Denver playoffs: Final series of the season

Men's Sports Ice Hockey
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Not a great showing tonight, although again, not quite as lopsided as the score would lead you to believe. Giving up those three goals right off the bat was just too deep a hole to dig out of. Bright sides…we actually won more faceoffs than DU…Neaton was excellent after Persson got pulled…Berg using our timeout after the third goal may have been one of the smartest uses of a timeout in Miami athletic history…and finally, now that the season is officially over, I can once again start being foolishly optimistic about next year.

At least I still have the Avs…

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Swept by a combined score of 13-4, and some people are saying that we passed the mystical eye test. That’s not being hopeful; it’s being hopeless. I’ve never advocated dropping the program, but the coaching staff needs to hit the road and we need to move to the CCHA.

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Is it finally over for this year??

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If all the facts I read on this board are right this must be what rooting for Vanderbilt football is like. You basically need a miracle to be competitive but you cant afford not to stay in the conference you are in

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Except Vandy gets millions of shared revenue dollars each year being in the SEC. Huge financial incentives to stay whereas the NCHC for us, not so much.

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True but my point is that the exit fee is our problem. Too expensive to leave

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Understood. A real “disincentivize” to leaving.

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Miami hockey is a joke now.

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Last NCAA tournament projections I saw had numerous B10, 3 from NCHC, and 2 from CCHA. Still feels like we could climb into top 2-3 in the CCHA way before ever contending for top 3-4 in NCHC. (Yeah I know…it’s a moot point given the exit fee).

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JFC, are we really still beating this dead horse? Miami isn’t leaving the league. Get over it.

There are like 810 problems with this program and that one isn’t even in the top 800.

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Sorry Bonk…I just can’t seem to help myself! (FWIW, I did mention it was a moot point). :grinning:

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How are people looking at some kind of ridiculous “eye test” and hope-pimping that things are going to get better. I get it. Some people have a blog that gives them access to the program, and they want that access to continue. They want to blog about NCHC games and NHL draft picks.

I don’t give a damn about eye tests and draft picks. I’d rather have 20 wins in the CCHA than a few draft picks leading us to another three win conference wins. My “eye test” is based on three simple things: wins, standings and points. We had three conference wins this year. We finished last again, and instead of finishing close to the seventh place team, we finished 11 points behind them. And by the way, that 7th place team managed to win their opening round series against Western. Miami was swept by a combined score of 13-4. We’re not improving in the NCHC; we’re being further and further relegated into being the conference’s gimp that gets brought out of its pine box every weekend.

Here’s another actual statistic that doesn’t need an “eye test.” Average attendance \this year was 1941. In other words, Goggin was 40% empty for an average game, and that’s announced attendance as I’d bet actual butts in seats is far lower. Another actual statistic is that when the class of 2023 graduates this Spring, they will be the 5th class in a row that went through four years at Miami years with a hockey program that was a bottom feeding carp. That speaks to future alumni interest, much less donations.

This is a dumpster fire inside of a giant tire fire… Fire Bergeron, and/or get the hell into the CCHA where we can be competitive.

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Well, I guess we’re not making it too subtle that this is directed at me.

Show me where I’ve defended anything about this season since this East Palestine-style train wreck that started after New Year’s.

Last season, yes, it was Year 3 coming off of 16 months without live recruiting and ‘haves’ being able to suddenly retain four-year seniors and become even stronger. Year 4, no defense here.

The only thing close to a defense that I made was correcting someone that said Miami had made ‘no improvement’, and I explained in both replies that statistically, yes, Miami had improved. I also added the caveat in both replies that it wasn’t nearly enough.

So by saying you don’t care about NHL draft picks and having 20 wins in the CCHA is the goal, you’re saying that making the NCAA Tournament isn’t really important then, right? Because a 20-win season won’t make the tournament in that league, and with no NHL draft picks a team has very little chance of a Frozen Four berth.

For the record, Miami has two this year, with one being fifth-year backup goalie Logan Neaton. The other is Red Savage, who I think we can all agree is pretty damned good.

