Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

Is this the end of 'Ricoville?'

Adam Hainsfurther, Columnist

Earlier in the school year I wrote an open letter to the Miami University ice hockey team. In it, I asked for just one thing, for them to win our school it's first-ever NCAA National Championship. By now, we all know that won't be happening this year.

Sadly, this has become a pattern for Miami Hockey. They'll win enough games in the regular season to get your hopes up only to fail to do so when it actually matters. But before I go any further, this isn't going to be a column where I blame the players and their work ethic. I'm also not going to blame a loss on what some see as an unfair home-ice advantage on Saturday for the lower-seeded University of New Hampshire, especially not after they fell to Notre Dame in the tournament's round of eight. In my mind, if the Athletic Department wants to win when it counts the most, there's one change that needs to be made … Miami Hockey needs a new head coach.

Don't get me wrong, Coach Blasi is a great coach for Miami. He is able to succeed where almost every other RedHawk coach fails. He puts people in the seats. He gets people to at least pretend like they care. However, unlike most coaches who are deemed "untouchable" as they get older and their legends grow, Enrico Blasi is given a free pass for a good regular season year in and year out. But for every other coach in every other sport and every other school the regular season only matters when you don't win games, but being consistently good prior to the post season won't save your job.

Just look at Randy Shannon, the head coach at that other Miami, you know the one in Florida, until the end of this season. Shannon, who led the Hurricanes to a 7-5 regular season record, was fired before he could even coach "The U" in their game against Notre Dame in the 2011 Sun Bowl. The most surprising coaching change from this year may have been at the University of Maryland. The Terrapins bought out the final year of head coach Ralph Friedgen's contract after he led the team to 8-4 record in 2010. Friedgen was legendary in College Park for his impressive resume with the Terps; a 75-50 record over the course of his 10-year tenure, 42-36 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference games, and a 5-2 record in bowl games. Heck, he even coached his team to a blowout win in the Military Bowl.

Does the name Dave Wannstedt sound familiar to you? He was reportedly pressured to resign from his post as head coach of the University of Pittsburgh following a 7-5 campaign in 2011. While we in Oxford all know about the aftermath of Wannsteadt's resignation, it may surprise some to know that Wannstedt was pressured to resign after posting three-straight winning seasons, including a 10-3 record in 2009.

And that's just in 2010 and only in college football. Firing successful coaches happens all the time, and not just in the NCAA. If you don't win, you don't win.  In the words of the immortal Ricky Bobby, "If you ain't first, you're last."

Ask Jon Gruden, who was canned as the leading man for the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers after a 9-7 season in 2008-2009. Or you can talk to current Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan, who lost his job as the head coach of the Denver Broncos after improving his squad's record to 8-8 in 2008, one win better than in 2007. Vinny Del Negro was fired from the NBA's Chicago Bulls after two seasons, both of which resulted in playoff appearances.

By no means were these teams anywhere near the bottom of the standings when they made coaching changes. However they weren't at the top either. Winning is winning, and when you don't win the big games can you really criticize a decision to make a change?

When it comes to Coach Blasi, I can give credit where credit is due. We've gone farther under him than anyone could have ever dreamed of. Winning the Mason Cup for the first time was a great accomplishment. But for a team that came within two minutes of winning a National title just two years ago, the fact of the matter is that it isn't enough, especially not for this team.

Guys like Michigan's Red Berenson, Boston University's Jack Parker, the University of Denver's George Gwozdecky (a former Miami assistant) or Boston College's Jerry York and their combined 2,391 wins wouldn't stand for that. In fact, the "old school" of college hockey's coaching fraternity, who have won six of the last 10 NCAA Division-I men's ice hockey championships, would probably argue that anything less than a national championship is a grave disappointment. Don't think for a second they would be considered the best at what they do if they hadn't won national titles. And yet, it seems at Miami we've done exactly that. We've crowned Blasi as an elite head coach when, prior to this season, the only thing he had won was a regular season conference title and a handful of number-one overall rankings.

Yes, Rico Blasi is the LeBron James of coaching.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

This year's squad had more talent than any RedHawk team in the last 10 years. It had two Hobey Baker finalists, a handful of NHL draftees and one of the nation's best goaltenders. This team should have had no problem heading to St. Paul for this year's Frozen Four. Yet they didn't. And that is something worth getting fired up, or just fired, over.