> UNH assistant coach Dave Lassonde, at UNH since 1988, accepted an offer to
> become a Badger assistant coach on August 1.  He officially leaves UNH on
> August 16.  Lassonde was a part time goalie coach until the 89-90 season when
> he was promoted to assistant by the late Bob Kullen.  He was involved mostly
> with recruiting for the Wildcats.
 
> Wisconsin recently lost two assistants when Scott Owens decided to go to
> Colorado Collage as an assistant and Peter Johnson accepted a scouting
> position with the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Lassonde will work with head coach
> Jeff Sauer, assistant Mike Kemp and goaltending coach Bill Howard.
 
Scott Owens was a part-time assitant coach and part-time director of
the Blue Line Club of Wisconsin, Inc. (The Blue Line Club of Wisconsin
supports and promotes Univeristy of Wisconsin hockey and High School
and Youth hockey in the state. Note that this really is a job -- not a
fake position to allow a full-time coach.). Previous to that, he was
the coach of the Madison (now Wisconsin) Capitals of the USHL. Owens, a
Madison native, took a full-time assistant job at Colorado College
(where he went to school). His primary motivation, he said, was the
NCAA coaching reductions, which should make a crowded coaching market
next year.
 
Peter Johnson, a former Badger player and younger son of former
Wisconsin (and current Pittsburgh Penguin) coach Bob Johnson, was a
full-time assistant coach for several years. He also left because of
the impending reduction on coaching staffs. The scouting job opened up
this summer, and (in addition to various advantages such as keeping his
house and family in the Madison area) he felt that he had to take it
now, and now wait for next year, when presumably lots of assistant
coaches will be looking for jobs.
 
When Johnson resigned, Sauer was reported to have offered the job to
Owens, who had resigned only a few weeks before. Both Owens and Johnson
had applied for various college coaching jobs this spring.
 
(For those who are curious, Bill Howard is a part-time assitant coach.
He was a teammate of Coach Jeff Sauer at Colorado College.  He now
teaches high school in Madison).
 
> The NCAA voted last January to limit the hockey staffs to two full-time
> coaches and one part-time coach, effective August 1, 1992.  Sauer and Kemp, a
> close friend of Lassonde's through the USA Hockey Player Development Program,
> are locks to keep their full-time status.
 
> But Lassonde said he has been guaranteed a full-time job a year from now with
> the Badgers.  Talks with Sauer made him "much more comfortable" about taking
> the Wisconsin position, Lassonde said.
 
> "He told me that we'll have three full-time coaches next year," he said.  "He
> said the program cannot run with 2.5 coaches."
 
Note that prior to this year, the program had 3.5+ coaches (Sauer, Kemp
and Johnson were full-time, Owens was half-time, and Howard was
part-time, less than half-time I'm sure).
 
> UNH could not make as strong a commitment, Lassonde said.
 
> Lassonde said "the fact that I could not be guaranteed a full-time position"
> entered into his decision.
 
...
 
> -----------------
 
> Ok, now can somebody explain to me how Wisconsin can make such a guarantee,
> given the new NCAA regulations?  Do they think/know that the regulation will
> be repealed?  I don't get it.
 
I don't know how they can guarantee that. Perhaps the guarantee is
full-time employment (as half-time Blue Line Club director) although I
haven't heard anything about that yet. Or, perhaps they are just very
confident of getting a rule change.
 
	--david