PSU to hire Guy Gadowsky as head coach

Interesting! While many said that Scott Sandelin was the front runner for the PSU head coaching position the PSU Nittany Lions select Princeton head hockey coach Guy Gadowsky as their guy.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Penn State Director of Athletics Tim Curley has announced the hiring of Guy Gadowsky, formerly of Princeton University, as the first head coach of the men's ice hockey program. The 2008 Inside College Hockey National Coach of the Year, Gadowsky brings 15 years of head coaching experience to lead the Nittany Lions into NCAA Division I competition starting in 2012-13.

Gadowsky has spent the past seven years leading Princeton's resurgence, which includes NCAA Championship berths in 2008 and '09 and the 2008 ECAC Hockey Championship. A native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, he was head coach at Alaska-Fairbanks for five years prior to taking the reins of the Princeton program and has earned league coach of the year honors at each of his three head coaching posts.

"Guy is the perfect choice for Penn State," said Penn State President Graham Spanier. "He has been immensely successful, is a great motivator, knows how to build programs, and has strong academic values."

"Pursuing success with honor. Building tradition. Achieving excellence. As we launch our hockey program at the Division I level, these are the on and off-ice expectations, and Guy Gadowsky has successfully accomplished these goals and more throughout his career. We welcome Guy and his family to Hockey Valley," said Curley.

"I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to lead Penn State hockey during this transitional period and into Division I," Gadowsky said. "I am truly honored to join Penn State and the spirit, pride, passion, class and professionalism found within its students, staff and alumni. I am humbled by the tremendous gift by the Pegula family and the commitment by Penn State. This is a very exciting time for college hockey and Penn State and our family is thrilled to be joining the Penn State family."

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany on the B1G Hockey Farce

This article was in the Omaha.com newspaper on Friday. Its the same stuff again, we (Big Ten) are trying to do what's best for college hockey, we are trying to be sensitive. Which is basically a load of crap, B1G is just  trying to maximize their profits with their television network and they could care less about the have-nots of college hockey, BGSU, FSU, LSSU, NMU and WMU of college hockey. Personally, I think the WCHA and the CCHA should tell the Big Ten, good luck and don't let the door hit you in the @$$ on the way out. Pardon me if I am not enthusiastic about the Big Ten Hockey Conference. You can call me a hater, whatever, I don't care...

Omaha.com --- Prompted by Penn State's decision to launch a program, the move was long rumored, but that didn't make it any more popular in some hockey hotbeds around the Midwest.

UNO coach Dean Blais voiced his opposition, saying the move could potentially ruin college hockey, dismantling old rivalries and hurting low-budget programs. What's Jim Delany's response?

Jim Delany: “I don't think anybody has been more sensitive or hands-off on college hockey than the athletic directors and coaches at Big Ten universities for the last 20 years. We had five institutions that played. They did everything they could to help hockey maintain itself. It's not a sport that's widely sponsored outside of certain regions of the country. And every time the issue came up, they said we need to do what's in the best long-term interest for hockey.

“Before Penn State announced its (hockey) membership, it really talked to the conference athletic directors and presidents about forming a hockey league if we got to the minimum of six institutions. We had a good discussion about that and decided that if we had six members, we would want a Big Ten hockey league, as we do in every sport that has six members. There were things about that that would be good for Big Ten hockey and there would be things that would help grow hockey. We may ultimately end up with more than six members doing hockey.

“But before we announced it, at least a year ago, we went to the commissioners of both hockey leagues (WCHA and CCHA). We told them we wanted to be thorough, respectful and we wanted to communicate with all the hockey schools. In fact, we spent a lot of time talking with the two commissioners about how we could put our schedules together in a way that served other hockey-member-playing institutions. We wanted to commit to them those nonconference games ... They continued to say, ‘You need to let us know what you're going to do, so we can make plans. We then said, ‘Well, give us numbers of every athletic director in every hockey school in your conference.' We wanted to communicate directly with them to see how best we could serve. They preferred that we not. I don't know why. But we had offered to do that, to work with them, to sync up schedules.

The hiring of Anastos is an interesting turn of events

I have been reading this story all day and into the night and my Bravo Sierra detector is in full force... The more I read this story the more it doesn't smell right. Who the hell hires a league commissioner to coach a high profile division one college hockey program? Especially, when the coach hasn't coached a hockey game in 20 years? This hiring makes no sense what-so-ever. I would think the game has changed in the last twenty years as well.

USCHO.COM --- In the press conference Wednesday announcing his hiring, Anastos said it himself: “It’s not every day a commissioner’s hired to come coach a team.”

I’d take that one step further. It’s not every day that someone whose last college coaching experience was nearly 20 years ago is hired as a head coach at a high-profile university.

That’s one question I have. Why did Michigan State choose someone with no recent direct college hockey coaching experience?

MSU athletic director Mark Hollis took everyone through his hiring process at the press conference. “I’ve had the opportunity to meet with so many people — people from the hockey world, people from the athletic world, and people from the business world, talking about what it takes to be a great leader, what it takes to be a great coach, and frankly what it takes to be a great Spartan. Through it all we started with 20-plus names.”

Twenty? Really?

“In the end,” said Hollis, “Tom Anastos jumped to the forefront on all the characteristics I believe take a true leader. I think when I step back and I look, any time I hire a coach I step back and look at my three children, and I think, ‘Who would I entrust my three children with to be a mentor?’ And that was a big factor in hiring Tom Anastos.”

Okay.

“I believe that we have to create a culture here,” said Hollis, “where folks in the NHL — scouts, general managers — believe that we’re giving our kids everything possible to train, develop not only to play in the NHL but for a life beyond, and that’s what Tom Anastos believes in.”

I am on board with this. There’s no question that NCAA hockey needs to compete harder with major junior Canadian hockey for college-eligible players. No question. From what Anastos has said on several occasions, I know that he’s passionate about keeping college-eligible players in college.