Future Gopher Coach Discussion

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upnorthkid said:
MN, Mich, MSU, WI, UND, DU, CC, UMD
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This conference would be FUCKING INSANE but just doesn't seem realistic and you need some bottom feeders.

A super conference is more likely, where you have divisions and can recreate the WCHA more or less in the Western Division. But the leadership doesn't want to do what's best for college hockey which we see every year the regionals stay away from campuses.
 

bonin21 said:
No one said they were the kings of hockey. Just fire Motzko and St Thomas will be behind us like they should be after Barr cleans up the trash Motzko leaves behind.

3. UND
10. UMD
12. UST
15. uw
16. MNSU
17. Augustana
20. SCSU
.
.
38. Minnesota
50. BSU
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Have not seen the 09-Feb-2026 poll yet. As of the second, St. Thomas was 15th (CCHA). Would any team in that league be ahead of Notre Dame?

Personally, I am somewhat neutral. I could see arguments being made to keep Motzko for one more season, but I'd be more than fine with the program going in another direction. That is assuming the program wouldn't go the cheapskate route.
 

bonin21 said:
I included ASU because:
1. It makes the conference a "round" number
2. There will be a lot of NHL talent flowing through
3. It's an away trip destination. Remember when that was a thing???

Also did that as a favor to keep Augustana.

"Rivalries come from playing a lot and the games meaning something."

Not totally true. Rivalries for the UMN come from:
- Seeing guys you watched locally get "stolen" by other teams and come to Mariucci
- Going to away games (preferably a few hour road trip) to soak in the Gopher hate
- Those teams having good turnouts at Mariucci
- Talking trash at work with co-workers that went to the other schools in the conference

All this died instantly with the Big Ten and it's never been CLOSE to the same. The cherry on top is regional conferences can have something like the Final Five.

To manage a 12 team conference you just need to get creative with divisions or something. It's not that hard.
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on part 1, yeah I go to games away every year. I don't really have a desire to go to ASU any more than I would MSU.
On part 2, I can't say I really agree. Augie, UST, and Kato aren't stealing anyone from us. We're missing on guys who develop and become good as they grow. That's some of the fun with UMD (and why i pick there for my roadtrip when we're there, plus duluth in October is always good) is the iron range dislike of the Gophers (even though I wish we would figure out recruiting there makes a hell of a lot of sense). UND steals some, but it's more legacy and because they're also a blue blood who make for a good school selection. Ditto on DU. On the crowds, we played UMD and it was pretty sparsely attended. It's why the games have to matter and you have to play a lot. Ditto on us playing UND now which just means we see a bunch of green pukes in the stands because hockey is all their fan base has (for better or worse). Can't say I've ever really talked to a UST fan who's brought up hockey nor do I have any desire to start that convo. even the UND chatter has faded a lot, which is sad.

bonin21 said:
This conference would be FUCKING INSANE but just doesn't seem realistic and you need some bottom feeders.

A super conference is more likely, where you have divisions and can recreate the WCHA more or less in the Western Division. But the leadership doesn't want to do what's best for college hockey which we see every year the regionals stay away from campuses.
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Obviously these are all hypothetical and not realistic, but really the only way you could do any of these is to try keep the B10 together and then make "hockey only" conf members in truth. You can't say that last part, you're going to make Wodon show up and say some stupid shit no real fan of college hockey agrees with.


Regardless of how you do it, yeah agreed the B10 killed something in college hockey through how they had things written forcing the teams to join together. I still couldn't care less about ND hockey and would way rather have picked multiple other teams to be our hockey only members over ND
 

STPGopher said:
Have not seen the 09-Feb-2026 poll yet. As of the second, St. Thomas was 15th (CCHA). Would any team in that league be ahead of Notre Dame?
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The parity in college hockey is as high as it's ever been. Probably four teams in that conference would be ahead of the brutal Notre Dame team this year if they were in the Big Ten.

That's mostly because this Notre Dame team is one of the worst in conference history.
 

bonin21 said:
P.S. The above 9 + DU/CC/ASU would bring back the magic in college hockey overnight.
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Meh. DU / CC / ASU and their bandwagon fans can pound sand. Perhaps they can form a league with Air Force, and whoever else would be willing to make those trips. Besides, CO and AZ are producing next to nothing in terms of hockey talent.

