Brown University announces Women's Ice Hockey Head Coaching Search

On March 15, Brown University announced their women's ice hockey head coach will not be back next year. They also announced they are doing a national search to fill the vacancy. Head coach Bob Kenneally is leaving after three years and a dismal 12-72-3 record. It’s been tough times at Brown, as the once dominant program has not had a winning season since 2005-2006, and their lone Frozen Four appearance dates to 2002.

In NCAA Division 1 women's college hockey, head coaching jobs don’t come up often: anywhere from 1 to 5 in each of the years since 2001, for the now 34 programs. Last year there were three programs that replaced their coach: After a multi month search, Penn State hired long time head coach Jeff Kampersal away from Princeton. Twelve days later Princeton announced the promotion their associate head coach Cara Morey to head coach. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) also replaced their women’s head coach last year, appointing Bryan Vines to a one year interim head coach role. Vines was appointed after a restricted three day search, and is a former men’s assistant hockey coach at RPI. The other 31 programs had no head coaching changes last year.

The above are typical sources of head coaches in women’s hockey – hiring an existing D1 women’s head coach, promotion from within the women’s program, and hiring across programs at the same school. Last year all the head coach placements went to people with lengthy hockey resumes. Vines’ appointment raised some eyebrows as he did not have experience coaching women’s hockey but his hockey and coaching resume is otherwise impressive, including time as a video coach for the Colorado Avalanche among other experiences.

The vacancy at Brown is intriguing because it invites the question of how good of a coach Brown will seek to hire. Exiting head coach Kenneally did not list any prior hockey coaching experience on his bio that was posted on the Brown website. He may have had relevant prior experience and not listed it, but that would be unusual. Most Division I head coaches have extensive coaching resumes, many of them with Hockey Canada or USA Hockey coaching experience. While I don’t know the circumstances of the hire, it just wasn't inspiring for fans of women's hockey, nor were the on ice results. Kenneally is a 1990 Brown graduate and former ice hockey player and had most recently been the Executive Associate Director of Athletics at Brown, prior to taking on the coaching job at Brown in 2015. 

But that era is now in the past. With the announcement that they are doing a national head coaching search, Brown can make a positive statement about their commitment to women’s hockey by doing an exhaustive search and hiring an experienced hockey coach, full of potential to restore the program to its once winning ways.

Aspiring head coaches or active head coaches looking for a change of scenery will now need to decide if this is a job they are interested in. In college sports, some places are harder than others to win at. Winning at an Ivy is tough because they don’t give athletic scholarships, so students may need to have financial resources if they do not qualify for financial aid or academic scholarships. Additionally, the admission requirements are going to be stricter than most schools. Both these factors limit the talent pool an Ivy league head coach can recruit from. On the flip side, players are attracted to getting an Ivy league education, and Meehan Auditorium is a quality venue to play at, two factors which increase the pool of recruits wanting to play for Brown. Brown is not the easiest program to recruit to, but it’s far from the worst. A good coach can win there, especially if he or she wins over the administration and gets the support needed to run a winning program.

To me, this is a desirable job opening, especially if the administration makes a case during the interview process that they will support the new head coach in his or her efforts to bring a winning culture and Ivy, ECAC and National Championships to the program.

In terms of potential coaches, well its anyone’s best guess. Here are some coaches that came to mind for me:

Rob Stauber: Most recently coached the US Women’s National Team to gold at the Olympics. I am not sure how contracts with USA Hockey work, but presumably he will be under consideration to coach the Olympics in four years’ time. If a school can hire a guy who is on track to coach future national teams, that would do wonders for recruiting and winning. It would be fascinating to watch Stauber try to turn a program around; we’d see what his coaching chops are really made of. At the same time we would get to see him coach in the same league as Laura Schuler (Canada’s Olympic coach) who returns to Dartmouth for her second year of head coaching another struggling Ivy.

Delaney Collins: Most recently coached the Canada U18 Women to a bronze medal at the Under 18 World Championships in January of 2018. Prior to that she was an assistant coach at the high school level for the Okanagan Hockey Academy for one season. Her coaching career began as an assistant coach at Mercyhurst college from 2011 through 2016, going to the Frozen Four twice in that span. Prior to that Collins was a longtime member of the Canadian Women’s National Team, winning 3 gold and 2 silver medals in world championships. I think Collins’ resume is as beefed up as it is going to get. If she wants a head coaching job at an NCAA or USports school, she has the resume to do it.

