I saw this over on Brad Elliott Schlossman's blog this morning and according to Andy Baggot of The Wisconsin State Journal coach Howard's departure might not be 100% amicable.
I would imagine that there are probably a few teams (high school, college, junior and possibly professional) that would love to have a guy like Howard mentoring their young goalies. In my opinion the guy is a genius.
Goon,
ReplyDeleteI don't think that he was forced out, but I think the situation caused him to speed up his decision to step down. He was going to stop down at some point, but I figured that we had several more years left.
Sounds like Eaves/Howard didn't mesh well together, and I suspect that both coaches like to do things their own way and that could be uncomfortable at times. The Badgers' previous head coach, Jeff Sauer, was a pretty laissez-faire guy, and I'm guessing that Howard's comfort level with him was better than his comfort level with Eaves.
Todd Milewski had a nice article yesterday that indicates Howard was not satisfied with his role being increasing limited to just coaching the goaltenders.
Bill Howard made the Badger "Goaltender U", and it's unfortunate that he's leaving the Badgers under these terms. I'm a Sad Badger.
Oh, and you're right, Howard is a genius. As Todd points out in his article yesterday, goaltending has changed a lot over the years, and Howard has been remarkable at adapting to the changes and remaining successful.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the article. It's the same article I referenced in my previous comment.
http://www.madison.com/tct/sports/uw/hockey/301809