Coach Paluch

[BGFan]

I think oddly and for no good reason, that the sch should revert back to OSU home, Osu home, Osu away, Osu away etc...
this crape of spliting the series like this is crazy, esp since we play 4 times!!!! do both home games in one weekend and both away in one weekend, or reduce the sch to of CCha games to pairings and lets play some more schools in other conferences (personaly this would far more exciting than playing ccha teams 4 times. play each school twice and mix in some Maine, BC, Minesota, Neb, etc...

The home and home series have been played for a looooong time. There are only 2 teams that we play 4 times in a season. Notre Dame is our permanent "cluster mate", (meaning we always play them 4 times in a season) and a second school is then rotated in as the second cluster mate. This year it's Miami. The rest of the teams we only play twice. All of the closer teams (Miami, OSU, UM, MSU) are home and home so we will always get to play them at least once at home every year. Given the draw of OSU, UM, and MSU this is a good thing.

They toyed around with different schemes for several years after the league grew to its current size. So far this one seems to work best. If I were to change anything, however, it would be to make our permanent cluster mate Miami instead of Notre Dame. I believe OSU is Miami's permanent cluster mate which also makes sense, but we have a longer history with Miami due to our MAC affiliations which is why I'd prefer it. We have NO history with Notre Dame and they attract very little crowd when they come to town.

[pdt1081]

The home and home series have been played for a looooong time. There are only 2 teams that we play 4 times in a season. Notre Dame is our permanent "cluster mate", (meaning we always play them 4 times in a season) and a second school is then rotated in as the second cluster mate. This year it's Miami. The rest of the teams we only play twice. All of the closer teams (Miami, OSU, UM, MSU) are home and home so we will always get to play them at least once at home every year. Given the draw of OSU, UM, and MSU this is a good thing.

They toyed around with different schemes for several years after the league grew to its current size. So far this one seems to work best. If I were to change anything, however, it would be to make our permanent cluster mate Miami instead of Notre Dame. I believe OSU is Miami's permanent cluster mate which also makes sense, but we have a longer history with Miami due to our MAC affiliations which is why I'd prefer it. We have NO history with Notre Dame and they attract very little crowd when they come to town.

You are correct on the cluster system (cluster F*** is more like it) except another team and their clustermate are rotated in. This year is OSU and Miami.

With the way the CCHA is setup, ND as a clustermate makes sense. The closest school to Miami is OSU. LSSU and NMU are both in the UP. Western and Ferris are both on the west side of Michigan. UNO and UAF are plane trips and have nobody close to them. The closest school to BG is UM. But UM and MSU about the same distance as BG-UM. The only other viable option would be MSU paired with ND, and UM paired with BG. The rivalry between MSU and UM will always prevent them from being separated.

Home and home series are not bad, but against teams like Western, Ferris, Miami, and ND, it's quite a haul. I could see having away games at Ferris one night, then Western the next, but those are pretty long trips for one night. 2 hours or so should be the limit for home and homes.

[BGFan]

Oops, you're right, which is why we're playing both OSU and Miami 4 times this year.

Of all the home and homes, WMU and MSU make the least sense to me, but I do like having MSU at home since they're generally a good draw. WMU I could do without.

[Freddie]

I think it's great that the MSU and UM series got split up this year, and I hope it continues. It's good for our attendence to have Michigan visit here every year, rather than two games every other year. Same thing for MSU.
I will say, however, that in years when we play them both FOUR times, I hope they are one full weekend ay home, and one away (I enjoy an occasional weekend trip to AA) I'm not wild about the split series with Ferris and WMU...too far to drive, but it may have been necessary to get all the 'central' core teams to agree to it so the proper balance of home vs away games would work out. There is also a feeling that student attendence improves if there's ONE home game every weekend, instead of two one weekend, and none the next.

[BGFan]

Wow....this thread sure got hijacked! (Not that I'm not guilty of it myself.)

Now, back to the original intent of the thread...

[pdt1081]

Wow....this thread sure got hijacked! (Not that I'm not guilty of it myself.)

Now, back to the original intent of the thread...

