puck crowd, thoughts on Rand?

[Dann]

is he a big boy job away? could UConn get him? we will either be HE or B10 for life depending on what happens in CR so thats like a college landing for him he couldn't look to improve on. good ct roots...

 

[huskymedic]

Never say never but IMO will be tuff to pry him away from QU...he already turned down UMass (HE) during summer. He's got all the toys @ QU.

 

[freescooter]

Not likely we would get him. He has a very nice gig at Quinnipiac in my estimation. He's in a good league, he has a really nice facility, much better than Freitas, and they let him fill his roster with 24 year old Canadians there. (QU has 13...BC has 4 Providence has 6...). I don't think he fits for UConn, which will want to build its program and will be willing to accept some struggles along the way. And I don't think UConn is a good fit for him either. He's not going ot want to build a program essentially from scratch. But everything UConn offers he could have had at UMass and he turned that job down. And UMass is an established, if struggling program. Now Hockey East probably has more of an upside than the ECAC. I mean HEA members have won 4 of the last 5 NCAA titles and the last ECAC team to win was Harvard in 1989. Their last finalist was in 1990. But the question is whether he would live long enough to get UConn to that level. Personally I think the current interim head coach, Dave Berard will be a strong candidate for the job. He has done a nice job since taking over the team when Bruce got sick. He has been 8-5-1 since taking over, shown some flexibility with the goalie situation that Bruce never did, and this past weekend won a tough game at Robert Morris and lost a tough one. RMU had just upset the #5 team in the country a week ago. He has deep roots in Hockey East having been to top assistant at Providence for a number of years and was their recruiting coordinator for several years, too. Given his background I suspect he was brought in to assist with the transition to Hockey East and might even have been promised the job when Bruce retired. I think if UConn continues to play well the rest of the season he's the leader in the clubhouse, so to speak. Others might be one of the BC assistants, though they get mentioned for every job out there and never leave because they hope/plan to replace York(at least one will obviously be disappointed), Jim Tortorella, the brother of the Rangers head coach and UNH Assistant Head Coach, Blaise McDonald, the current head coach at Colby who basically built the Niagara program from scratch. He was also the head coach at UMass-Lowell so he has Hockey East experience, too. Dark horses, maybe Paul Pearl from Holy Cross, though he turned down the UMass job it was reported, and maybe the Union coach, Rick Bennett head coach of Union. Union is a non-scholarship program which makes things pretty tough,and he's been pretty successful. He was a former recruiting coordinator at Providence. Or it could be some woodwork candidate, and assistant somewhere. In one sense, UConn won't be that attractive since you know hockey will be the #3 or 4 sport on campus, at least at the outset.

 

[kingdobbs]

Rand Pecknold has a job for life at Quinnipiac, and the situation there is actually pretty good right now. To take a position at UConn now, a position which is currently worse than the job he turned down at UMass-Amherst, would be a step down, in the hopes that the place he lands is inside a rocket ship. Or, to put it in numbers: on a zero to ten scale, zero being AIC, ten being Boston College or Minnesota, Quinnipiac is at a 5, with a ceiling at about 7. UConn is at a 1, about to be up to a 2 or 3 once we're invested in Hockey East, with a ceiling of 8 or 9.

The important thing for Pecknold is that Quinnipiac is a school that has prioritized hockey as its #1. UConn is never going to do that.

 

[freescooter]

Rand Pecknold has a job for life at Quinnipiac, and the situation there is actually pretty good right now. To take a position at UConn now, a position which is currently worse than the job he turned down at UMass-Amherst, would be a step down, in the hopes that the place he lands is inside a rocket ship. Or, to put it in numbers: on a zero to ten scale, zero being AIC, ten being Boston College or Minnesota, Quinnipiac is at a 5, with a ceiling at about 7. UConn is at a 1, about to be up to a 2 or 3 once we're invested in Hockey East, with a ceiling of 8 or 9.

The important thing for Pecknold is that Quinnipiac is a school that has prioritized hockey as its #1. UConn is never going to do that.

that's what I was trying to say. You were much more succinct as usual.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

There are numerous downsides to ECAC. First, it's essentially the Ivy League, and is essentially run by the Ivy schools, so QU is really is a secondhand school when it comes to conference decision making. Not to say UConn's a big boy at the HE table, but there's no inner circle of uppity Ivy douchenozzles there. Second, it's really not that good of a league, HE dwarfs it in terms of success and overall pull. The TV contracts are better in HE, recruiting is better, everything is better. It's nicknamed the EZAC for a reason. Third, the ECAC has an awkward schedule in that most teams (Ivys in particular) don't start their season until three or four weeks after everyone else in the country. Why, I have no idea, but it's always been this way, so their schedule is a bit lopsided. He's pretty much reached the ceiling at QU, there's only so many people who do and will follow QU sports, their facilities, while nice, are still quite small, and wouldn't even qualify capacity-wise for HE.

