Hockey news- Exit: Bill Muckalt; St Thomas is salty about the transfer portal
This was unfortunately somewhat expected when Muckalt was passed over for the head coaching gig in favor of Naurato. Muckalt was reportedly one of the ace recruiters on staff but was likely perceived as being too close to the Mel situation to be considered for the head job. We'll see how recruiting does under Naurato - Michigan should be able to continue recruiting at a high, high level if the staff is any good at it
https://twitter.com/chnews/status/1653423263991881728?s=20
In news pertaining to other Michigan assistant coaches, supposedly an assistant for St Thomas 'shoved or hit' our assistant coach Rob Rassey at the annual coaches convention over the transfer of St Thomas' 2nd leading scorer Josh Errnisse to Michigan and the allegation that Michigan contacted him before the transfer portal window.
That came to a boil in Naples last week at annual Coaches Convention. According to multiple sources, St. Thomas assistant coach Leon Hayward either shoved or hit — depending on who you ask — Michigan assistant coach Rob Rassey at the hotel lobby. Rassey walked away and cooler heads eventually prevailed, with Hayward apologizing.
https://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2023/05/02_Tensions-Over-Transfer-Portal.php
Sounds like Naurato and Rico mended things somewhat. As always, hard to feel sad for St Thomas' coaching staff when the whole lot of them would jump ship tomorrow if an opportunity came to move up in the world. Still some spicy offseason news nonetheless
Priorities besides replacing Muckalt are to bring back Fantilli and get a goalie coach.
What’s the old joke? I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out? I guess it applies to hockey conventions too!
And in Naples, too, perennial semi-finalist in "The Least Hockeytown In the World"
Meh. The St. Thomas coaching staff probably would move up in the world if they could, but there's still a time to do business and a time not to do business. If Michigan did indeed make contact outside of the portal window, then shame on Michigan, and the coaches deserve the vitriol (not being physically assaulted, but anger).
If UM coaches are doing their job in this day and age of the portal, they have a third party gauging interest for plausible deniabilty.
I would hope every team at UM has someone looking at the potential portal folks and getting a read.
I am quite certain that talented players are being contacted all year by representatives of other NCAA teams and certainly reps from other leagues to gauge their interest. Michigan has denied it, but even if it were true, I don't think this world where most NCAA teams aren't casually tampering exists
Respectfully disagree. You play to win the game.
does that not include playing by the rules?
Winners make the rules.
user name checks
This exactly. If you break the rules to try to win, what you win isn’t the game. The rules define the game. I’m baffled by people who cheat then claim they’ve won.
So pretty much a majority of the big-time NCAA basketball and football teams then?
If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’
I agree Magnus, though there is obviously a lot of tampering happening these days. How often do we see news of a player entering the portal only to see the news of where he's heading hours later?
Seems like a big decision to make in a few hours...
Well, nothing says the player didn't ring up someone on the team he wanted to go to, even if was just a player on that team, and have that player contact the coaches, the coaches funnel the answer back the same way. Done deal.
Perfectly legal.
What's the protocol if representatives of a player not yet in the portal contact a school to gauge if the school would have interest if he were to enter the portal?
My entire professional career (in engineering) was filled with examples of people gathering informal interest in other potential employees before they pull the trigger on quitting their current job. None of this ‘exploration’ would start through official channels, but was a key component to changing jobs for better opportunities. I would hardly expect even a college aged kid to not explore his options on his own before torching his relationship with his current school, and to expect him to do otherwise is denying him/her the ability to look after their own interests.
I don't really know the dynamics of who is contacting who, but I'd guess guys with options (like a promising freshman in Eernisse) is well aware he has options and perhaps who some of them are before entering the portal. Linkedin is crawling with recruiters - I don't know if there's a sub-industry of people doing the same sort of pitch 'Hey I'm representing a premier NCAA Division 1 program featuring dozens of NCAA tournament berths and numerous alums in the NHL all in a picturesque college town who are seeking promising transfers for the 2023-2024 season. Let me know when we can setup some time to chat!!'
"I went to a fight.... and a hockey convention broke out!"
