"The Huskies aren't joining Hockey East just to participate; they're joining to win championships.my expectation is that we're pushing hard to win. I don't like just participating in a sport. I like building to win. That's what our plan is moving forward. That's what our fans deserve, that's what our student-athletes deserve, and that's what our coaches are working to do." - UConn AD Warde Manuel Article link - College Hockey News
Quite a bit. Talked about his playing days, his buddy Marshall and how he's been waiting for this moment to come. He's excited.
"UConn, which will continue to play in Atlantic Hockey for the next two years, is coming off its 12th straight losing season." It's hard to believe Bruce Marshall is still the head coach. Expectations will be higher now at least.
Butchy, I agree that expectations will be higher, but I think you need to take the 12 straight losing seasons stuff with a bit of a grain of salt. UConn has played between 24 and 27 league games each season and of the non-conference games almost all are on the road against better programs. So going 0-7 is pretty likely, 1-5-1 as they did last year is a pretty solid accomplishment. When you start the season 5 or 7 games in the hole, getting to .500 is not a a simple accomplishment...and in the conference they are again often over matched, playing without scholarships. They have had winning records in the league in several of those years...not by wide margins, but more wins than losses at least 4 of those years. For comparison, it is sort of like Central Connecticut playing a non-conference basketball schedule made up mostly of Big East and A-10 teams. You don't expect them to do a whole lot better than 1 or 2 wins, so for them to finish with a "good" record, they almost have to dominate in their conference. With a zero scholarship program, that is very difficult for the Huskies to do.
They're playing OOC games against better teams because UConn is only a better program than a handful of others. You're right about the scholarship thing, that's a big upgrade, but the OOC schedule is not chock full of big time programs that will regularly blow UConn to shreds. They generally play OOC HE teams like Lowell and Merrimack, who've had some good teams here and there of late, but are mid-level HE teams at best, some middle of the road ECAC teams like Princeton, and tend to get another AHA team to come in for the UConn Hockey Classic. So it's not like we're loading up on BU, BC, Michigan, UNH, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin every season. They've been playing mostly middle of the road teams that an athletic department with the resources of UConn should not be regularly losing to.
bb, I agree in part, but a middle of the road Hockey East program, even a middle of the road ECAC program, is better than a middle of the road AHA program, and given its resources, that is the best UConn can hope to be. I certainly haven't gone back and checked, but I seriously doubt that any other AHA clubs have winning non-league records, either. Maybe Air Force or RIT have had 1 or two. But generally speaking, I don't think a mid-major which is what the AHA is in the hockey world, sort of the NCAA's hockey version of the Northeast Conference, is ever expected to win more than a game or two against upper level competition.Even the bestNEC teams don't quite measure up to mid-level A-10 and Big East ones. Sure if UConn had put a few resources into the program, say up to or close to the AHA scholarship limit, maybe you'd see a difference and maybe you have an argument that they failed if you don't. But while UConn has had resources, the hockey program has not.
