Blais to Minnesota?

[The Exiled One]

blais is a gophers alum, but that didn't stop him from coaching at und or signing an extension with uno after having his water tested by umn.

i realize it's not the same scenario since motzko is already at st cloud, but my point is: coaches want to coach where they'll get the most exposure/money/success. motzko might feel umn is a better candidate in those regards compared to st cloud.

then again, maybe he just really wants to see his alma mater win a national championship and believes he's the man to deliver on that.

I'm not going to do the research because I'm not sure this has ever happened, but I challenge you to name me one HEAD coach (besides John Hill) who left his alma mater for another head coaching opportunity.

[sprig]

I'm not going to do the research because I'm not sure this has ever happened, but I challenge you to name me one HEAD coach (besides John Hill) who left his alma mater for another head coaching opportunity.

Firsts eventually happen, like SCSU winning an NCAA playoff game

[Old Barn Guy at Home]

Red Wing: After having read your follow post, I can see that we are pretty much in agreement on the Chicago situation. The area I take issue with is that I thought you indicated that Bill Wirtz was waiting for the people to start to fill the arena, and then he would put the games on locally.

A quote from your post: " Look at the Blackhawks in the last 5-10 years. Wirtz blacked out the TV coverage locally until such time as more people came to watch the team play live."

This is not the case. Old man Wirtz would not have put the Hawks on local tv no matter if they had a winning team filling the arena or not. He was on record as saying he felt it was unfair to the season ticket holders for him to put the game on tv for "free" to those not owning season tickets. He just didn't realize the great marketing opportunity for the team, and was missing out on building a new fan base from those not familiar with the sport of hockey, and the Blackhawks in particular.

The situation has totally reversed itself now, but the Hawks didn't need to start winnig before they would be put on tv. It just happened that the team began turning around that season, with Rocky having agreed to put the home games on BEFORE they started to play respectibly. (Of course the personnel used when forming the team was a great upgrade from what the Hawks had had in the near past.)

[rochsioux]

I'm not going to do the research because I'm not sure this has ever happened, but I challenge you to name me one HEAD coach (besides John Hill) who left his alma mater for another head coaching opportunity.

Not sure about hockey, but Dale Lennon was a UND player, assistant coach, and head football coach. He left to coach Southern Ill.

[redwing77]

Red Wing: After having read your follow post, I can see that we are pretty much in agreement on the Chicago situation. The area I take issue with is that I thought you indicated that Bill Wirtz was waiting for the people to start to fill the arena, and then he would put the games on locally.

A quote from your post: " Look at the Blackhawks in the last 5-10 years. Wirtz blacked out the TV coverage locally until such time as more people came to watch the team play live."

This is not the case. Old man Wirtz would not have put the Hawks on local tv no matter if they had a winning team filling the arena or not. He was on record as saying he felt it was unfair to the season ticket holders for him to put the game on tv for "free" to those not owning season tickets. He just didn't realize the great marketing opportunity for the team, and was missing out on building a new fan base from those not familiar with the sport of hockey, and the Blackhawks in particular.

The situation has totally reversed itself now, but the Hawks didn't need to start winnig before they would be put on tv. It just happened that the team began turning around that season, with Rocky having agreed to put the home games on BEFORE they started to play respectibly. (Of course the personnel used when forming the team was a great upgrade from what the Hawks had had in the near past.)

That makes sense to me. I just read (or watched) the media change the wording to what I said.

It seemed to me Wirtz wanted to make money first... and that mean putting butts in the seats. You don't make money in the long term when you supply your product to the masses for an upfront fee payed by the network (if that's how it works... I doubt TV deals are free to the networks or costly to the team owners).

It's much better now.

The Hawks are now relevant. They still have flaws but they're much better now... assuming Bowman doesn't mess it all up.

[Iamhockey08]

Give Lucia another chance! If he fails again this year go ahead and bring Blais in!