Pearson Official, Bill Muckalt Likely Assistant
Mel Pearson has been officially announced as Michigan's hockey coach:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Mel Pearson has been named the University of Michigan's head coach of ice hockey, as announced today (Monday, April 24) by Warde Manuel, the Charles F-ing Woodson Director of Athletics. Pearson, who becomes the ninth head coach in program history, returns to Ann Arbor after previously serving 23 seasons as an assistant coach for the Wolverines.
In addition, Detroit News hockey writer George Sipple asserted this on WTKA this morning:
From George Sipple on WTKA: "I think the only way Bill Muckalt is not on the staff is if he's the Tech coach."
— Yost Built (@YostBuilt) April 24, 2017
That would be bad news for one of Billy Powers and Brian Wiseman, the current assistants.
UPDATE: it sounds like John Madden, currently head coach of the AHL's Cleveland Monsters, will not be the second assistant.
Spath (I'm paraphrasing): John Madden has been told to keep running his own program and he'll have a shot at the M job down the road.
— Yost Built (@YostBuilt) April 24, 2017
April 24th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
Donald Shepherd objects to your covert edit.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:06 AM ^
Clothes will be removed if Muckalt and Madden are the assistants.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:09 AM ^
Keep your socks on there, kiddo...
April 24th, 2017 at 11:10 AM ^
...............................
April 24th, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
Is this a threat? Even your proctologist doesn't want to see you naked.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:27 AM ^
He's one step away from the NHL--he was an NHL assistant for 3 years and now he's the head coach of a winning AHL team. A coach might leave that to be a college head coach, but probably not. There is no way in the world a coach would leave that to be an NCAA assistant coach.
That's just not a real-world possibility.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^
Buccigross said he'd be an assistant candidate to Mel.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:33 AM ^
Buccigross almost certainly did say that. And then I said what I just said. Take both of them for what they are worth.
The last person to hold John Madden's job (head coach, Cleveland Monsters (AHL)) was Jared Bednar, who was hired away from that job to be the Avs head coach. Madden is literally 1-2 years away from being behind an NHL bench. He's not going to take a college assistant job; he would be throwing that away, probably for good.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:24 PM ^
Well...........you were right.
Coach Madden in about 15 years could be a thing, though.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:38 PM ^
Is if he's fired from an NHL head coaching gig or never gets one in the first place. He's one Tortorella meltdown away from being the head guy in Columbus. Also, the Devils will likely be in the hunt for a new HC in the next two years. So, bringing Madden back to NJ is very possible.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:48 PM ^
An NHL coach getting fired and then coming to Michigan?
Wonder when that happened?
April 24th, 2017 at 12:50 PM ^
Buccigross also says Cawlidge Hawkey, but that's not how those words are spelled.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:09 AM ^
Thanks for your service guys, but I haven't seen much since Mel went to Tech to suggest it isn't time for a wholesale change.
Wouldn't surprise me if Pearson kept Powers out of loyalty though. Seems like some thought Wiseman's coaching on the powerplay unit was awesome, so it'll be disappointing if we lose Wiseman to keep Powers
April 24th, 2017 at 11:29 AM ^
Powers was a great recruiter, we will have to give him credit for that. Perhaps we could create a "hockey recruiting coordinator" position for him that doesn't necessitate him being behind the bench ever again.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^
I have a friend who worked as an athletic trainer for the team a couple years ago (the Larkin year I think?), and he said that Wiseman was essentially the team's coach, that he did pretty much all their strategy work and ran the practices.
As such, I feel like Powers might be a bit more expendable, although anything's possible.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:23 AM ^
If Wiseman was essentially the coach for the recent decline, wouldn't that mean he's fairly expendable as well?
April 24th, 2017 at 12:03 PM ^
With a new head coach in town, everyone is expendable...
I'm too big to fail.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^
Welcome back Mel!
April 24th, 2017 at 11:55 AM ^
Your dreams were your ticket out
Welcome back to the place we all used to laugh about
Well the names have all changed since you've been around
but the dreams have remained and they're turned around
Who'd have thought they'd lead you (who'd have thought they'd lead you)
back here where we need you (back here where we need you)
Yeah we tease him a lot 'cause we got him on the spot, welcome back
welcome back, welcome back, welcome back...
