Future Gopher Coach Discussion

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Go4Puck said:
It’s about winning titles. I don’t care where the kids come from. If your worried about how many kids are from Minnesota your not doing everything you can to win a title.
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Having a roster made up of all Minnesota talent adds to the romanticism of the team but I'll gladly accept winning Titles with kids from Saskatoon.
 

Exactly but then if you don't win you've just got a team of kids from Saskatoon and the magic of Gopher hockey isn't there. Might as well be Mankato at that point.

If UND, uw, UMD, BC, or BU wins a title before the Gophers this program is quickly becoming an also ran.

I'm actually okay with UM or MSU winning one because, whatever. DU already has 10.
 


FF appearances since expansion to 16 teams:
BC: 9
UND: 8
DU: 8
UM: 7
UMN: 6
UMD: 6 (brutal to be at major risk to fall behind this year)
BU: 5
uw: 2
MSU: 1
 

bonin21 said:
Exactly but then if you don't win you've just got a team of kids from Saskatoon and the magic of Gopher hockey isn't there. Might as well be Mankato at that point.
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So you would feel better about not winning a title as long as it’s MN kids not winning the title. Odd consolation…
 


Go4Puck said:
So you would feel better about not winning a title as long as it’s MN kids not winning the title. Odd consolation…
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Yes, given the same result, I enjoy all MN more. And yes, that's a consolation that differentiates liking Gopher hockey from liking the Wild.

If there were zero Minnesotans on the team I would not really be as passionate about Gopher hockey until they win a title.
 

Go4Puck said:
It’s about winning titles. I don’t care where the kids come from. If your worried about how many kids are from Minnesota your not doing everything you can to win a title.
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I concur, and it's why I couldn't stand Doug Woog. He cared more about having an all-Minnesota roster than winning a national championship. That's a loser mentality.
 


I have a bad feeling Bob is not going anywhere… reporters saying he seems oddly calm about this whole situation, sightings of him out scouting plenty of games. Starting to fear this program is gonna really get way behind in the new era with him.

Unless Bob changes a lot of his philosophy at age 65 we’re going nowhere right now. And I think he’s too buddy buddy with Mark Coyle and the powers that be for him to be fired before he wants to. I hope I’m incredibly wrong and eat crow about any of these statements
 




disco said:
I concur, and it's why I couldn't stand Doug Woog. He cared more about having an all-Minnesota roster than winning a national championship. That's a loser mentality.
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We aren't losing right now because of our unwillingness to recruit non Minnesotans. Our roster management has simply sucked. Bob is willing to recruit out of state. He probably could have been more aggressive with the Canadian recruiting this year. But i dont think thats due to some sort of loyalty to MN kids. Think he would happily take the best players. I want it all though... a title won with far majority of MN kids. And its absolutely 100 percent possible to do that.
 

cheeseburgerphil26 said:
I have a bad feeling Bob is not going anywhere… reporters saying he seems oddly calm about this whole situation, sightings of him out scouting plenty of games. Starting to fear this program is gonna really get way behind in the new era with him.

Unless Bob changes a lot of his philosophy at age 65 we’re going nowhere right now. And I think he’s too buddy buddy with Mark Coyle and the powers that be for him to be fired before he wants to. I hope I’m incredibly wrong and eat crow about any of these statements
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I’m not seeing anything that says otherwise unfortunately.
 

Crosby said:
We aren't losing right now because of our unwillingness to recruit non Minnesotans. Our roster management has simply sucked. Bob is willing to recruit out of state. He probably could have been more aggressive with the Canadian recruiting this year. But i dont think thats due to some sort of loyalty to MN kids. Think he would happily take the best players. I want it all though... a title won with far majority of MN kids. And its absolutely 100 percent possible to do that.
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Try to have at least 20 Minnesotans on the roster. And ideally, the non-Minnesotans are high impact players. NOT McLaughlins that you bring in because you can't fill out a roster.
 



bonin21 said:
Try to have at least 20 Minnesotans on the roster. And ideally, the non-Minnesotans are high impact players. NOT McLaughlins that you bring in because you can't fill out a roster.
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Quotas are counter productive. They may make you feel better but they are counter productive to pursuing the absolute best. The mission needs to be the best regardless of residency.
 

bonin21 said:
Try to have at least 20 Minnesotans on the roster. And ideally, the non-Minnesotans are high impact players. NOT McLaughlins that you bring in because you can't fill out a roster.
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All in all, could it be the U of Mn’s and therefore the athletic department’s lack of support for the men’s hockey program?
 

Lady Gopher said:
All in all, could it be the U of Mn’s and therefore the athletic department’s lack of support for the men’s hockey program?
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loaded question you're going to get very varying answers on based on how individuals perceive hockey at the U.