Do you know how many NHL draft picks the 2014-15 team had? Six. In 2009-10, the last Frozen Four year? Eight. It’s not a perfect gauge of talent but to suggest it’s not relevant is extremely naive.

Denver, the defending national champion, had 13 by the way.

I completely agree about the league standings. It’s sickening. Now explain why CC was able to beat Western in Western while Miami is making tee times? Or Why Western (see what I did there?), which has less money than Miami, is still good enough to get into the NCAAs. St. Cloud and Duluth have had coming-out parties in this league and North Dakota has continued to thrive. Denver is the envy of D-1. Omaha should’ve made the tournament.

So somehow this is the league’s fault even though 7 of 8 teams seem to be doing just fine?

You’re largely right about attendance, but some of it came down to scheduling. I don’t understand the obsession with the Sunday weekend opener, or playing games the weekend of Thanksgiving and New Year’s, but I don’t know enough about that aspect of it to lay blame.

There were a few games that had sold-out, boisterous crowds but each time it seemed to like the team disappointed every time. I’m sure those fans would have felt a lot better losing to Lake Superior or Michigan Tech.

Finally, to imply that I’m afraid of the coaching staff or being too easy on them is utterly laughable. Look at the Clement and Cassetti features I wrote and check out how many coaches’ quotes are in them.

If you’re really bored you can go back to last year after the 19-1 weekend and see what people were saying on my Twitter feed.

Yeah, I’m not going to advocate firing a coaching staff on a public forum – my own or here – but at no point have I said what happened this year is in any way acceptable.

P.S.: If you want to cough up $2 million to pay off the early-termination clause on Berge’s contract and the NCHC exit fee, call David Sayler’s office this morning.

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Your earlier assertion, Bonk, that of the 810 problems Miami hockey currently has, being in the most elite conference in college hockey is not one of them is spot on. Better coaching, better recruiting and better performance is the key at Miami. Our academics aren’t as daunting as CC yet they have resurrected their program. Our facilities are better than WMU. The balance of solid academics, a wonderful mild-weather campus and college town, a nice barn and close proximity to Ontario should allow us to be as competitive as any school in the NCHC.

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Nescacdad, maybe it should but it hasn’t (for a long time and with two different coaching staffs). I think we’d get back to competitiveness and relevancy faster in the CCHA, but as Bonk and others have outlined we can’t afford to get out of the NCHC even if our administration was so inclined.

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Dropping down is a double-edged sword. You might be more competitive in a less relevant pool but the talent you can attract weakens.

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The flip side of that argument is that winning attracts good recruits…being a perennial loser does not. Sorry for my pessimism, but we are in Berg’s 4th year and the results are just dismal.

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Change the coach, not the conference. Dropping to CCHA would place us at the equivalent of G5 in football. We’re in the equivalent of a P5 league now in hockey. In CCHA, we’d get more G5 level talent than we’re getting now. The most talented kids in hockey usually want to play at the highest level possible. The lone exception are the academically highly capable kids who opt to play D3 in NESCAC if they can’t land an Ivy spot. Most get a better financial aid package at a NESCAC school and a better education than they would get at many other D1 schools. But that’s the only situation where being a school at a lower level is an advantage in college hockey.

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Nescacdad, always respect your opinion and not trying to argue with you about this as it’s a moot point anyway…we’re in NCHC to stay for better or worse unless the NCAA rules impact D1 hockey conferences in the future. I would only add that although NCHC is a superior league to the CCHA, I’m not sure the disparity is a much as P5 vs. G5 in FBS football or power conferences on hoops vs. mid-majors. I am not an astute follower of hockey outside of Miami but isn’t the CCHA getting two NCAA tourney berths most every year? This year I believe NCHC had 3 and CCHA had two.

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Here’s another actual statistic that doesn’t need an “eye test.” Average basketball attendance this year was 1847. In other words, Millett was 80% empty for an average game, and that’s announced attendance as I’d bet actual butts in seats is far lower. Another actual statistic is that when the class of 2023 graduates this Spring, they will be the 11th class in a row that went through four years at Miami years with a basketball program that was a bottom feeding carp. That speaks to future alumni interest, much less donations.

See how dumb this sounds?