Don Lucia to step down from HC at Minnesota (Hockey)
Wow kind of surprising, but minnesota is a hard place to coach, they have high expectations
The guys been there for a long time. Won a few Championships as well.
Isn't Minnesota the Texas of hockey? It's hard to temper your expectations with their history at both the HS and college level.
Texas is the Minnesota of football, maybe.
The University of Minnesota is the crown jewel of the sport. They don't have the titles we do, but nowhere in college hockey is the sport more celebrated or more emphasized. They get statewide media coverage and fan attention. They have great facilities, alumni, and financial support.
Lucia has underachieved for years. It's one thing to be looking up a bit at North Dakota, which is the big dog in the state school and has the nicest arena in the country and tons of money. It's another to be cleanly passed by UMD and SCSU. The rough equivalence would be Oakland passing Michigan State in basketball.
It's time.
I've seen people suggest SCSU's Motzko, who has a worse arena and a worse program and fields a better team than Minnesota from within the same state every season. That might be the ticket. But if I'm Minnesota the first person I call is Denver's Jim Montgomery.
I have no insight at all, but my guess is that Montgomery might have some NHL hopes, and a trip to Minnesota won't help that, so Minnesota will probably get Motzko. But if Montgomery wants to be a college coach, Minnesota is the best place.
DU. The guy has a great gig there. He has probably the best program over the last 4-5 years. He has a great arena, and DU has tons of money so that won't be an issue to sway him. If he is interested in the NHL he is in as good of a place as anywhere with the success he is having.
He might not want to leave. College hockey is a nice job, but it's not the same as college football or basketball where the best coaches are financially set for life after a year or two. Considerations like the house you live in and family are real ones (incidently, ones that gave Mel real pause about leaving for Tech when he was an assistant here).
Minnesota is the only program that could tempt someone in Montgomery's spot. Denver has a great program, but Minnesota is a step above to almost everyone, and they (and pretty much only they) could possibly offer enough of a pay bump to make it happen, should they be so inclined.
It's only something for Montgomery to consider if he thinks college hockey is something he'll do for a minimum of 10-20 more years. If so, he could build Minnesota back into a dominant power and be an all-timer.
But he can coach at Denver for as long as he wants, so he might just not want to bother.
Also Bode Wilde going at 14 overall. UM gonna have some serious firepower.
Matthias Samuelson as the last pick in the first. Still haven’t heard why he decommitted.
of the Minnesota mob. Is there such a thing?
He traffics Grain Belt from Minny to Fargo, and controls all the hotdish in Sauk Rapids and Duluth.
Minnesota fans have been riding his ass for years while he piled up trophies for them. Their fans deserve some sub-.500 seasons.
not sure if this will affect recruiting for "the U."
I disagree that the UMD and SCSU emergence is all on Lucia - just as the eastern schools have seen, the smaller schools are getting overagers and winning with 20y/o FR and 24 y/o SRs. UMinn will out talent those teams, but that doesn't mean they will win. BU, BC, Cornell, and some other Ivies have seen Union, Lowell, QU play great team hockey with overagers these days.
Minnesota should never lose more than they win, but missing a tourney once in a while and not winning every title in a league with M, Wisc, MSU(lol I know), ND under JJackson and an upstart PSU and OSU is not grounds for "UNACCEPTABLE" -ness, IMO.
Season | GP | W | L | T | Finish | NCAA Tournament |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2011–12 | 43 | 28 | 14 | 1 | 1st, WCHA | Lost in NCAA Frozen Four, 1–6 (Boston College) |
2012–13 | 40 | 26 | 9 | 5 | T-1st, WCHA | Lost in NCAA First Round, 2–3 (OT) (Yale) |
2013–14 | 41 | 28 | 7 | 6 | 1st, Big Ten | Lost in NCAA Championship Game, 4–7 (Union) |
2014–15 | 39 | 23 | 13 | 3 | 1st, Big Ten † | Lost in NCAA First Round, 1–4 (Minnesota-Duluth) |
2015–16 | 37 | 20 | 17 | 0 | 1st, Big Ten | Missed Tournament |
2016–17 | 38 | 23 | 12 | 3 | 1st, Big Ten | Lost in NCAA First Round, 2–3 (Notre Dame) |
Big Ten | 5th | W 19 | L 17 |
T 2 |
this was a down year, but that's a lot of recent 1st places and Frozen fours.
This is deceptive. Four years of first place finishes in the B1G? Sounds great.
Except that the Big Ten had six teams. One of them, Ohio State, has never made hockey a big emphasis. One of them, Penn State, was a brand new program that wasn't even old enough to go to kindergarten.
And three of them--Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Michigan--were all-time national powers all simultaneously enduring their worst stretches of hockey in a generation.
Minnesota had almost no choice but to win the conference title in those seasons. Too many great programs taking dives.
In truth the program has been underperforming for at least 10 years.