In my opinion, as someone who views hockey as what should be the obvious gem of a MN program, given innate recruiting advantage and history, they have taken for granted their standing in the state as well as taken for granted the fan base. They, somewhat understandably, have placed focus on FB (for the money) and MBB (also for the money) and viewed hockey as one that they will always have, ignoring that you've seen a huge groundswell in funding at other institutions with huge dollar donors (PSU) or endowments (Mich, Mich St) who comparatively are super comfortable spending on sports. Add to it that as a University, we do a poorer job relative to our peers in fundraising (I'm talking at the B10/national level, not in hockey specifically) and you're leaving your premier program with lesser assets when you could very easily shift that pie in the direction of hockey and field teams like Michigan and MSU do (oddly enough if you have enough cash and recruiting profile, you will land players like Spence, Martone, Hage, etc.).
Further throw in some provincialism historically in recruiting near only Minnesotans, and your downturn this year is that the MN classes for multiple years have been quite poor and you don't have the dollars (and coach willingness) to buffer it with high tier non-Minnesotans in big enough numbers and you get a year like this.
this is such a loaded topic that you're going to find people who live and die by Gopher hockey who will be extremely frustrated by not going in harder on it. You'll see others who are happy WBB is having some success, that we're letting PJ Fleck have lots of money to be middle of the pack, and that we're giving Niko Medved a good helping of support. but until you get someone with more charisma to charm MN donors to actually invest in athletics like our peers, to me you need to not ignore your one sport the step up (and ROI) is probably simplest and that's hockey. Part of why I'm real fine if Mr. Coyle heads on out. It's great to keep a balanced budget, but TV revenues are only going up and you need to position yourself aggressively to be in that upper tier (and oddly enough, that's what gets you donors going forward is success)

tl,dr; they need to invest more, but this year is a culmination of that aspect, historically declining to recruit outside MN in large numbers/have those relationships, having comparatively poor institutional booster support, and a down multiple years of MN classes (metro particularly, don't get me started on our lack of 218 recruiting).
 

Lady Gopher said:
All in all, could it be the U of Mn’s and therefore the athletic department’s lack of support for the men’s hockey program?
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I’m not sure what support they aren’t getting from the U. This program has an advantage over almost every single college program in the country. Facilities, recruiting talent access, tradition and history, Big Ten exposure, fan support, revenue, location…very few programs, if any others, have all of these advantages. Some will emphatically claim they lack NIL $, which may or may not be true, but unless you believe Quinnipiac, Western Michigan, Providence, Cornell, Duluth, and St Thomas all have deeper NIL pockets, that just becomes an excuse.
 
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Go4Puck said:
I’m not sure what support they aren’t getting from the U. This program has an advantage over almost every single college program in the country. Facilities, recruiting talent access, tradition and history, Big Ten exposure, fan support, revenue, location…very few programs, if any others, have all of these advantages. Some will emphatically claim they lack NIL $ which may or may not be true, but unless you believe Quinnipiac, Western Michigan, Providence, Cornell, Duluth, and St Thomas all have deeper NIL pockets it becomes an excuse.
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yes you are describing the massive inherent advantage we have at this point in time, but kids are modeling their games after Hagens (to use one Cullen said recently), Cooley, Hughes, and Makar rather than Vanek, Ballard, and Martin. Your history only goes so far in today's game and there's a reason you didn't include Michigan, Michigan State, and PSU in that list.

The above list only works if you're cool with recruiting grittier, older guys and playing a style that either your coach excels in and is one of the best in the country (Pecknold, Fersch; and outside of those national titles, go look at how many Frozen Fours they've been to) or you're cool with missing the tourney every year of your existence (UST), really really frequently (Providence despite having Leaman has made 1 NCAA tourney since 19-20), or the last 3 years (UMD who was 13-20 last year), downgrading your conference (Cornell), and just deciding you're not going to try contend for the top draft picks. that's fine if you're into that, but it's going to take years to retool to that style/build and you need guys who haven't played gritty/checking hockey to graduate out and then you've gotta try play that style against teams that are full of 1st and 2nd round picks (Mich, MSU, PSU) every year who are going to have more talent than you.

They have the built in advantages right now, but like the Red Queen says, "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place". I don't want to play that style. I want us to use our advantages and death grip onto them with more investment, NIL dollars, and recruiting to keep owning a high percentage of 1st round talent across college hockey, not let the field come closer to us
 

upnorthkid said:
yes you are describing the massive inherent advantage we have at this point in time, but kids are modeling their games after Hagens (to use one Cullen said recently), Cooley, Hughes, and Makar rather than Vanek, Ballard, and Martin. Your history only goes so far in today's game and there's a reason you didn't include Michigan, Michigan State, and PSU in that list.

The above list only works if you're cool with recruiting grittier, older guys and playing a style that either your coach excels in and is one of the best in the country (Pecknold, Fersch; and outside of those national titles, go look at how many Frozen Fours they've been to) or you're cool with missing the tourney every year of your existence (UST), really really frequently (Providence despite having Leaman has made 1 NCAA tourney since 19-20), or the last 3 years (UMD who was 13-20 last year), downgrading your conference (Cornell), and just deciding you're not going to try contend for the top draft picks. that's fine if you're into that, but it's going to take years to retool to that style/build and you need guys who haven't played gritty/checking hockey to graduate out and then you've gotta try play that style against teams that are full of 1st and 2nd round picks (Mich, MSU, PSU) every year who are going to have more talent than you.