Jess Koizumi: Has one year of experience as the Associate Head Coach for the Vermont Catamounts. Prior to that Koizumi was at OSU for one year as Associate Head Coach. Prior to that she was an assistant coach at Yale for six years. Koizumi played for Team USA, winning a gold at the world championship in 2008, among other National Team experience. She played at UMD from 2003 – 2007. Jess is experienced in coaching NCAA hockey, has national team experience and Ivy League recruiting experience, all attributes that make her a strong candidate for this role.

Brian Idalski: Former UND head coach, with a lifetime D1 record of 169-156-39. Idalski did not coach this year that I am aware of. UND cut their women’s ice hockey program at the end of the 2017 season.

My guess is that Brown wants to get the hire right. They were once a dominant, winning program, and are a program that has been home to several Olympians. Former Head Coach Digit Murphy is an icon in women's hockey, currently coaching the Kunlun Red Stars in the CWHL. Brown holds the distinction of being the first college to ever have a women’s ice hockey team, with their first team lacing up their skates in 1964, something to be incredibly proud of. There is a pool of talented, experienced coaches out there, and here’s hoping Brown will find one.

Whether there will be other head coaching changes this year or whether this is the only one, we’ll just have to wait and see.

7 Quick Takes: Colgate to play in its first NCAA Championship game

It's Saturday morning and my kids will be up soon. Let's see what I can say before they wake.

1- The semifinals of the Frozen Four were played yesterday, with both games going to overtime. #1 Clarkson beat #4 Ohio State in a 1-0 overtime. #3 Colgate beat #2 Wisconsin 4-3 in double overtime. Both were fantastic games. I'm a little sad for Ohio State because I think they played well enough to win and I live in Ohio. Jincy Dunne, redshirt sophomore #33 on OSU is an absolute treat to watch with one end to end rush after another.

The final shots in the OSU Clarkson game were 41-34 in favor of OSU. The final shots in the Wisconsin Colgate double OT game were 48-24 Wisconsin. That's a tough one for Wisconsin. Wisconsin has been criticized in the past for having their offense dry up at the wrong time. This year they got the offense, but their goalie had a tough night after an impressive season. What can you say other than that this speaks to how hard it is to win championships, all the pieces a coach must put together and get performing at their best come tournament time.

2- The stage is set for an all ECAC championship game. This hasn't happened since prior to 2001 when the NCAA started awarded annual championships in women's hockey, per @gopherstate Nate Wells, via Twitter. A WCHA team has always been in the Championship game, specifically one of UMD, Minnesota, or Wisconsin.

3- Let's talk about Clarkson. They beat OSU in a back and forth affair. The win in OT was their fourth OT win of the year, bringing their OT record to 4-1-1 this year. They have overtime wins against Ohio State and Mercyhurst in the NCAA tournament, and regular season OT wins against Cornell and RPI. Think about that for a second, think about celebrating four OT wins in ONE season. How many OT wins have you had your entire hockey career? I think I've had two, maybe three. I have to think they are not that common. Clarkson in OT is scary, is the bottom line.

What's crazier, Loren Gabel, First Team All American and star junior forward for Clarkson now has three OT goals this year. The fourth was scored by her line mate 2nd Team All American Elizabeth Giguere. Not to be forgotton, Michaela Pezjlova has 3 OT assists. Watching Clarkson, you think they are beatable. It's back and forth games and opponents get sustained time in the offensive done. Only problem is Clarkson has two more first team All Americans in goaltender Shea Tiley, and defender Savannah Harmon. So while they look beatable, they've proven it's easier said than done. They play in their 3rd championship game on Sunday. If they can win a third championship, I'd say they are a dynasty.

4- I said Clarkson's OT record is 4-1-1. Who has beat them in overtime this year? None other than league rival, and co regular season ECAC champion, Colgate University, who they will play in the national championship game. Colgate and Clarkson have played each other three times this year, with Clarkson having a 2-1 lead in the series, including a 3-0 win over Colgate in the ECAC tournament championship. The Colgate OT win over Clarkson goes all the way back to October 27th, the losses of 5-3 and 3-0 were in January and two weeks ago respectively. This is not a great trend for Colgate but I bet they could not care less right now; they are only looking for revenge against Clarkson on a national stage, seeking their first National Championship in their first ever title game.