And the proof is in what the non-conference rivals are doing. SCSU has become a leading program in the country. UMD has won a national title, made another final, and is a perennial contender. North Dakota and Denver have been consistently better, every year. They were gifted an exceptionally weak conference for four years and could not get results. And the little brothers are clearly better.
There is no reason Minnesota shouldn't be better than SCSU and UMD. No reason at all. Yet here they are.
you could say the same re: BU & BC & Cornell. But look at where they have been relative to Union, QU, Lowell
I don't believe they're analagous at all.
1. BU and BC have both won national titles (in BC's case, multiple national titles) more recently than Minnesota. BU's current coach took over for legend Jack Parker and has only been in the chair for a few years.
2. Cornell is an Ivy League school playing in the ECAC. In no way whatsoever are they comparable to the University of Minnesota in terms of facilities, support, history, or pressure.
3. All three have been every bit as good as or better than Quinnipiac and Lowell, and while Union has a more recent title they have not been consistently good in the same way.
4. BC is coached by Jerry York, perhaps the best college hockey coach of all time, a man who is now losing his fastball but has earned the chance to pick his retirement date after thoroughly dominating the entire sport for 15 years.
5. None of these schools are Minnesota, which has a unique position as the flagship of a state that cares about hockey like no other state in the country. It's simply different than anywhere else.
fair points, sure, but I don't see how any of this says that Minn should be some type of juggernaught. That fact is, they won 2(?) titles since Brooks left and Lucia won them, along with several conf titles and tons of NCAA appearances. they have the same s'ship numbers as Holy Cross. (well, maybe - now that I think about it some of those AHC teams may not run full allotments)
I feel like you (and most Minn fans) have an expectations problem b/c in the last 40 years, they haven't been as good as what you and Minn fans think they have been.
SCSU and UMD are allowed to have better hockey teams than Minnesota (the same way union is allowed to have a better program than Cornell). It happens - they have good coaches. they are also in Minnesota and have access to talent. LSSU was better than the entire country for 10 years. Ferris St won some (old-) CCHA titles. Western had good teams for a while. ND and OSU are good now - that was laughable for 40 years since they started their programs in 1973.
Minnesota hockey truely is ND football. or is it the reverse?
Minnesota is Alabama football. The fans will demand success and a good coach until they get one.
Minnesota has much better history, infrastructure, funding, fan support, media distribution, and any other nameable asset than every other program in the state, and really the country. Their fans want to win. Is it any surprise that they see Motzko doing a better job an hour up the road in Saint Cloud playing in a cinder block and think they should do better?
It's acceptable to Minnesota hockey fans for SCSU to outperform Minnesota in the same way it's acceptable to us for MSU to outperform Michigan in football. Could it happen? Sure. Should it continue?
No.
March 20th, 2018 at 11:51 PM ^
Look, I get that Minn gets their pick of the 5-8 best Minn kids that they want every year and Minn is the #1 hockey state. but that doesn't mean they are also preventing the next 5-8 (and the next after that) guys from signing with ND, MNst, SCSU or that those program aren't getting very good CDN and/or overagers. Not to mention that the rest of the B10 are among the best hockey programs in the country or that the east gets plety of talent as well.
Since Brooks left, I skimmed the Minn wiki page and saw 2 national titles in 40 years. 2. no more than M, not far off from anyone else given the tourney format. there were some light years where they missed the tourrney, but a lot of conf titles and other FFs as well.
Minn, BU, BC, M, NoDak are the 1st tier and if Minn thinks they are greater than any of the other 4, they are delusional.
Wisc, MSU, Denver, Cornell, are the 2nd teir that have experienced more significant down times than the above teams but at their heights have been at the level of those above.
After that, you're looking at teams like Maine, LSSU, maybe SCSU, that have had some extended and elite success under one or two coaches but have otherwise been meh to bad. Minn can't expect to be better than those guys ALL the time.
Look, maybe they pull the Dever or SCSU coach and he'll win 40 games every year and 5/7 national titles. you never know. But Lucia was that guy when he was hired and after his 1st 4-5 years (during which he won back to back national titles) that program has been about what you expect, maybe missing the tourney 1-2 more than you'd expect, maybe getting bounced out of the plinko touney 1-2 rounds earlier than you'd expect. But by and large, Minn is what it is supposed to be - a team with more talent than all but 6-8 schools who has won about as much as those 8 schools over the last 40 years. I contend that it's not as much of a coaching problem as minn fans think.
If you want to start talking about the Brooks years and prior, great I have a fondness antiquity. Ned Harkness, Vic Heyliger, Amo Bessone. The Broadmore hosting the national title every year. black and white photos are cool.
If I let you cherry pick any decade you wish in MInnesota hockey history, you can't come close to Alabama's last decade.
He has passed his peak / clearly.
Any inkling where Lucia will end up?
March 20th, 2018 at 10:02 PM ^
a legendary coach of a top flight hockey program, who has failed to meet expectations of late. They find the right man they will bounce back quickly. Probably a good move for everyone involved.