They have the built in advantages right now, but like the Red Queen says, "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place". I don't want to play that style. I want us to use our advantages and death grip onto them with more investment, NIL dollars, and recruiting to keep owning a high percentage of 1st round talent across college hockey, not let the field come closer to us
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I don’t hear those “gritty” teams whining about NIL and they don't have the other advantages we do. Whining about life while sailing around in a yacht is an ugly look.
 

Go4Puck said:
I don’t hear those “gritty” teams whining about NIL and they don't have the other advantages we do. Whining about life while sailing around in a yacht is an ugly look.
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sure. i just hear fans whining about it who want to field good teams.

Again if you're cool with having a team of guys from the BCHL, missing the tourney more, and generally being 1 and done in the postseason, have at it. Personally I like the version where we have a FF caliber team every year who is a preseason favorite to win the most talented conference in college hockey every year.

Game has changed, either change with it or you're coming back to the pack. you're going to need NIL to recruit high end talent that's becoming increasingly national and international in the college game. I prefer not just being at the mercy of how good the Twin Cities metro is every year
 

upnorthkid said:
sure. i just hear fans whining about it who want to field good teams.

Again if you're cool with having a team of guys from the BCHL, missing the tourney more, and generally being 1 and done in the postseason, have at it. Personally I like the version where we have a FF caliber team every year who is a preseason favorite to win the most talented conference in college hockey every year.

Game has changed, either change with it or you're coming back to the pack. you're going to need NIL to recruit high end talent that's becoming increasingly national and international in the college game. I prefer not just being at the mercy of how good the Twin Cities metro is every year
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I’m “cool” with winning a title regardless of how or zip codes. The fact is this program has had EVERY advantage over the last 25 years (undeniable) and has exactly 0 titles to show for it. So if it takes a bunch of older BCHL kids pounding better highly skilled players into the ice to win a title every 5 - 10 years I am all in. You can have your FF caliber teams falling short every year for 25 years and counting.
 
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Go4Puck said:
I’m “cool” with winning a title regardless of how or zip codes. The fact is this program has had EVERY advantage over the last 25 years (undeniable) and has exactly 0 titles to show for it. So if it takes a bunch of older BCHL kids pounding better highly skilled players into the ice to win a title every 5 - 10 years I am all in. You can have your FF caliber teams falling short every year for 25 years and counting.
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perfectly fine as an approach if that's what you want. plenty of ways to win it all but then you should be also fine with aspects this year that's being built around a bunch of guys at forward who will be more grinders and hit (the defense is inexcusable regardless of style) and accept that there are about 30 teams that play this style every single year and while also accepting that about half the time you're going to get dog walked all season because of the conference we play in.

They also don't each win a title every 5-10 years. If one could guarantee that by switching to this style, I think we'd all be in even if it meant getting shit kicked in the interval, but sure doesn't seem like the fan base is. Lack of title success sucks ass, but I also can appreciate some teams get the luck of closing at higher clips so that isn't everything (imo; again others are entitled to view it as its all or nothing and that's fine)
 

Just to clarify no NAHL or BCHL players should ever be on the Gophers anymore lol
 

upnorthkid said:
perfectly fine as an approach if that's what you want. plenty of ways to win it all but then you should be also fine with aspects this year that's being built around a bunch of guys at forward who will be more grinders and hit (the defense is inexcusable regardless of style) and accept that there are about 30 teams that play this style every single year and while also accepting that about half the time you're going to get dog walked all season because of the conference we play in.

They also don't each win a title every 5-10 years. If one could guarantee that by switching to this style, I think we'd all be in even if it meant getting shit kicked in the interval, but sure doesn't seem like the fan base is. Lack of title success sucks ass, but I also can appreciate some teams get the luck of closing at higher clips so that isn't everything (imo; again others are entitled to view it as its all or nothing and that's fine)
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I think if we weren’t so provincial about roster make up and so stuck on the perception of “how” we need to win, we could add older and grittier players to the roster to complement the skill. Most teams that rely on older players year in and year out do so because they don't have much of an option. We do have options and just choose not to add the other component for some reason. After 25 years I think its time to try something a bit different.
 
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Go4Puck said:
I think if we weren’t so provincial about roster make up and so stuck on the perception of “how” we need to win, we could add older and grittier players to the roster to complement the skill. Most teams that rely on older players year in and year out do so because they don't have much of an option. We do have options and just choose not to add the other component for some reason. After 25 years I think its time to try something a bit different.
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super reasonable. think very fair point and agree wish we did a better job of this as well (part of why it is so egregious bob didn't add in the portal to this team)
 

Ben Barr's team lost to Vermont tonight, who had 12 wins and are in the 50's in the NPI.
 




Sure lot will depend on what happens to Coyle if he leaves for Kentucky?
 

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