April 24th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^
Went to the official MGoBlue.com press release in high hopes that Warde was described, as quoted above, as "Warde Manuel, the Charles F-ing Woodson Director of Athletics".
Alas, no joy.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:19 AM ^
April 24th, 2017 at 11:37 AM ^
He's more like Bo Jackson to me. Came in and did some things that were absolutely incredible, but his career was cut short and we never got to see everything he could have possibly done.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:05 PM ^
Nice work here, +1 sir!!
April 24th, 2017 at 11:17 AM ^
let the return to greatness begin!
April 24th, 2017 at 11:20 AM ^
He still needs to get rid of Chaka Daley. That's a grade-A dumpster fire.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:27 AM ^
And John Paul.
23-60 in 6 years. 2-23 in conference games.
April 24th, 2017 at 11:45 AM ^
Bakich is the only good coach Brandon hired.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:10 PM ^
????
Adam Steinberg won a national championship at Pepperdine and has turned Men's Tennis around into a damn good team. He left last year to take the Arizona State job but Warde convinced him to stay.
He's recruiting like a madman. We might win the B1G next year with these highly ranked twins coming in next season. 3rd Place this year.
Dr. Marcelo Leonardi of Water Polo took Michigan to the Final Four last year. Michigan is the only team in history East of the Rockies to make it to the Final Four.
KBA, while the late season collapses these last two years have been annoying, won WBB their first championship of any kind this season.
Jan Dowling of Women's Golf took the team to the NCAA Championship last year, advancing out of the Alabama Regional as a 13 seed. Only the second time the program has even made the NCAA Championship. And we just had our first-ever B1G Individual Champion yesterday.
He gave Mike Bottom the women's swim head coaching job in addition to the men's job he already held. He's won the last two B1G Championships, after we had a 12 year drought.
He made some great hires. He also made some massive turd hires like Hoke, Chaka and John Paul.
Basically burned the M Soccer program to the ground.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:14 PM ^
Brandon's greatest strength as a michigan ad was that he really cared about the non reveneue sports. He was not afraid to move on from underperformin coaches. He invested a ton in them, in coaching salaries and he lead the charge for all the ridiculous new facilities those programs are getting. He missed on a few hires but for the most part did a great job finding coaches for those sports. Word was in those searches brandon went after the best in the country and was willing to double some their salaries. The daly hire hasnt worked out but was considered a very ood hire at the time and i dont blame the paul hire on him as it had to be made because paul lead the charge for um to become a d1 lacrosse school. It will be interesting to see how manuel handles the non revenue sports. Bringing back chaka is a bad sign and he has another test in john paul who needs to go as well.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:18 PM ^
Steve Burns had no business being fired.
Michigan went to the freaking College Cup Final Four in its 11th season in existence as a program. Two wins from winning it all.
The next year, we have a bad season when 97% of the scoring departed including the goalie. But every single loss was by 1 goal. And we did beat #1 Akron that season who beat us in the Final Four.
And Burns was fired. Ludicrous.
I've personally talked to some U-M soccer alums. Chaka has not reached out to any of them for support. He's driven off some of our best players. We've had TWO GUYS transfer to OSU.
Last season was our worst season in program history. Year 5. And he gets brought back.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:26 PM ^
When your only strategy is to throw tons of money at every problem, one in a while you'll luck out.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:44 PM ^
When it comes to fixing non revenue sports, it generally is all about willingness to commit resources to them. Brandon was very willing to do it, a lot of ads around the country arent.
Brandon's obsession with the Director's Cup did point a lot of the non-revenue programs in the right direction. However, I do feel bad for Burns.
Was a good call by Brandon.
April 24th, 2017 at 12:02 PM ^
i have heard Pearson/Muckalt/Wiseman
April 24th, 2017 at 12:03 PM ^
While I would have been quite pleased to have landed one of the big names not directly tied to M, I'm elated this worked out in the end. It seems like the assistant situation is likely to work out well considering all of the options available. This process has also shown us that there are several former Red players who will be quite viable the next time this opens up.
WELL DONE WARDE!
GO BLUE!!
I think Madden '04 was the best...what about you guys?
April 24th, 2017 at 10:12 PM ^
I wonder if Manuel called up the top names that have been mentioned to see if they had any interest. That would seem to me to be due diligence.
Welcome back, Mel. Let's Go Blue!
April 24th, 2017 at 10:26 PM ^
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