EDIT: Better late than never. Rodney was one of a kind. Never got enough respect.
"I called my girlfriend, she said, 'Come on over, there's nobody home'"
"I went over - there was nobody home!"
God how I hated Rico Blasi when he was at Miami in the old CCHA. I was at the ncaa final when they lost a 2 goal lead in the final minute of the 3rd...I actually felt bad for the kids, but was happy he lost a championship in such an agonizing way.
Huh, kind of secondary to the point of this thread, but that's the first I'd seen of this incoming transfer. Seems like a solid addition.
Eernisse. Obviously, an eexcellent player.
Just like Trouba's monster hit on Timo Meier and then the line shake in game 7 yesterday.
In standard Trouba fashion, it was an absolutely brutal hit. Each new angle on the replay was harder to watch than the previous one.
Don't put your head down with the Trouba train anywhere near you... Hope to see Luke Hughes versus the Canes.
Muckalt’s departure was basically inevitable. Whatever the reason for not giving him the interim job, he was passed over, and that put him in a tough spot. It was too late for him to just find another full-time hockey job, and these guys aren’t rolling in money at this level.
So he did what many of us have to do from time to time: make the best of a difficult work situation for a while, roll up his sleeves, and go to work. Was he angry at getting passed over? Disappointed? A bit tired of everything?
Nobody knows, because he kept his head down and didn’t knife the program and put in a year that wasn’t what he would have thought it would be.
Good for him. Our program likely owes him a great deal for how he navigated all this. This season could have been a disaster, and it wasn’t, and Muckalt gets a good share of credit for that.
I feel bad at how it transpired for Bill. Program legend, back home coaching in Ann Arbor and probably figured he was in line to take over whenever Mel retired but Mel created a mess and Bill had unknown involvement in it so I'm not surprised he wasn't picked. Stinks he's leaving on a sour note. Had to be an awkward season being passed over but still trying to do your job well as you look for an exit
I know it's irrelevant now, but who do you think the better choice would have been for head coach, Naurato or Muckalt?
Hard to say. Too much is inextricably tied into the circumstances that forced an interim hire in the first place. And discerning the reasoning at play gets tougher because I think Warde completely bungled the Mel situation.
Whatever I say here is just a guess based on strikingly insufficient data.
There are three scenarios I consider most likely, in rough order of what I would guess is their likelihood:
1. Muckalt doesn’t bear responsibility for the behavior that got Mel hired, but he had been with the program for a while (he is, for example, identified in the room at meetings that are subjects of the investigation) and is untenable due to his close connection with the events at issue. Naurato came in after those events occurred and was relatively “clean,” making him a safer choice from a political/legal standpoint.
2. Warde didn’t want to elevate an assistant at all and had a strong preference for a guy with HC experience (not without precedent, Mel had the same issue before he went to Tech and that is probably *why* he went to Tech) but it was far too late to hire one. The interim coach was intended to be a genuine interim coach, and it would be less difficult to pass over a guy in Naurato with a much smaller track record than Muckalt, whom some might assume deserved the job just due to his tenure. In this scenario it’s actually a bit kinder to both guys because nobody holds it against them that they don’t “keep” an interim job that they weren’t serious candidates to retain. Naurato’s emergence as a serious candidate made that decision much tougher, but this scenario would explain the abiding reluctance we saw elements of from sources like John Bacon.
3. Least likely but possible: Warde, or someone advising him, saw enough from both Bill and Brandon in the short time Brandon was on staff that they genuinely believed he would make a better head coach.
I actually like option 2 the best, but option 1 seems most likely. In any case I wish the best for Muckalt, for many more years of success in the sport.
Theres no way to know really.
Both are considered good coaches. Muckalt coached in the NAHL and USHL in addition to spending some time with Mel at Michigan Tech. Naurato is a big skill development and analytics guy in NHL circles.
I think Muckalt would have been a fine coach, but he’s too close with Mel for my liking. I’m sure that’s something that really went into the decision. Players may not have responded well to going from Mel to Mel’s right hand man. I also think Naurato is more of a “players coach” than Muckalt.