5- Every now and again I think it's nice to insert some context into my women's hockey knowledge, just step back and try to understand what happened. Yesterday, two small private school universities knocked off two Big Ten schools (although they are WCHA for women's hockey). Allegiances aside, that's pretty cool. Granted, Clarkson has been respected in women's hockey for over a decade and a powerhouse since 2014, but still I can only imagine the pride those small schools must feel in beating OSU and Wisconsin.

Anyone who knows women's hockey knows Clarkson and Colgate, but for the broader audience to whom women's hockey is always trying to appeal, this accomplishment puts their programs under a national spotlight, if only for a brief amount of time. Why it was just five minutes ago I saw the Buccigross tweet, "Wow, for Colgate" with the game winning goal embedded for all his 400,000 followers to see. The first response was "Colgate proud." Way to go Colgate. That's pretty cool.

6- You may be wondering so how big is Colgate and Clarkson and where are they anyway? Clarkson is a private school of 4,300 students, located in Potsdam, NY, a town of 15,000 residents. Potsdam is located about 90 miles south of Ottawa, not for from the Canadian and American border.

Colgate University is located in the Village of Hamilton, NY. It is also a small private school, with an enrollment of 2,800 students. Hamilton NY has a population of 4,070, and is located about 150 miles south of Potsdam, not far from Syracuse.

It's fun for me to look this up; in college I just got on a bus and it took us to rinks, I obviously knew the state I was going to but didn't pay much attention to cities and locations on maps. It's kind of amazing to see the success these small schools have had and it fuels my belief that fellow small school Mercyhurst will get back to the Frozen Four.

7- Lastly, I just wanted to comment on how fun it is with social media, to see the pride and joy in these young athletes as they experience their dreams coming true of making the frozen four, then chasing that championship at the tournament. For me, this is why my interest holds even after my team is out, even if I don't really care who wins at this point. A tweet that really captured this school pride, happiness and excitement was this one, of Colgate getting their jerseys ready, ironing on that Frozen Four patch they worked so hard to earn. Just fantastic.

Look good. Play better. #GoGate #FrozenFour pic.twitter.com/UVB3qpUgA9

— Colgate W Hockey (@ColgateWIH) March 15, 2018

That's all I got guys. Have a great weekend.

Ohio State storylines in this year's Frozen Four

The Frozen Four is set and so it’s time to either:

a) Celebrate because your team is in it.
b) Say goodbye to hockey and move on to something new if your team is not.
c) Pick a team to cheer for out of the remaining teams, just to prolong your hockey watching season.

This year’s Frozen Four features Clarkson, Colgate, Wisconsin and Ohio State, so I am in category C. Some years I probably wouldn’t care but as an Ohioan, I guess I can get behind Ohio State.

While each team that is in the Frozen Four has its own set of storylines and reasons to cheer for them, here are some for Ohio State:

Cheer for a team that endured some bad times and has found the good times.
Since 2014, the Buckeyes have had three different head coaches. That is nuts. I can’t imagine what that would be like. Learning new systems every year, and having a coach put together completely different lines every year. Having to earn the respect of a new coach every year. Having a coach try to put in a new culture every year. Having to put up with a coach who is still learning about the school and earning their own credibility with administration. Saying goodbye to assistants or maybe even a head coach you cared about. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone; that’s not what a college athlete experience is supposed to be like. 

Finally, in the 2017-2018 season the players had the benefit of having the same coach for two years in a row. With the chaos behind them, they put up a program best record of 24-10-4, good enough for 2nd place in the WCHA, and a season that’s not over yet.

A Cinderella team that’s not so Cinderella.
The #4 ranked Ohio State is the lowest ranked team in the tournament, but with two regular season wins against #2 Wisconsin, some star power of their own, and Olympians away for the year, Ohio State actually has a shot at winning this thing (in the semi they first need to get past Clarkson, and would play winner of Wisconsin vs Colgate).

Ohio State freshman forward Emma Maltais (Burlington, Ontario) put up a team leading 40 points, good enough to win WCHA rookie of the year. Two Ohio State defensemen have more than twenty points this year. Redshirt sophomore Jincy Dunne (O’Fallon, Missouri) and junior Lauren Boyle (Los Gatos, California) both have 26. Finally in net, the Buckeyes have Kassidy Sauve (Whitby, Ontario), a 2017 2nd team All American, who served Boston College their first shutout of the season last weekend. Boston College has the highest scoring offense in the nation, averaging 4.08 goals per game.

