St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

Well, in interesting news at the coaches meeting in FL, it appears that the schools from Minnesota have pulled the plug on the gentleman's agreement in college hockey on verbal commitments. It should be interesting to see how this goes over the next few years.

Story here: http://www.collegehockeynews.com/new..._at_coachs.php

[Saints17]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

Well, in interesting news at the coaches meeting in FL, it appears that the schools from Minnesota have pulled the plug on the gentleman's agreement in college hockey on verbal commitments. It should be interesting to see how this goes over the next few years.

Story here: http://www.collegehockeynews.com/new..._at_coachs.php

A "knee-jerk" reaction to Union winning the title?

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

Well, in interesting news at the coaches meeting in FL, it appears that the schools from Minnesota have pulled the plug on the gentleman's agreement in college hockey on verbal commitments. It should be interesting to see how this goes over the next few years.

Story here: http://www.collegehockeynews.com/new..._at_coachs.php

Boy, I need to digest that. I don't know whether it is beneficial, neutral or Negative to SLU. I think it is mostly addressed at the schools that have 50 recruits a year on Heisenberg's site and it is directed at the Q-Suck, Hockey East and Big 10 type schools. De-committing can be really rough for players. I know Michigan dunces decommitted Joe Day. We have looked at guys that have decommitted from other programs or have been decommitted from other programs and passed on a lot of them. If a school decommits a guy its usually for a good reason such as not developing. We do fish in the same pools as Minny and the like, but not for the same type of player. A kid who wants 50,000 students and big city Minneapolis is not going to probably like SLU. Plus, I think often we are looking for higher academic caliber players than them. It sure does change the landscape though and now these schools that can bag anyone they set their sites on can pretty much let the NHL scouting bureau do their job for them. The interesting thing is that a lot of USHL players are PG's from high school. Maybe Minny wants the pick of the litter from Minnesota high schools. I agree its gotten out of hand. Maine just committed an 8th grader. But, it has always been something that set college hockey apart when the rules were followed. I know Maine broke those rules in the past with Kent Salfi. Just don't know. Would like to get Carvy's take on it.

[joecct]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

OK. I don't particularly like it, but what can you do? Coaches are paid (some very very well) to win national championships, especially the BCS schools. If you, Clarkson, or some other small, out of the way school has a committed player that some large program develops an interest in (thinking Beanpot school for a Mass kid, or a BCS school for most anyone else) and is willing to offer a 4 for 4, and the kid jumps, what are you going to do?

The only thing you hope is the coach has the decency to call you to tell you what he wants to do. You don't want to read about your prized recruit being poached in Heisenberg's site, twitter, or one of the message boards.

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

OK. I don't particularly like it, but what can you do? Coaches are paid (some very very well) to win national championships, especially the BCS schools. If you, Clarkson, or some other small, out of the way school has a committed player that some large program develops an interest in (thinking Beanpot school for a Mass kid, or a BCS school for most anyone else) and is willing to offer a 4 for 4, and the kid jumps, what are you going to do?

The only thing you hope is the coach has the decency to call you to tell you what he wants to do. You don't want to read about your prized recruit being poached in Heisenberg's site, twitter, or one of the message boards.

Yes, but if you offered a kid and he accepted, you hope he has the integrity to let you know that he is still shopping the market. It should benefit players who could set off bidding wars. Program A offers 3 for 4, program B decides they need that player and offer them 4 for 4, etc. It doesn't do a **** thing about schools decommitting or cutting a player. Scholarships are generally resigned every year and any player that has signed an LOI and gets canned by admissions or any other thing can result in them getting cut loose. If I were a player or a parent of one, I'd look hard at that and the history of the coaching staff keeping promises to players. That is where the schools in the ECAC (especially SLU) would make out like bandits. The only benefit is a player can still field offers up to signing day. And, you know in some cases it hurts schools because if a player doesn't commit until the signing day, sometimes schools don't know what they have or don't have coming in.

Tough sledding for SLU guys in the AHL playoffs...Rochester, Springfield and Manchester all lost in the first round.

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBAbV...ature=youtu.be

Last Season's highlights.

[bothman]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

The doing away of verbal agreements is going to create a lot more volatility for everyone. Players can be more slippery and opportunistic and so can coaches. Outside of reputation risk, I see no reason why a coach doesn't say bye bye to someone if a better option becomes available if players can do the same.

In my opinion, this rule helps the big boys who can now purge other teams commits when their players leave early and it hurts the lesser hockey schools....in my mind, this hurts the entire ECAC.

[LynahFan]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

The doing away of verbal agreements is going to create a lot more volatility for everyone. Players can be more slippery and opportunistic and so can coaches. Outside of reputation risk, I see no reason why a coach doesn't say bye bye to someone if a better option becomes available if players can do the same.

In my opinion, this rule helps the big boys who can now purge other teams commits when their players leave early and it hurts the lesser hockey schools....in my mind, this hurts the entire ECAC.