My opinion is leadership. I'm not as close to the team as I was 4 years ago, but the overall quality of leadership has slowly declined since 94-95. Out of respect for the team, players, and former personel, I will not go into details on why I feel this, but those that know who I am truly understand why. It is not any one player or one class, but a gradual trend.

[Freddie]

My opinion is leadership. I'm not as close to the team as I was 4 years ago, but the overall quality of leadership has slowly declined since 94-95. Out of respect for the team, players, and former personel, I will not go into details on why I feel this, but those that know who I am truly understand why. It is not any one player or one class, but a gradual trend.

I agree with the basic premise of your post, and have some definate opinions on this topic...but as someone else said earlier on this thread, I'm going to wait 'till after the season to say anything more than this:

Scott Paluch is the best thing that's happened to BG Hockey since Rob Blake, and if his system is allowed to run to full maturity, we will return to our rightful position as a national power. Believe it, or get off the bus!

[bgsufalcon24]

I agree that Paluch is doing good things for the hockey program here. I have no doubts that with the recruiting class coming in next year and with the fact that we have a young team this year, we will be very good in the coming years. If Paluch gets the right players for his system, or if we get some solid leaders, or preferably both, we will be contending for the CCHA very soon. It looked like we were in the race for a while this year, but now youth and experience are catching up to us, which I don't think can be attributed to anything Paluch has done wrong.

I compare this team to the men's basketball team, where both teams are having not-so-good years this year. The hockey program in general hasn't been stellar since the late 80's save for a few good years here and there, while the men's basketball program was pretty good from 97-2002 and is now falling. I think in the hockey team's case, we needed several good years of recruiting to build the program up, and we have done that, but have just hit a rough spot this year where we are green. Paluch has shown that he is a very good offensive coach, as we have a very strong attack, one of the best in the conference to be sure. The one thing that is killing us is defense, and that seems to be more of a talent deficiency than anything else. I can honestly say that the future of the hockey program looks bright.

That is something I cannot say for the men's basketball program, where we have nobody good coming in this year, and our past good players have transferred out. We don't have that in hockey. Paluch has done a much better job at keeping players than Dakich has. The overall direction of the basketball program is truly bleak compared to hockey, especially after next year when Floyd and Samarco leave. Both Dakich and Paluch have been under a lot of criticism this year, but the way I see it, Paluch is a keeper, while Dakich oughta be gone.

[BGFan]

My opinion is leadership. I'm not as close to the team as I was 4 years ago, but the overall quality of leadership has slowly declined since 94-95. Out of respect for the team, players, and former personel, I will not go into details on why I feel this, but those that know who I am truly understand why. It is not any one player or one class, but a gradual trend.

I agree with the basic premise of your post, and have some definate opinions on this topic...but as someone else said earlier on this thread, I'm going to wait 'till after the season to say anything more than this:

Scott Paluch is the best thing that's happened to BG Hockey since Rob Blake, and if his system is allowed to run to full maturity, we will return to our rightful position as a national power. Believe it, or get off the bus!

My guess is that our opinions aren't too far apart...

[Bleeding Orange]

That is something I cannot say for the men's basketball program, where we have nobody good coming in this year, and our past good players have transferred out. We don't have that in hockey. Paluch has done a much better job at keeping players than Dakich has. The overall direction of the basketball program is truly bleak compared to hockey, especially after next year when Floyd and Samarco leave. Both Dakich and Paluch have been under a lot of criticism this year, but the way I see it, Paluch is a keeper, while Dakich oughta be gone.

Shut up.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

I am so sick of reading your uninformed drivel about the basketball team in every post you make in every forum.

You need to learn some tact. This is the hockey forum. Talk hockey. I don't want to hear about Dakich here, and neither does anyone else.

[bgsufalcon24]

That is something I cannot say for the men's basketball program, where we have nobody good coming in this year, and our past good players have transferred out. We don't have that in hockey. Paluch has done a much better job at keeping players than Dakich has. The overall direction of the basketball program is truly bleak compared to hockey, especially after next year when Floyd and Samarco leave. Both Dakich and Paluch have been under a lot of criticism this year, but the way I see it, Paluch is a keeper, while Dakich oughta be gone.

