dagies

A captain. Good for Matt.

What I want to know is if anyone is going to rosin up their finger-tips and provide us outlanders with good ol' "in-season" like reporting of the press conference?

Even some of his own troops think he's overly obsessive about PC issues: St. Cloud Time Article

PCM, as per your response to my perception of the situation, I'm willing to admit you may well be right. We'll see in the long run. I felt like giving my opinion on what I read at the time I posted that. Here's the Herald's take on things as of this morning: Herald Article

You're an idiot. PCM didn't say anything. He's reporting what Roger Thomas said. The Herald may have sources, but couldn't or wouldn't name them. PCM at least used a source that was identified. That doesn't change anything in the end, but don't portray this as the Herald vs. PCM. I believe PCM is adding to the story.

I'll give my take on this. Here I believe Thomas is doing some spin control. I believe he's received plenty of input from people like me telling him not to make a hasty decision, whoever the final choice may be. He's acknowledging that there ARE candidates outside of the internal candidates as has been discussed. To me this says the ball is still in Hakstol's court. I believe this is a minor wrinkle in the process that will be ironed out in a short period of time. Hakstol will be the coach, and at least an attempt will be made to make the process look less "hasty". That's my take. For me, I was one who wanted to see a full search including outside candidates take place. Since then, I've heard enough about Hakstol to be perfectly comfortable with his selection. One wildcard: Look at Thomas's quote closely. "It depends on the internal candidates". What if they are having difficulty agreeing on $$? Just conjecture, and I highly doubt it is the case. It's a wrinkle in this process that few if any saw coming, so it is fun to speculate.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yes, it will. What if he doesn't do as well???

What's this talk about Lammy being the "next Karl"? There's no way he should have those expectations on his shoulders, and no reason to expect he will be as good. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Certainly a goaltender of his caliber is welcome, but let's not expect too much from the kid. His numbers do not match what Karl had done at this point in his career, and while numbers don't tell the whole story, they are an indicator. To me, Lammy looks like a consistently good goalie. Let's just ask him to be that for now. Karl 1996-97 954 shots, 2.48GA, .924 sv% Lammy 2003-04 1499, .918, 2.80 2002-03 781, .917, 2.16

Yes, and they still have "half-time" Fournier. Oh, I don't expect SCSU to be sniffing the middle of the pack this year.

From Reusse's column today Reusse

Yeah, we have to give the goofers (right back at you Greyeagle ) something to ridicule us about. They don't have Blais to kick around anymore.

Skate softly but carry a big stick

You're campaigning for PCM? Wouldn't it be a conflict of interest for him to interview himself for USCHO stories? I wonder if he would get frustrated with himself for offering only cliches as answers to probing, hard hitting questions.

Speez, good to hear from you again! Makes sense. Thanks for the info.

Wow. This may mean nothing, really. Hak might have been assured "unofficially" he'll be named the coach next week. On the other hand, maybe there's a big snafu in the leaked info. I would guess the former. Should be interesting to see how it plays out.

Here's a comment from Brian Lee in the Forum story about his commitment that speaks directly to this: Brian Lee Commitment

I think he did too.

Sagard, my first reaction to the news was to think that was exactly what would happen. But when I think about it now, I do wonder if that would have more impact than you or I think on a new recruit. Players come to play for coaches, I believe, and facilities second. I suspect that could really wash out a year of recruiting. I think naming a coach after a couple months into the process sounds less disruptive now. Thanks for the scoop, Rick. Makes one feel a bit better about the scenario. Will enjoy speculating on the 2nd assistant for a while, and look forward to 2004-05 which should be a fun one.

Bruce, if you are referring to my post you only have it partly right. This only applies if they think Hakstol would be the best AVAILABLE candidate when they look outside UND. Otherwise, if they look outside and think they will land a coach better than Hakstol, the detriment to recruiting is a small price to pay. I have to believe they think Hakstol is the best qualified candidate who would be interested, and that's why they made this decision when they did.

Well, I'm also on record saying that I would feel better knowing that Hakstol was fairly compared to other interested candidates and hired based on that merit. I've also said it could be possible that Blais and Thomas and the others involved pretty much know the pool of possible candidates and knew Hakstol was the best possible candidate (keeping my assumption that Sandelin truly isn't interested, regardless of his recent non-committal comments) and made the tough decision (publicly unpopular but possibly correct) to name Hak as coach right away to minimize any recruiting impact right now. The decision has been made, and while it wasn't my preference, it's not Hakstol's fault or responsibility. I hope as time goes on that we're not more critical of Hakstol than he deserves because of how he was hired. Here's another possible point of view. WHAT IF Thomas thought Hakstol was the best possible candidate (best qualified of those likely to accept, etc) yet went through a national search and named him permanent coach in a couple of months. WHAT IF because of that delay Hakstol lost a high profile recruit. COULD public opinion turn on Hakstol quickly, saying because Blais isn't around Hakstol can't get the top guys? It's another way in which Hakstol can't win. Losing that recruit may not be his fault, but he would likely be held responsible by us fans. Thomas might have decided that, being Hak is the likely choice anyway, it's best to put him in the best position right out of the gates to recruit players. Yes, Hakstol might suffer our negative perceptions of the hiring process, but his ability to recruit will not be compromised. He'll be on the best footing possible to rebuild our confidence. If he doesn't get the job done, it's not because he was hamstrung to start out with. This seems a plausible scenario to me. The longer I type, the more plausible it seems. I personally don't know how interested Sandelin really was. His recent comments were very non-committal, but Blais turned the MN job into a nice raise. Why couldn't Sandelin do the same thing. I, for one, wasn't counting on him. But I was hoping. I'm with jk, I really hope we can land Johnson as an assistant coach. I'd like to get his offensive perspective on the staff. If not him, another strong offensive minded coach. Hak is our coach, and I'm behind him 100%.

John Gutekunst following Lou Holtz

NDH, we've been informed that Lucia is way to classy for that kind of behavior.

Interesting. I don't know much about Marks except he was a Sioux assistant "back when".