Especially the Ivies who have nothing BUT verbal commits. This is a major Foxtrot U from all the factory schools - coincidence that this happened just after the title has been won 2 years in a row by "little guys?" I think not...

[Got 6, Want More]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

Especially the Ivies who have nothing BUT verbal commits. This is a major Foxtrot U from all the factory schools - coincidence that this happened just after the title has been won 2 years in a row by "little guys?" I think not...

You guys suck at cheering a guy up! To be honest, there are programs that cheated on the verbal commitments too. In general, this gets sticky when you consider that few hockey players are going from their senior year to college to play hockey anymore, we have schools always trying to figure out which year to enroll players, and that if you keep sniping players, maybe yours will be sniped too as the revenge factor is in full effect. Maybe Minny just wants to steal that stud kid going to BU for the Vanek like rental?

Anyway, Mark Morris was cut loose from the Manchester Monarchs. I am sure the first round playoff exit hurt him, but that's a nice how do you do for a team that finished first in the east and second in the league in points!! Doubt he is ready to retire. Wonder where he turns up next.

[LynahFan]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

You guys suck at cheering a guy up!

Awwww, give us a hug, G6.... And that's not just the 5 Shock Tops at the Ft. Lauderdale airport talking... Well, maybe a little.

Maybe Morris will go to Union after Bennett gets poached by a $$$ school... They should be so lucky to have 3 great coaches in a row.

[bothman]

Awwww, give us a hug, G6.... And that's not just the 5 Shock Tops at the Ft. Lauderdale airport talking... Well, maybe a little.

Maybe Morris will go to Union after Bennett gets poached by a $$$ school... They should be so lucky to have 3 great coaches in a row.

The big boys in college hockey are do everything in their power to make college hockey mirror women's basketball where you can pencil in 3/4 final four teams every year

[joecct]

You guys suck at cheering a guy up! To be honest, there are programs that cheated on the verbal commitments too. In general, this gets sticky when you consider that few hockey players are going from their senior year to college to play hockey anymore, we have schools always trying to figure out which year to enroll players, and that if you keep sniping players, maybe yours will be sniped too as the revenge factor is in full effect. Maybe Minny just wants to steal that stud kid going to BU for the Vanek like rental?

Anyway, Mark Morris was cut loose from the Manchester Monarchs. I am sure the first round playoff exit hurt him, but that's a nice how do you do for a team that finished first in the east and second in the league in points!! Doubt he is ready to retire. Wonder where he turns up next.

Since Hershey's Haviland just got the CC job, I hope that MM winds up in Chocolatetown, USA.

[Kepler]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

I'm ambivalent about it. It seems like an enormous change and it will take time to digest. My instinct is it will hurt the ECAC because we have higher admissions requirements. With coaches free to raid each other right up until the kid takes his first class, the only limitation on player mobility is admissions. If you got into Brown then you got into North Dakota, so North Dakota is always able to lure a Brown player; the converse is not at all true.

At the risk of sounding like an escapee from the Von Mises Asylum, there's something inherently attractive about eliminating restrictions on players' mobility. Of course, commitments also protected players, so this is not just a victory for the Factory Programs but also for elite prospects at the expense of the vast majority of players "who will be going pro in something else." It has the same critical error as most kinds of deregulation -- the elite (schools and players) strike it rich but everybody else loses their security.

[bcarlisle]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

Re Appleton / SLU bands. FWIW, in the early '70s a bunch of my friends from the Canton High School Band used to show up at Appleton with trombones, trumpets and drums and even electric guitars in hand. They added a great deal to the character of the games even when there were just seven or eight of them. Maybe someone could go recruit a band at the end of State Street. For free hot dogs and sodas.

Also FWIW, the key to making Appleton more raucous IMO is always going to be getting more students to the games with greater consistency (and Canton kids too). The townspeople are loyal but they sit on their butts and they've been sitting on their butts for sixty years. SLU has 300 more students now than it had 4 or 5 year's ago. Is Appleton getting its pro-rata share of new hockey fans? When I was a young kid (early 60's), every game had far more students in attendance than I estimate are there today (admittedly via photos and webcasts and leaky memory). Appleton actually used to be a tough ticket. Kid's have far more choices on Friday night than they probably did in 1963 but there has got to be some more inexpensive marketing ideas for targeting the students on game days.

Has anyone ever tried to turn the soldiers and their families at Fort Drum into an SLU fan base by running busses from the base? It would be a 40 minute bus ride for world class hockey. What else are they going to do in the middle of the winter? Soldiers do noise really well.

[Spaceman]

Re: St. Lawrence University: Big Time, Old Time Hockey 2014-15

Bcarisle, good comments and I like the Fort Drum idea.

In other news, I was bummed to see Bob Prier resign from Princeton today. I good guy, who I'm sure will land on his feet somewhere.

http://www.collegehockeynews.com/new..._princeton.php