It has been a two-team league the first two seasons but it isn’t even close this year and I don’t see it getting better with players now able to transfer at will.
I also think Bergeron’s negativity toward the league hinders his ability to win in it and has rubbed off on the team.
I think getting rid of bergs could have a positive impact on the team just mentally with having a fresh start. Lots of negativity lifted and some new hope.
Like with the blue jackets since jarmo was fired they’ve been playing better even though JD hasn’t really made any massive changes yet
This entire discussion boils down to one thing for me – are we willing to open the checkbook to pay the right guy to get him in the building. If we are, then let’s do it and kick butt and the sky’s the limit. If not, then the naysayers in this discussion are right, we’re waving the white flag, we’ll never get over the hump, and we should drop down to the CCHA. David Sayler, it’s your move, time to earn your paycheck.
There’s evidence that Bergeron is not the right guy, but beyond that there is no evidence we can’t make a go of it in this league. If the new guy comes in and fails, then let’s talk. But until THAT day comes, I’m not buying the argument we can’t do this as all the facts presented aren’t root causes, they’re symptoms.
Back to lurking
And CC has elite academics.
Lurker: I take no exception to your thought process other than your statement that “there has been no evidence that we cannot make a go of it in this league”. Our consistently horrendous W-L record in the last 10 years in NCHC under two coaches would say otherwise.
If Western Michigan can play well in the NCHC no reason Miami can’t.
This is the exact argument that was made before Bergeron was hired 5 long years ago. At that time Saylor hired the guy everyone thought could get it done. Now we are in a much worse place than we were then. It would be even more difficult now than it would have been then. We also now have the transfer portal and NIL to deal with which both work against a team in our position.
I hear you. One could say the track record speaks for itself and I don’t discount the point you’re making. I was strongly against Bergeron being hired before he was actually hired; go back and look at my posts on the old MHT board that’s no longer there. So is the situation due to institutional issues we will never overcome because of who we are (drop down to the CCHA argument) or are they because we hired a crappy coach (we can get to the NCHC promised land argument)? I’ve convinced myself, rightly or wrongly, that it’s the crappy coach who should have never been hired in the first place and to me it’s no surprise we are where we are. Hence my comment that stuff like W/L and face off win % is symptomatic and not endemic.
I’m not ready to admit we’re no better than BUGS or Ferris State. I want Sayler to spend the dough to bring in the right guy and prove all the naysayers wrong about who we are. OK, that was over the top, but y’all get what I mean. If the new guy also f^@ks it up, then I’ll hop on the “CCHA or Bust” bus.
Back to lurking.
Dick, we were ships passing in the night with our posts. Not everyone thought Bergeron was the one to lead us to the promised land.
Edit: Oops…Back to lurking.
You ask for reasons why the other 7 teams in the NCHC are so successful and we are not. There are a couple of fairly obvious reasons why we don’t fit well in this league. All 7 of these schools are hockey schools located in the middle of hockey country. Miami has a long tradition of being a great football and basketball school located in an area where those are the the sports that everyone follows and plays. We have the Cradle of Coaches and 4 times have finished a season ranked between 10th and 15th. We have more MAC championships and upsets of Power conference schools than anybody else. In basketball we have 4 times made it to the Sweet 16 and have far more NCAA bids and MAC championships than anybody else . That is basically unmatched by any other Mid Major.
None of the other 7 NCHC schools have any great tradition in either of those sports. They do, however, have great Hockey traditions. That is where all the money and attention go to.
We are also a geographical outlier in this league. There is nothing else besides hockey that connects us with any of these schools. It is a terrible match. Since joining the NCHC are television coverage has disappeared. We used to have weekly league hilight shows and 4 or 5 TV games a year and the CCHA tournament was close by and all games were televised. That has all disappeared in the NCHC.
This is the “we are who we are” argument. You make solid points. I’m not ready to give up … yet.
Back to lurking.
Here’s a wild thought: is it possible we have more top 25 finishes in hockey than we do in other sports? I saw Dick’s post that says 4 top 10-15 in football. Football has been played at Miami over 100 years. Yet I actually think hockey with less than 50 years has at least 5 top 25 final rankings. Hmmm….now I’m curious…
How many teams at the top of the NCHC also struggle to properly support/fund a FBS team, a DI Basketball team, and a DI Hockey team in an “elite” conference. Miami continues to prove my point that they cannot compete at the highest levels on a consistent basis as long as things remain as they are.
The history isn’t quite what some make of it outside of Rico’s run from 02-03 to 14-15. A few bright spots among a lot of pain. Hockey had an incredible run, but it hasn’t shown that it can do that across multiple decades the way football and basketball have.
I’m confused by one part of this conversation. Several people argue that being in the NCHC means we draw better players. If we’re getting better players why aren’t we better as a team?
They regress when they get here 
It’ll be interesting to see what bergeron does next. Imagine he takes the Stonehill position and gets them to 20 wins and tournament bids in a couple seasons. Or has success faster on any other struggling team for that matter. Would people start to think he wasn’t the problem here? Miami would be the outlier in his head coaching career
I wish this had final year end rankings. some of these records would indicate (to me) that we would have finished top 25. either way, thanks for sending.
Given that college hockey is a niche sport played by few schools and that the majority of big money athletic departments don’t take part, I’d argue that a top 10 hockey finish woukd be needed to equal a top 25 finish in basketball or football.
Miami is a geographical outlier in any league, including the CCHA and there’s nothing that would connect us to those schools besides hockey either. Most of the CCHA schools would probably consider themselves hockey centric as well just without the spending levels of some of the CCHA schools. If we move to the CCHA what guarantees are we to believe would lead us to success there?
We went from having 4-5 televised games to having all of the home games plus away conference games in a streaming package. A lot of those 4-5 games were only available to Time Warner customers as well. While NCHCTV may not be the perfect outlet in terms of broadening availabilty for fans it feels like an upgrade to me, especially when you look at the overall landscape of college hockey broadcast outlets.