Jamie Molitor wrote:
. . . . . Obviously they thought he was the best choice and it will be interesting to see what he can do at UAA. . . . . .
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You can bet on it! UAA will do MUCH BETTER this year than last!
 
I'd compare our situation to the NFL Miami Dophins. The odds practically guarantee that Jimmy Johnson will outperform Don Shula in his first year back as coach. New system, new style, etc. -- the simple fact of change (with two outstanding coaches) means a harder working team with more discipline. The same can be said about UAA. The transition excitement will greatly improve results. The real test comes two or three years down the road and, at this point, no one knows how that will shake out.
 
For starters, we already know that UAA will play a much different style of hockey than they have been use to. Secondly, the team had many freshman and will be more experienced this year. Third, everyone needs to recompete for a position. With a quality coach, that's a recipe for success. Whether it can be sustained is another issue and that will be the acid test for Dean Talafous, but, going back to the initial question, you can BET that the first year will be greatly improved.
 
From the community standpoint, he'll have an enormous amount of support. Locally, we have over 300 hockey teams and even more opinions on how hockey should be run (the state high school hockey association recently placed all high school hockey programs in a one year probation status). With his experience at ALL levels, he'll provide sort of a hockey icon community wide. Also, it's harder for the home grown "experts" to argue with someone of his background. So, he'll have lots of support for the first year. After the honeymoon, it's hard to say what will happen -- it could fall completely apart or become a love affair, and then one can look back and determine the quality of the coaching choice. However, all of these things will insure significant improvement for next year. Certainly, the current widespread player support will become polarized when some realize that they won't make the grade under his particular style. And, the same is true of other supporters. But, success nearly always extracts a price and t
his is to be expected. How successful the unsuccessful influences become will depend on the program quality and team competitiveness.
 
Finally, this is a major maturity step for the UAA hockey program. Again, finally, we are paying a decent salary and have added other necessary perks required for a quality program. It's a giant step forward and crucial to achieving true WCHA partnership. The community support organizations equally need to "mature", but the Talafous hiring provides the catalyst for that to happen.
 
We can't say that we're back because we've never really been there, but we can guarantee that we'll become a respected, quality, nationally recognized hockey program. Again, you can bet on that!
 
Lowell King, Anchorage (UAA)
 
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