Some posters have brought up some interesting and valid points and
questions regarding the Coach of the Year award and about coaching in
general.
 
At 11:18 AM -0500 2/23/97, Greg Ambrose wrote:
> The Coach of the Year Award is to reward season long achievement, is it
> not?  To compare what Ron Anderson, Paul Pooley (both of whom have sub-500
> records) and Shawn (I know the rulebook) Walsh have done in half a year to
> what Umile has done the whole year is ludicrous.  The man is, hands down,
> Coach of the Year and he deserves it.
 
That's one way to look at the coaching award. Whether UNH is a team with
such talented players that someone other than Umile could have coached them
to a similar record is an interesting question.
 
That idea is one of the reasons that accomplishments like Anderson's,
Walsh's, and Pooley's draw consideration for the award. With less talented
players and poorer first-half performances, I think the assumption is that
the coaches for those teams made intentional choices to change a team's
approach that led to vastly improved performance.
 
While I suppose it's entirely possible for a player or player to be just as
responsible for those improvements, I think that drastic increases in
performance (like Maine's and Merrimack's, going from at or below .500
hockey to winning the majority of the games they play) are assumed to be
team-wide and are therefore more likely to be the result of the coach
changing players, changing lineup combinations, changing forechecks and
playing style, and using motivational tactics.
 
If it were so that Umile deserves the award "hands down," then one might
ask why. Does he deserve it if they finish first? Or second? One might
argue that Jack Parker's squad, with the exception of Chris Drury and Shawn
Bates (who had a subpar year) is not nearly as talented as some of his
squads in recent years, yet they could still finish first. Should the Coach
of the Year award go automatically to the team that finishes first? If so,
why bother having a separate award?
 
Exceeding expectations is certainly an element. Turning a struggling team
around is also a good indicator because it shows clear intervention from
the coach.
 
I'm not saying Umile isn't a strong candidate; I just don't think he's a
"hands down" winner this year.
 
Having said that, I think Anderson is also a strong candidate, especially
if Merrimack manages to beat BU and then BC to clinch home ice (although
they can clinch without winning both games, as Mike has posted).
 
Although expectations for Merrimack were high at the start of the season,
Merrimack has been so bad for so long, and have so consistently failed to
meet expectations, I think even the people who picked them to do well
half-expected them to fare as poorly as they did the first half of the
season (I know I did). And although they have played extremely well in the
last 9 games, they have also taken advantage of teams that were not playing
well-- Northeastern, UMass-Amherst, and BC. They have a respectable tie
against BU and two wins against Maine. They were unable to beat UNH or
Providence this year. Beating BU would be a clear indication that they are
capable of hanging with a good team, even if BU is not playing particularly
well right now. Personally even though BU won the Beanpot I think they only
played 1 1/2 good periods of hockey during that stretch; the Harvard game
was sloppy all around, and BU really clicked for part of the third period,
enough to pour some goals in, and BC I thought had the edge in play for two
periods. In between Beanpot games, they found themselves in a hole against
UMass-Amherst and had to come back to win, and now they have lost two
straight to a Maine team that, admittedly, played the series like it was
the playoffs.
 
 
D. M. Josselyn, DTP Technician, The Lowell Sun
Merrimack College'93, Syracuse University '95
 
** "Ah. This is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't
 previously aware of." --Arthur Dent
 
Public key at Home page: http://www.ziplink.net/users/dmjossel
 
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