Shut up.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

I am so sick of reading your uninformed drivel about the basketball team in every post you make in every forum.

You need to learn some tact. This is the hockey forum. Talk hockey. I don't want to hear about Dakich here, and neither does anyone else.

Oops, I think I forgot the football forum...

Seriously, if you guys want to run me off here, fine I get the point. Just about everything I post here is considered uninformed drivel anyway.

[Bleeding Orange]

That is something I cannot say for the men's basketball program, where we have nobody good coming in this year, and our past good players have transferred out. We don't have that in hockey. Paluch has done a much better job at keeping players than Dakich has. The overall direction of the basketball program is truly bleak compared to hockey, especially after next year when Floyd and Samarco leave. Both Dakich and Paluch have been under a lot of criticism this year, but the way I see it, Paluch is a keeper, while Dakich oughta be gone.

Shut up.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

I am so sick of reading your uninformed drivel about the basketball team in every post you make in every forum.

You need to learn some tact. This is the hockey forum. Talk hockey. I don't want to hear about Dakich here, and neither does anyone else.

Oops, I think I forgot the football forum...

Seriously, if you guys want to run me off here, fine I get the point. Just about everything I post here is considered uninformed drivel anyway.

Oh, come off it. Nobody is trying run anybody out of anywhere. Just think a little bit, thats all. People have tried to tell you this in not so subtle ways before.

Seriously, the piss-fest on Dakich is getting old enough in the Hoops forum. If it continues to spill into every other forum on the board, someone needs to say something because it has gotten far beyond the point of being simply annoying.

And as far as the "uninformed drivel" part, yes, I suppose that was a bit harsh, but I think a lot of people are turned off by your declarative and definitive statements given the youth of your relationship to the program. Its nothing personal, I assure you.

[BGDrew]

These boards have been particularly doom and gloom lately. A lot of the crap is becoming worse and worse to read. Scott Paluch and Dan Dakich are as about as opposite as you get, so comparing the two is wasting time.

[Bleeding Orange]

Back to the topic at hand (sorry for the further aside), I suppose if anyone was going to make a constructive criticism of Pooch's coaching this year, it would be that our offense could be considered "too structured." Now, bear with me here.

I am sitting here watching Canada vs. Finland (women), and it dawned on me that good teams, to some degree, allow things to happen (and I don't think anyone can deny that the Canadian women are a good team). Little things like throwing the puck at the off pad on a two-on-one rush hoping for a decent rebound rather than trying to force a pass by the defender, or through the goalie, are the kinds of things that I'm talking about. This is the type of thing that I think we could very much benefit, especially with a man-advantage. Really, I think we play more of a pass-and-shoot type of offense where everyone is kept around the perimeter and success is predicated by everyone being in proper position to hold the puck in and exploit the defense.

The only time that I can remember seeing or hearing of us really taking these types of chances and crashing the net was in the 3rd period against Colgate when we scored a goal off of an intentional shot and rebound off of the back boards. Other than that, I really don't recall us trying to employ these types of true "chance" plays.

And while it is the really "good" teams that do this kind of thing on a consistent basis, I also think that developing teams, like ours, can benefit from trying to make the unplanned happen. In reality, it could also benefit us defensively. Were we to become a bit more aggressive offensively below the point (i.e., crashing the net with both forwards and the centerman), our defensemen could remain along the blueline to ensure that breakaways do not happen (and this is a HUGE problem on our PP's this year).

I don't know if any of this makes any sense. I am the first to admit to being very much a student of hockey theory, but I guess this sounds right to me. I will say, however, that our offense has been pretty good this year. Where we have seemed to have struggled is in transitioning to Defense out of the offensive set.

[The Niz]

I agree totally with what you're proposing. Our team doesn't take enough chances on the offensive side of the ice. With a team that has speed issues such as our own we need to keep the opposition as off-balance as possible because we don't have anyone around fast enough to stop a breakaway, which is why we have so many problems with giving so many up.