any more than this and it's my hope that we see an improvement once in the new arena. That said, I fully expect UNO to be treated like the lame duck they are next season by MECA in what will be their last season in the Clink. THAT started this season, from all appearances.