All we would be going on here are guesses. I still have some questions surrounding Naurato as the head guy, but he more than earned the opportunity to show what he can do with the program.
Since everybody else is beating around the bush with their answers, I'll make it black and white. Muckalt was the better choice for head coach. 2 time National Champion at Michigan. Helped rebuild the program with Mel. Experience as a head coach. And ace recruiter. Just a much better resume than Naurato.
That said, Naurato did a good job overall this year. There were a few deficiencies like struggling to get the puck out of our zone most of the season, less than stellar penalty kill and getting totally out-prepared for our Frozen Four game. But it was his first year and hopefully he'll learn. The biggest factor is if he will be able to maintain our fantastic recruiting without Muckalt.
Okay so first, being a 2 time national champion at Michigan has absolutely nothing to do with coaching ability… at all. Completely irrelevant for you to even mention that.
Yes, he has head coaching experience. He went 19-35-4 as an NAHL head coach, then 49-42-25(!) as a USHL head coach. Has experience? Yes. But middling results as a juniors head coach doesn’t make you a good college coach.
Being an ace recruiter also has absolutely nothing to do with being a head coach. You mention repeatedly how valuable he was as a recruiter, which is true. It’s also a role he fulfilled as the assistant coach. A role he could continue to fill as an assistant coach. What does that have to do with being the head coach?
Helped Mel rebuild the program. I mean, sure. But then again so did Naurato. Muckalt may have been there longer, but Naurato was noted for involving more analytics into preparation and the positive impact it had on the season. Helping rebuild the program doesn’t necessarily make you a good head coach either. Being an assistant is pretty different than running a program yourself.
All of which to say, as we already did, there’s no way to know. Any claim one way or the other is nothing more than a guess.
Great post. I give Muckalt all the credit in the world for the job he did this season and hate to see him go. Hopefully he'll get a head coaching job somewhere in college hockey and do well.
As always, hard to feel sad for St Thomas' coaching staff when the whole lot of them would jump ship tomorrow if an opportunity came to move up in the world.
maybe it's true that they'd "jump ship tomorrow," and i have no idea if michigan was or was not above board, but those points aren't really germane in any way. you do the job you have, and if you feel a competitor is engaging in some unfair practices you have the right to be pissed. obviously, you don't have the right to be physical, if that's what happened.
If UM talked to the St. Thomas guy outside of the portal window they deserve to be given shit for it, but I also have a hard time getting too worked up about guys talking to each other. I got a bit bent out of shape with the Xavier Worthy situation with Texas because that felt more brazen but ultimately if a guy doesn't want to be somewhere I'm not sure anyone is served by trying to make that relationship stick.
Dr. Muckalt, paging Dr. Muckalt.
My increasingly faulty memory tells me that in 1998 Bill Muckalt inaugurated the tradition of the seniors kissing the Yost ice as they skate off on senior night. That is my recollection but I could be wrong - or misremembering as one of our former presidents said.
The "tampering" part of this just doesn't make sense to me. How many of us would leave our current position without some knowledge that we had another job waiting? I would guess that answer is close to none.
I get why coaches don't like it but they would do the exact same thing in the kid's shoes. If they want to avoid it, make them sign contracts and pay them.
And if St. Thomas could beat the money/benefits of playing at Michigan, they should have done it.
I'm not surprised at Muckalt's departure. Naurato needs to assume control over the program and Muckalt's mere presence on the staff creates a tendency for second guessing. I think this past season he stayed on because the decision to replace Mel came so late that it would be impossible to assemble an entire new staff.
The body language on the bench was telling. You would frequently see Naurato and Rassey next to each other conversing with each other. Muckalt was usually off by himself.
Muckalt is a great coach. He deserves to have a head coaching opportunity somewhere.
So, what I'm getting is that Rico Blaisi hires coaches that share the "hothead" tendency that his players typically have. Not terribly surprised.
All based on anonymous reporting??
The guy who wrote the article Adam Wodon is well connected as a CHN writer. You can bet his sources were other D1 coaches who basically saw the incident occur. This isn't a teenager on an anonymous twitter profile