Form a true, regional league with:
Minnesota
St. Thomas
St. Cloud State
Minnesota State
Duluth
Bemidji
Augustana
Wisconsin
North Dakota
Omaha

Maybe (for recruiting purposes):
Michigan Tech
Northern Michigan
 


UofMAlum said:
Meh. DU / CC / ASU and their bandwagon fans can pound sand. Perhaps they can form a league with Air Force, and whoever else would be willing to make those trips. Besides, CO and AZ are producing next to nothing in terms of hockey talent.

Form a true, regional league with:
Minnesota
St. Thomas
St. Cloud State
Minnesota State
Duluth
Bemidji
Augustana
Wisconsin
North Dakota
Omaha

Maybe (for recruiting purposes):
Michigan Tech
Northern Michigan
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Have you ever done an away trip to Colorado for a Gopher series? You want that option in your conference over away trips to ND, MSU, UM, PSU, OSU...
 
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bonin21 said:
Have you ever done an away trip to Colorado for a Gopher series? You want that option in your conference over away trips to ND, MSU, UMN, PSU, OSU...
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agreed with this 1000%. Though I do like East Lansing/Ann Arbor trips (and is part of why i'm pumped we play MTU next year to go up to the UP).

Happy Valley sucks to get to, but the rink is fun. OSU is a graveyard made of concrete though the town is fun for a good-sized college town.

South Bend, no desire to return whatsoever
 

Pressure Mounting on Bob Motzko After Gophers' Sixth Sweep of the Season​

Gophers hockey is in the middle of its worst stretch under Motzko.

Gophers men's hockey has failed to overcome its early-season struggles after getting swept for the sixth time last weekend against unranked Ohio State. They're guaranteed to finish the regular season under .500, and it will go down as one of the worst seasons in program history. So what does that mean for eighth-year head coach Bob Motzko?

www.si.com

Pressure Mounting on Bob Motzko After Gophers' Sixth Sweep of the Season

Gophers hockey is in the middle of its worst stretch under Motzko.
www.si.com www.si.com
 




bonin21 said:
Worst season in 50+ years... Let's not call it a stretch and let's not limit it to his tenure.
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Well, I didn't write the article but you certainly could call the author and register an official complaint.

All things are pointing towards the Gophers having a new coach next season which most of us believe is necessary.
 

This could end up being a historic season for the Gophers for all the wrong reasons. Most loses by a Gopher team in a single season is 24. They are within striking distance of setting a new record for loses this year. That should help put the season into context for those on the fence and for those that think keeping Bob is a good idea.
 

Go4Puck said:
This could end up being a historic season for the Gophers for all the wrong reasons. Most loses by a Gopher team in a single season is 24. They are within striking distance of setting a new record for loses this year. That should help put the season into context for those on the fence and for those that think keeping Bob is a good idea.
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well Herb did lose 22 after winning 2 Nattys in three years. And 2 years later we won another one.

He should be fired if you think he can't/won't shuffle guys out and replace them to make this team better. The bigger issue is that they've looked like complete ass and put together that absolute shit show last Friday which raises the question of if they're getting any better at all (some guys are and some guys are not showing much).

I can handle losing if they develop to build to something next year. Last weekend gives some major pause on multiple of these guys not being "in" on developing or that they just don't have it (some guys definitely fall into this category).
 




bonin21 said:
And Motzko has won ZERO. You earn the right to have bad seasons.
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bad seasons are bad seasons are bad seasons. Doesn't matter to me if you've won a title or not. Either you have the ability to develop a title contender or not in the era you're doing it in. Same reason we should've let Don go earlier and instead he got to coast off the 2 titles for way too long.

That's why I said, you fire him for lack of development, not liking where the roster is going, if you think he's lost base with where the game is heading, not picking some arbitrary win/loss ratio. think we've all discussed this many times, but obviously this all depends on what Bob says in your end of season interview on how he's going to approach roster construction for next year. If he's doubling down on this group and not going to get after it in the portal and consider pushing the CHL envelope, then yeah he's gone.

Listening to his recent interviews, he seems to have been foolishly loyal and overly optimistic to some of the guys from last year. Chesley signed a few days into the portal being open (as an ATO rather than burning a year, which was more than a little strange) and Kurth was day of. Don't know if that's who he keeps mentioning as "being surprised" but that's also how he approached Faber in letting him think about it then come to him. He absolutely needs to change his best. If he's inflexible, Barr and Raboin need to be here interviewing the instant their season's end, whenever that is and you should be talking to the agents of anyone else you're interested in (I have 0% optimism in Coyle to do this given the recent MBB buyout but I guess we'll see)
 

upnorthkid said:
bad seasons are bad seasons are bad seasons. Doesn't matter to me if you've won a title or not. Either you have the ability to develop a title contender or not in the era you're doing it in. Same reason we should've let Don go earlier and instead he got to coast off the 2 titles for way too long.