Root for the sole female head coach at this year’s Frozen Four to win it all.
Coach Nadine Muzerall, an Ontario native and former player and assistant coach at the University of Minnesota is in her second year coaching the women in scarlet and gray. Muzerall is one of 8 active female head coaches in NCAA Division I ice hockey, and won the WCHA Coach of the Year award. She has a two year coaching record of 38-28-9.

No female head coach has won an NCAA Championship since 2014 when Shannon Desrosiers, co-head coach of Clarkson did so with Matt Desrosiers. Since so few teams have won the Championship only 6 different head coaches total have won it all (others include Laura Halldorson – Minnesota, Shannon Miller – UMD, Brad Frost – Minnesota, and Mark Johnson – Wisconsin). A female head coach at the Frozen Four is no rarity; Katie Stone of Harvard was there as recent as 2015, and Katie King-Crowley of BC is seemingly there almost every year. With the Frozen Four being held at Ridder Arena, Muzerall’s old stomping grounds, I can’t think of a better place for her to win it all. Muzerall's coaching colleagues include Associate Head Coach Peter Elander and Assistant coach Milica McMillen.

Cheer for a Championship ring, in hopes of a new rink.
Would a National Championship speed up the fundraising for the long awaited new ice rink to be built at Ohio State? One can hope, and that’s enough of a reason to cheer. To be clear, a new rink is merited, championship or not. As an Ohioan, I hear often about the rink shortage in Columbus plus the laments about the Ohio State facilities. Ohio State’s arena situation has long been the topic of impassioned debate. It’s a little bit of a Goldilocks and The Three Bears situation down there. To be brief, the Schottenstein Center where the men play is too big, the OSU Rink where the women play is too small (and old). A brand new 4,000 seat facility for the men’s and women’s programs to play in would be just right.

Both existing OSU rinks are serviceable but for programs who aspire to national championships and must recruit against schools with more impressive hockey facilities, a school of OSU’s athletic department stature is expected to do better. In fairness to OSU, at least they have programs. It’s more than can be said for most schools. In a radio interview in 2017, Muzerall estimated a new rink is set to begin fundraising for in 2019. That makes it sound like a new rink is in the program’s 5 year plan. For a school that has seemingly had a 5 year plan to build a new rink for the better part of two decades, maybe an NCAA Championship would speed up the process, or at least make plans more concrete.

There’s a saying in central Ohio, “Columbus is a hockey town.” I believe it to be true, but an NCAA championship and a new rink would go a long way to put the rest of the country on notice as well.

So there’s some Ohio State Frozen Four storylines, and this weekend, let’s go Bucks.

Colgate University and Ohio State University Women’s Hockey to Participate in Programs’ First Frozen Four

The national quarter finals in women’s Division I NCAA ice hockey were played at four host sites on Saturday, and the results were extra sweet for Colgate University and Ohio State University. Colgate and OSU each earned their first berth in the annual Frozen Four taking place at Ridder Arena, University of Minnesota next weekend. Not only that, this year marked those programs’ first time participating in the NCAA Tournament which is a two weekend, 8 team event. To make the NCAA Tournament there are auto-bids for each of the four conference champions, and four at large bids allocated based on pairwise ranking.

The last time a program played in the Frozen Four for the first time was 2014 when the Clarkson Golden Knights not only made their Frozen Four debut, but upset Minnesota in the championship game to win their first National Championship. A member of the ECAC, Clarkson became the first non WCHA team to win the National Championship.

In Saturday’s history making bids, #3 Colgate defeated Northeastern University 3-1, while Ohio State upset #4 Boston College 2-0. Other quarter final winners included defending national Champion, #1 Clarkson University 2-1 in OT over Mercyhurst, and #2 Wisconsin University 4-0 over University of Minnesota. The Ohio State result was the only upset of the day.

