INCH Coach of the Year Candidates

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What else can Mike do? Either it's the system or it's the goalie (a lot of one and some of the other?) and all I can tell you is that one has consistently outlasted the other.

1st in team defense, 3rd in Penalty Kill, 4th in Power Play, 1st in Combined Special Teams, 1st in Scoring Margin, 3rd in Winning Percentage, 3rd best current unbeaten streak (6-0-0)

I know, I know, same old story and he got love as the #1 guy off of the list...but what else can he do?

I give it to Sneddon without hesitation. Tragic that the ECAC will lose him and UVM.

[Q]calgARI '07 Wrote:

I give it to Sneddon without hesitation. Tragic that the ECAC will lose him and UVM.[/q]

Completely agree.

My question is, it seems like for Mike to win it, the team either has to first have a poor season and then do extremely well the following season or come off a good season and completely dominate. (Please forgive me) Our stats show domination. I don't dispute that Sneddon, Donato, and Vaughan have all done great jobs. I'm just asking, what else can Mike do at this point in the season? Of course, the Colgate games will sort some things out...

I think you hafta figure that any time a team goes from the bottom third to the top third, their coach is going to win COTY (leaving aside why the team was in the bottom third to begin with, Mr. Taylor...)

Adam has a good point: Voters (and scribes) love rags-to-riches, worst-to-first kinds of stories. I cannot believe I am saying something nice about the Y*ankees, but Joe Torre is a great manager every year and he might get more recognition club-hopping (baseball-, not Jeter-style) and taking a .400 team into a .580 team.

There ought to be, say, three hockey COTY awards:

Rookie of the year - first year as a head coach, or first year as head coach in D1.

Coach of the year - For the coach who's hottest this year even if his team is about to go 12-18-4 next year. The one Schafer would be unsuited to win.

Master coach of the year - For five or more years of outstanding coaching. Jerry York would win this one but within a year or two it would be Schafer's turn.

(Maybe a fourth COTY) Turnaround coach of the year - Coach who improves his team dramatically.

I'm as bad as the rest (almost as bad), moaning about lack of offense, no excitement, lack of a decent third goalie (as if No. 2 would ever play anyhow), giving up goals (usually the first of the game) in the third period, not enough seats in Lynah, we probably won't make it all the way to the title game (along with 56 other D1 teams), yada yada. OTOH we're in first in the ECAC, we're one of the ten best teams in the country, we might be one of the five best, the defense is incredible, we avoided last January's collapse, and two-thirds of the way through the season, we've only lost four games. For that, I think Schafer deserves credit.

64-13-7 .804 in ECAC RS and 90-28-16 .731 overall since the 00-01 stretch run.

Sometimes we forget just what he's accomplished.

[q]but Joe Torre is a great manager every year and he might get more recognition club-hopping (baseball-, not Jeter-style) and taking a .400 team into a .580 team.[/q]Torre is an excellent player's manager, no doubt, and the perfect guy to weather the Bronx Zoo. But he wouldn't instantly turn a .400 baseball team into a .580 team. His many sub .500 seasons with the Mets (6 for 6), Braves (1 of 3) and Cardinals (3 of 6) demonstrate this. How many people remember that the day he was hired the New York Post ran the headline "Clueless Joe"?

Joe will get his credit BTW. He's got a good chance of making the Hall based on his run with the Yankees. Even if Gene Michael had a lot to do with his success.

College hockey is a different beast, of course. Coaches have a lot more influence on a team's results simply by recruiting.