That's why I said, you fire him for lack of development, not liking where the roster is going, if you think he's lost base with where the game is heading, not picking some arbitrary win/loss ratio. think we've all discussed this many times, but obviously this all depends on what Bob says in your end of season interview on how he's going to approach roster construction for next year. If he's doubling down on this group and not going to get after it in the portal and consider pushing the CHL envelope, then yeah he's gone.
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you fire him for lack of development: YES
not liking where the roster is going: YES
if you think he's lost base with where the game is heading: YES
Talented teams not putting in effort for him, like last year's team the last few months: YES

It's over and should have been over last spring.
 

upnorthkid said:
well Herb did lose 22 after winning 2 Nattys in three years. And 2 years later we won another one.

He should be fired if you think he can't/won't shuffle guys out and replace them to make this team better. The bigger issue is that they've looked like complete ass and put together that absolute shit show last Friday which raises the question of if they're getting any better at all (some guys are and some guys are not showing much).

I can handle losing if they develop to build to something next year. Last weekend gives some major pause on multiple of these guys not being "in" on developing or that they just don't have it (some guys definitely fall into this category).
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I hope you’re not seriously comparing Bob to Herb. Nope, at this point it does not matter what Bob says he will do. The second half of last season and this entire season has been a train wreck, and like it or not wins and loses is how you actually measure success in sports. Wins and Loses aren’t arbitrary or subjective, “development” certainly is.
 
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bonin21 said:
you fire him for lack of development: YES
not liking where the roster is going: YES
if you think he's lost base with where the game is heading: YES
Talented teams not putting in effort for him, like last year's team the last few months: YES

It's over and should have been over last spring.
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yeah, and this is an overall reasonable stance (I disagree on the "effort" concept, as it's the most common thing people randomly bring up about teams when they lose, despite it being almost entirely based on winning/losing). that's why i'm not arguing with you for your feeling as those are what matters going forward

Perfectly good with it being over for Bob. Perfectly good with him coming back if he will gut the roster because we have seen him build good teams at multiple stops and he, down the road, has good kids in the pipeline (Harper, W Cullen, hopefully J Cullen, Conboy and I do like how Kvasnicka has looked). Not good with him coming back if we're just bringing in the 4-5 freshmen guys (and him bringing in more guys who do not look Gopher caliber at this point in their careers) and thinking this will look markedly different.
 

Go4Puck said:
I hope you’re not seriously comparing Bob to Herb. Nope, at this point it does not matter what Bob says he will do. The second half of last season and this entire season has been a train wreck, and like it or not wins and loses is how you actually measure success in sports. Wins and Loses aren’t arbitrary or subjective, “development” certainly is.
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I'm saying if the team looks the exact same and they were to somehow win the last 6 would not change my opinion. if the team competes their ass off, plays good/smart hockey, and shows they're improving but loses the last 6, i would feel better about the direction they're heading. The same as I wouldn't let him off the hook if they somehow won 3 games in the BTT and made the NCAAs.

This season will be the worst in 30+ years regardless of how the next 6+ go from the quality of play we've seen. I judge more on how the team plays/grows than what the result looks like when you're in a developmental year and this is why last weekend may have been up there as one of the more "fireable" weekends as the team came off arguably its best weekend and looked like complete and utter shit

If you want to be more pissed off, go look at the advanced stats on this team. By Corsi and Fenwick (as well as xG) this team should be about 6-22. I don't need extra losses to tell me that
 
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upnorthkid said:
If you want to be more pissed off, go look at the advanced stats on this team. By Corsi and Fenwick (as well as xG) this team should be about 6-22. I don't need extra losses to tell me that
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It’s not about being pissed off. It’s about should Bob be back behind the bench next year. The consistent downward spiral since December of last year says absolutely not. I see nothing over that time period that’s says he should be back. Hope that he can turn it around is not a strategy I am willing to get behind at this point.

The hope was that the second half of last year was an anomaly and not indicative of things to come. I didn’t think he should be fired last spring, I do now.
 
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Go4Puck said:
It’s not about being pissed off. It’s about should Bob be back behind the bench next year. The consistent downward spiral since December of last year says absolutely not. I see nothing over that time period that’s says he should be back. Hope that he can turn it around is not a strategy I am willing to get behind at this point.