2018 marks the 18^th year of the women’s Frozen Four as an NCAA sponsored championship. Of the 34 Division 1 programs, 16 (one of which is now defunct) have had the honor of representing their school at the Frozen Four.  These programs include, in order of number of all time Frozen Four appearances:

Frozen Four Appearances By School
NCAA Division I Women's Ice Hockey
2001-2018
School	League	Alltime	2015 - 2018	Championships
Minnesota	WCHA	13	3	6
Wisconsin	WCHA	11	4	4
Boston College	Hockey East	7	3
University of Minnesota Duluth	WCHA	7	0	5
Harvard	ECAC	6	1
St Lawrence	ECAC	5	0
Mercyhurst	CHA	4	0
Dartmouth	ECAC	4	0
Clarkson	ECAC	4	3	2
Cornell	ECAC	3	0
Boston University	Hockey East	2	0
University of New Hampshire	Hockey East	2	0
Ohio State	WCHA	1	1
Colgate	ECAC	1	1
Brown	ECAC	1	0
Niagara (program disbanded)	ECAC / CHA	1	0

Minnesota has been to an incredible 13 Frozen Fours, and has won more National Championships than any program, with 6. University of Minnesota-Duluth has “only” been to 7 Frozen Fours, but when they come they come to win, having won 5 Championships. Wisconsin is not far behind with 10 Frozen Four appearances (11^th next weekend) and 4 National Championships. Rounding out the National Champions list is Clarkson with 3 Frozen Four appearances (4^th next weekend) and 2 National Championships. 

In the past four years, 7 programs have been represented at the Women’s Frozen Four. The longest active streak of Frozen Four appearances is 5, for Wisconsin. That means that the seniors at Wisconsin have gone to the Frozen Four in each year they’ve played college hockey. The National Championship has eluded this group thus far, with Clarkson winning it all last year, and Minnesota winning in 2015 and 2016.

The semi-final bracket for the 2018 Frozen Four is lots of fun: #5 Ohio State (WCHA) vs #1 Clarkson (ECAC), and #3 Colgate (ECAC) vs #2 Wisconsin (WCHA). We are getting those high profile inter league matchups that we crave all season in the semis, plus we could end up with an all ECAC, all WCHA, or ECAC vs WCHA final. I’ll think about the semi final matchups in due time, but once the results were known today my mind went to potential final matchups.

Potential Final Matchup: Colgate vs Clarkson

Clarkson and Colgate met in the ECAC final after being co-champions of the ECAC regular season. Clarkson won the ECAC tournament with a 3-0 win over Colgate. If these teams were to meet in the national final, Colgate would be looking for revenge against a well known opponent on a national stage, similar to what Wisconsin did Saturday when they dispatched WCHA champion Minnesota in their NCAA quarterfinal.

Potential Final Matchup: OSU vs Wisconsin

If we see an all WCHA National Championship game it would of course be OSU vs Wisconsin, and be the teams’ fifth meeting this year. The series went 2-2 this year, with each team winning their home series. OSU was eliminated in the WCHA semi-final at Ridder two weeks ago by Minnesota when OSU was without their starting goalie, Kassidy Sauve. Sauve is a 2017 2^nd Team All American, but did not win a WCHA league award this year despite having a tremendous year, albeit with numbers that were less impressive than goaltender Kristen Campbell of Wisconsin. 

An OSU Wisconsin final would be compelling as it would be a first for OSU, with a chance to win it all against a league opponent who has traditionally gotten the better of them.

Wisconsin is a perennial powerhouse but hasn’t won a National Championship since 2011 when they had now Olympic stars Meghan Duggan, Brianna Decker, Hilary Knight and Alex Rigsby. Despite being ranked the number one team in the country for most of this year, the 2017-2018 Wisconsin team does not have that kind of star power. A Wisconsin National Championship by a blue collar roster (by Wisconsin standards) would be a compelling story, just not on the level that an Ohio State National Championship would be.

Potential Final Matchup: OSU vs Colgate

Imagine, just imagine if we saw an ECAC vs WCHA National Championship game featuring the #3 Colgate Raiders vs #5 Ohio State University Buckeyes. An east west matchup (albeit a close one; Hamilton, New York is 512 miles north east of Columbus, Ohio), between two teams in their first ever NCAA Tournament, who made it to the Frozen Four, and in this hypothetical are playing in their first National Championship game. To say one program’s win would be a better storyline than the other; I’m not sure I could do that.

Potential Final Matchup: Clarkson vs Wisconsin

The final option would be a Clarkson vs Wisconsin final. If this is what we end up with, I’ll interpret it as the big dogs sending a message to the new pups on the block, as in welcome Colgate and OSU, but the final is not for you yet. The Clarkson seniors are playing in their third consecutive Frozen Four, looking to defend last year’s National Championship. As written above, the Badgers are looking to return to the pinnacle of success at the NCAA level, like their Olympic alums did last month on the international level. 

Semi Finals are on Friday March 16, 2018, broadcast on the Big Ten Network, and hopefully streaming online across all borders.