As for why he turned down UMass, everyone and their brother turned down UMass this past summer. The Holy Cross coach turned down UMass. They've got their own set of issues up there that don't really apply to UConn, namely funding, from what I understand. I would say it'd be a tough get for UConn, especially considering it's not a top job by any means, and he may be holding out for something else, but top flight college hockey jobs are few and far between. The big shot programs are out since those generally hire from within, BU, BC, UNH, Minnesota, UND, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc., and most of those coaches have been there for 10+ years and likely aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

The one glaring exception in the east I see here is Maine. It's well known that Tim(may) Whitehead is on his way out up there and that's a somewhat lucrative position at a big time hockey school that he may want. But again, there are also major funding issues up there in terms of contracts, facilities budgets, etc. But it's a name program that doesn't need to be built-up, like at UConn. But even there, many in the Maine circles want them to hire from within the family and go with former captain Jim Montgomery, currently coaching in the USHL, so who knows.

My guess is, in order to get him they'd have to lay out a well-designed plan for how the school is going to back the program from a facilities and recruiting budget standpoint. I don't see the older Canadian recruit thing as an issue at all, many big time eastern schools do this too, BU being one. But there has to be a clear path that the AD has laid out so that he, or whoever is hired, isn't stepping and shooting from the hip in terms of the vision and goals of the program. UConn's in a very unique but awkward position within the college hockey world, as a big name brand athletic school, one of the two or three highest profile athletic programs in the east that plays hockey, but has, historically, one of the worst hockey programs. While QU is certainly a far more advanced program than UConn right now, the ceiling is that much higher at UConn.

Plus, aside from HE being decimated by defections which would only happen as a result of football realignment (BC, ND, etc. leaving for the B1G), QU has a 0% chance of joining HE, and even in that scenario, the quality of the league would be miles below where it is now.

 

[freescooter]

I am hoping, not convinced, but hopeful, that UConn indeed has a well thought out plan for all the things you mention. I actually think this thing has been in the works for some time and was one reason Berard was brought in. He was an experienced recruiter/assistant from a Hockey East school who had much stronger background in terms of coaching experience than is typical for UConn assitants. Don't get me wrong, UConn has had some decent guys, just that they come with little experience. A couple have gone on to bigger jobs in recent years. I thought it was strange at the time that the Huskies added a guy with that level of background but figured something was up at PC, not UConn. I also thought he might be part of a succession plan since that is often how those things work in hockey. I don't think anyone expected him to take over this soon, though. Anyway, I think that at least suggests that they were seriously thinking about how this would all work. And it gives me modest hope that they have a long term game plan in place. For what its worth I've also seen a conceptual of how the facility would be upgraded. It won't be Conti, but it won't be terrible.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Conte is horrible! Any insight onto this facility upgrade? Are we talking new arena, new practice facility, or what? And where? XL long term is a horrendous idea.

 

[freescooter]

All I saw was a "concept" I assume it was the one they used to project the costs of the upgrade. I'm not sure I can describe it accurately but it involved an additon to the existing facility on the soccer field side with added space for team rooms, workout space and so forth as well as a second level of seating and some boxes with some upgrading of the seating in the main facility. The capacity gets to around 4200 I think I saw. I don't recall the exact number but I recall it was just shy of the HEA minimum which seemed odd (If HEA is 5000 then it was like 4700). I think the Hartford option is the option for Hockey East games and "Big" games for the foreseable future. Freitas will be used for other non-conference games, and maybe eventually a couple of "lesser" HEA games from time to time. I think the aim is better than Merrimack not as good as Agganis (is that better?)

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Haha, Freitas is already better than Merrimack. I had the terrible opportunity to go there again last Friday, man, that place is terrible. And somehow they charge $25 a ticket, second most expensive in Hockey East. But yes, better comparison.

I'd hope that if they invested the money to expand Freitas to the point where it held in the ballpark of 4,500 or so, that they'd play all games there, since that's about what they can expect to draw for most games in general. Plus, why spend the money to significantly upgrade a facility then outsource all of your good home games? Either way, hopefully it happens and the program can grow from it.