The hope was that the second half of last year was an anomaly and not indicative of things to come. I didn’t think he should be fired last spring, I do now.
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seems reasonable as a viewpoint.

More just mentioning the advanced stats as the quality of play is even worse than the W/L record, which is also terrible.
 

I mean ya the advanced stats of my eyeballs show this team absolutely blows at hockey.
 

Coyle has done a pretty good job and has admitted he keeps a list of contacts for his coaching changes. I would bet he has made some contacts already if he has any inkling of making a change. For all we know Bob may have already told him he’s done at the end of the year.
 


bonin21 said:
The tea leaves point heavily to this
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you are more optimistic than I, but this would be my ideal scenario particularly if it seems he has some input/say on the next guy (not saying he really needs to, just the perception) and has told the high-profile guys he's recruited of this prior to their committing so they stay committed but still allows the new person to weed out the roster of guys they don't see fitting

I put zero stock in his selling his house. What he's said behind the scenes may endorse this, but he's also given no indication of it during his press conferences
 

upnorthkid said:
you are more optimistic than I, but this would be my ideal scenario particularly if it seems he has some input/say on the next guy (not saying he really needs to, just the perception) and has told the high-profile guys he's recruited of this prior to their committing so they stay committed but still allows the new person to weed out the roster of guys they don't see fitting

I put zero stock in his selling his house. What he's said behind the scenes may endorse this, but he's also given no indication of it during his press conferences
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He shouldn't have input on the next guy with the state he's leaving the program.
 

bonin21 said:
He shouldn't have input on the next guy with the state he's leaving the program.
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you don't make it look like you think he is a bad coach when the guy has been to multiple Frozen Fours and just coached the last WJC and has had one bad (terrible) season. It's a bad look for who you hire in the future as well (why would Barr/Raboin want to come here if you throw up multiple FF years and then have a losing season, you might get fired?).

You let him have the Lucia move of he's stepping down, you valued his input and the years you had, and you say all those right things for the purposes of future recruiting. Perception is reality. No, he doesn't actually need to decide who the next coach is or have any input for that matter. That said, the guy can still coach, he knows many coaches, etc.

I'd take his input (in addition to a bunch of others) over the bunch of bobos who will say stupid shit like we should hire Carle or Nightengale like that has any reality or trust Coyle who has zero experience with hockey other than his time here and even then has not seemed actively invested.
 


bonin21 said:
$$$
Easier access to MN HS recruiting
$$$
And
$$$
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I don't think Ben Barr gives a shit about MN recruiting at Maine lol. You'd be hoping you're selling him on "better chance to win a Natty and leave a legacy"

And money only goes so far if you have the security to keep getting it, hence my point. And I'd sure love it if we could pay Barr 600k (would be pretty surprised if you get him in the door for less than this) and give him 250k for NIL/recruiting purposes via revenue sharing instead of salary to entice him its worth it. Particularly when you are running an athletic dept operating just barely in the black. He already makes about 450-500k at Maine which is one of the higher paid guys outside the B10.
 

bonin21 said:
you fire him for lack of development: YES
not liking where the roster is going: YES
if you think he's lost base with where the game is heading: YES
Talented teams not putting in effort for him, like last year's team the last few months: YES

It's over and should have been over last spring.
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Bonin21 has wanted Bob fired since the Tampa Frozen Four--Yes
Bonin21 has openly rooted for the Gophers to lose games this year--Yes
Bonin21 is really not a true fan-- Yes
Bonin21 nickname at GPL was Eeyore -- Yes
Bonin21 was banned from GPL--Yes
Bonin21 stays up late at night trying to find something to bash Bob about-- Yes
 

upnorthkid said:
I don't think Ben Barr gives a shit about MN recruiting at Maine lol. You'd be hoping you're selling him on "better chance to win a Natty and leave a legacy"

And money only goes so far if you have the security to keep getting it, hence my point. And I'd sure love it if we could pay Barr 600k (would be pretty surprised if you get him in the door for less than this) and give him 250k for NIL/recruiting purposes via revenue sharing instead of salary to entice him its worth it. Particularly when you are running an athletic dept operating just barely in the black. He already makes about 450-500k at Maine which is one of the higher paid guys outside the B10.
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I mostly meant "easy access to MN HS" but changed it to "easier" because it's not as easy as it used to be for the U.

And sorry but you'd be an idiot to take a salary cut in exchange for a recruiting allowance. If the program doesn't give him the resources he needs to win (which they probably won't), that's not on him.
 

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