For people who cannot, immediately, listen, I think that a sentence summarizing the responses to the questions would remain helpful. And probably elicit more posts. 

Awesome discussion as always—thank you 

Agree that Pearson was very good but not total world beater. Hopefully the top notch recruiting can continue with better player development for the not 1st round draft pick prospects in the program. Some more structure for the team should be beneficial but unclear if Muckwalt and Naurato can do it

NCAA Hockey has so much randomness built into the structure that it is very hard to assess Mel's legacy.  Despite the breathtaking level of talent he assembled, his teams had a frustrating habit of ebb and flood--within games, and even as the season progressed.  The lack of consistency is my lasting impression of his tenure. 

Maybe my expectations were too high because of the youth of the most talented teams, and the structure that allows 24 year olds to compete with 18 year olds.  I'm super excited about tapping a development specialist for our program, and feel it's exactly the right priority to continue to attract the best talent and put a winning product on the ice.

I can't wait to see how the Children of Yost handle the "Let's Go Brandon!!" cheer this season.

UM may have scored a hat trick in hiring Brandon Naurato. 1) They addressed the concerns of team morale and health; 2) They engaged an independent investigation that produced results uncovering actionable behavior against Pearson and staff, and then acted (eventually); 3) They hired an internal candidate with team familiarity and support, whose UM tenure post dates problems uncovered in the investigation.

Now it's time to get back to ice hockey business. . Thanks to the Regents and Interim Pres that fired up the Zamboni and smoothed the ice for Coach Naurato and 2022 team, with no time to spare. Go Blue!

The silence around the firing is deafening. I haven't seen a single player, coach, admin, whatever close to the team voice so much as a peep surrounding the dismissal and to me that speaks volumes about whether it was justified or not, granted there is still time for that to happen.

The report itself was extremely short on details and it was hard to get a fix on the nature of what Bancroft had done in terms of abuse, or whether there was strong support from a different contingent of players that were possibly fine with Mel and his style/approach. If you read the report skeptically, it is possible that Bancroft's actions were relatively innocuous/explainable and that somewhere close to 70% of the team may not have issues with Mel's methods/culture. Were that the case, one would expect chatter, tweets, statements of support or anything refuting the current narrative. So far as I can tell, none. There have been a few "has always been a great guy" type missives, but nothing in contrast to the rationale for the firing.

I consider myself "woke" and strongly lean towards that end of the spectrum, though I do want to get the facts right and am always testing/validating my opinions in that regard with whatever reliable information I can find. As someone who sympathizes with "woke" (for want of a better term), I also recognize that a fringe of that group can at times make ludicrous assertions and take things to an extreme that only serve to subvert the validity of their cause.....examples abound. Consider me reasonably, factually, skeptically, pragmatically and cynically "woke."

Had this been a case where Mel was being treated unfairly, i.e. the incidents of Bancroft abusing females were few and overblown in terms of their significance, or a substantial (or even some) portion of the team felt like the culture wasn't as toxic as it was being portrayed, I think you would see some vocalizing that sentiment. Instead, crickets. I haven't scoured the interwebs looking for it (Google searches for things like "reaction pearson firing players support etc.", and nothing.....also fairly safe to assume that if there were any statements or chatter to that effect, it would get noted here.

The only people seemingly against the dismissal are a small and vocal set of "anti-woke" posters that seemingly still think it is the 1990s/early 2000s and still want to apply standards from that era, asking for proof and substantiation, expecting the bar to be a lot lower and for Mel to essentially be able to do close to whatever he wants with the team and culture unless and until there is a tire fire with a mountain of evidence demonstrating that this is a bad approach. 

Apologies, double post

"The only people seemingly against the dismissal are a small and vocal set of "anti-woke" posters that seemingly still think it is the 1990s/early 2000s and still want to apply standards from that era, asking for proof and substantiation."

Absurd. I say accused people should just be thrown in water to see if they'll float.