BREAKING: Coyle Hires Brett Larson as New Gophers Coach

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gophernut1 said:
I am curious:

1.) What are his relationships in Minnesota Hockey like?
2.) What is his relationship like with the Cullen family?
3.) Will he recruit well in he CHL, internationally and locally. Will

To me this hire is an interesting one. I understood bringing in Bob - he won big at SCSU. This moves seems to be driven by age, recruiting, something else. I don't know enough about the situation, but I am guessing there is more to this story then just hiring a middling coach.
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Low salary
 


Big Dawg said:
With only 60 teams in D1-haven’t won a natty in over 20 years- ranked what? In the 40’s this season, yes. I would say pretty friggn’ close to irrelevant.
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cheeseheadgophfan said:
Don't compare Minneapolis with St Cloud in terms of potential attractions for a recruit. All the major sports teams, playing in front of huge crowds, great arena, MOA, etc......

SCSU has.......Lake George??? LOL
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Red Carpet...😂 It's the Harvard of the Midwest! It's a short drive to the Cities too.
 

disco said:
Is Cedar-Riverside full of inbred white trash with Stearns County syndrome like St. Cloud is? Because that's why I avoid St. Cloud like the plague.
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You avoid rural places because of white people? Yikes.
 


PMWinSTP said:
Red Carpet
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We'd make the drive up on Fridays for the $5 "All you can drink" bar pours and tap beer from 8:00 - 12:00pm and then head over to McGrudy's at midnight for their $6 pitchers of kamikazes. Brain cells were definitely surrendered on those trips.
 

disco said:
Is Cedar-Riverside full of inbred white trash with Stearns County syndrome like St. Cloud is? Because that's why I avoid St. Cloud like the plague.
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Kind of what I think about down town Minneapolis.
 

Former Gophers captain Brock Faber on Brett Larson, who coached him at the 2022 Olympics: "I think he’s the perfect guy. He’ll be a great, great coach for the Gophers. You see, the game changes a lot. He’s a smart coach. I think he teaches the game the right way. He thinks it’s important to develop these kids the right way to give them opportunities to play in the NHL. He’s one of those guys that cares more about the people than the player. That’s what’s special about him. He’s going to do great. That’s an awesome hire for them.”

I'm having trouble with what that means...sounds admirable, I think, not sure? But, I'm very much not sure why we gotta separate the two?
Onto Coyle: If we are the state of hockey...I wouldn't think the two guys we hired get more than token interviews...let alone the job. It's like Whalen or Ben Johnson...no, you haven't proven you are a good head coach but we'll give you a chance. And because we wanna be real stupid we'll give you a 5 year contract too...just so you know we won't fire you if you lose a few games too many.
Maybe they both turn out to be great but it feels like a movie I've seen before.
 






upnorthkid said:
Counting this year, BC has been one national title in the last 10 years, guess they are irrelevant. Wisconsin not since 2010 (irrelevant). BU has been to one (also irrelevant).

Teams that have been in more than one title game in that time frame
Denver: 3 (have won them all)
UMD: 3 (2-1)
UMass: 2 (1-1)
QU: 2 (1-1)
Teams that have 1 and are pending for this year: WMU, Mankato, UND

I guess if you want to make it 11 instead of 12, BU gets to be on the list. If you make it 12, MN does too.

FFs over the last 10 years
DU 6
Michigan 4
UMD 4
BU 3
Notre Dame 2
BC 2
MN 2
QU 2
Kato 2
UMass 2
SCSU 1 (woo go Brett)
Providence 1
OSU 1
Harvard 1
UND 1
WMU 1
PSU 1

I agree its been way too long since we've won one, and in that span DU has won 5, UMD 3, BC 3 and Wisco and UND 1 which makes it feel far worse. that said, the team is far from irrelevant. Same as Texas football isn't (hasn't been to a title game since 2009).
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Stretch it out well beyond that timeframe and it looks worse. Since Herb's last championship team in 1979, we've won 2 national championships in the last 47 years (46 tournaments), sandwiching our back-to-back titles in 2002 and 2003 between a pair of 22-year droughts. In the last 46 tournaments we've appeared in the title game just 6 times, or 13%. For a supposed hockey superpower with seemingly every resource available, that’s terrible.
 
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Welcome to the madness of Big Ten recruiting
"MSU Hockey currently holds commitments from the #4, #14, #16, #33 & #35 ranked North American skater 2026 draft prospects"
 



I’m going on record that the Gophers found there guy. He’ll be up there with Lucia, or better. The Gophers are going to play tough. Larson will make this a top 4 program. Multiple frozen fours. Probably a natty. There are valid reasons for the last couple years at SCSU. Larson is tough as nails. He’s smart as hell. He connects with people. He’s genuine. He cares. Congratulations, Gopher hockey is back.
 


disco said:
1. St. Cloud isn't rural. It's a city of nearly 70k people.
2. I don't avoid white people, or black people, or purple people. I do try to avoid inbred redneck racist trash, and St. Cloud is full of those types.
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Yep, you're referring to those urban rednecks? Most people don't refer to people from urban areas by their county. That's county of a rural thing. Your description certainly implies you believe the St. Cloud area to be rural. But we can agree to disagree on where the line of is between rural and urban.

Do you think the rates of inbreeding are higher in St. Cloud or Cedar Riverside?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yep, you're referring to those urban rednecks? Most people don't refer to people from urban areas by their county. That's county of a rural thing. Your description certainly implies you believe the St. Cloud area to be rural. But we can agree to disagree on where the line of is between rural and urban.

Do you think the rates of inbreeding are higher in St. Cloud or Cedar Riverside?
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I am trying to keepup. Are we talking sheer numbers or per capita?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yep, you're referring to those urban rednecks? Most people don't refer to people from urban areas by their county. That's county of a rural thing. Your description certainly implies you believe the St. Cloud area to be rural. But we can agree to disagree on where the line of is between rural and urban.

Do you think the rates of inbreeding are higher in St. Cloud or Cedar Riverside?
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Calling St. Cloud urban is a stretch and while I wouldn't call it rural it definitely has that kind of culture.
 

scools12 said:
I will admit this seems like what some others are saying a pretty lazy hire.
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I think the hockey hires both Women's and Men's hocley teams is an indication Mark Coyle thinks he is getting the Kentucky Wildcats AD position he is finalist for.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
I think the hockey hires both Women's and Men's hocley teams is an indication Mark Coyle thinks he is getting the Kentucky Wildcats AD position he is finalist for.
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If he leaves I wonder if people will still defend the Larson process and selection
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yep, you're referring to those urban rednecks? Most people don't refer to people from urban areas by their county. That's county of a rural thing. Your description certainly implies you believe the St. Cloud area to be rural. But we can agree to disagree on where the line of is between rural and urban.

Do you think the rates of inbreeding are higher in St. Cloud or Cedar Riverside?
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Clearly you've not heard of Stearns County syndrome.
 


I think the bigger problem is nobody outside those involved actually knows what the process was. Was there even a process? Some transparency would be nice.
 
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60's Guy said:
Larson to the team I see how he won the interview. Feeling better...
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Tanks for posting. Sounds good to me. My only objection to anything he said was that he "wasn't going to blow things up." If he would have added "except the D" then I'd have no problem with what he said. :)
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
I think the hockey hires both Women's and Men's hocley teams is an indication Mark Coyle thinks he is getting the Kentucky Wildcats AD position he is finalist for.
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Why bring unnecessary attention to your process (or lack of process as some here suggest) by firing and hiring coaches in a sport that your prospective employer doesn't compete in? Why waste your energy trying to improve two programs that are not on fire if you aren't fully invested?

Based on the sentiment of many here, Coyle botched the process for both hockey programs. Kentucky doesn't normally give an ounce of thought about hockey but they certainly are paying attention now and will dig into and judge how Coyle performed.

If Coyle really is a finalist for they Kentucky position, he opened a door to scrutiny that needn't have been opened. He could have easily just sat back and let Kentucky play out first and either pass the buck onto the next AD here or wait until he is no longer a finalist at Kentucky to make the changes.
 

ecoperson said:
Why bring unnecessary attention to your process (or lack of process as some here suggest) by firing and hiring coaches in a sport that your prospective employer doesn't compete in? Why waste your energy trying to improve two programs that are not on fire if you aren't fully invested?

Based on the sentiment of many here, Coyle botched the process for both hockey programs. Kentucky doesn't normally give an ounce of thought about hockey but they certainly are paying attention now and will dig into and judge how Coyle performed.

If Coyle really is a finalist for the Kentucky position, he opened a door to scrutiny that needn't have been opened. He could have easily just sat back and let Kentucky play out first and either pass the buck onto the next AD here or wait until he is no longer a finalist at Kentucky to make the changes.
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Amen!!
 

ecoperson said:
Kentucky doesn't normally give an ounce of thought about hockey but they certainly are paying attention now and will dig into and judge how Coyle performed.
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With zero games played for either new coach, this will have zero impact on Kentucky's decision making
 

bonin21 said:
With zero games played for either new coach, this will have zero impact on Kentucky's decision making
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Not saying it will or won’t but you would never want to see what appears to be a hiring mess associated with one of your top candidates.
 

The thing I think is hilarious is David Carle vouching for Larson. like that's great but how did that convo go?

Hi David, I know you won't come so can you give a recommendation?
Or
Hi David, would you like to coach the Gophers? No? Okay can you give a recommendation?

haha
 

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