Friday, August 17, 2012

MSG was on the table for ECAC Championships

Madison Square Garden was considered as a site for the ECAC Championships, but the league's athletic directors ultimately decided on Lake Placid, N.Y. earlier this week. According to a source close to the situation, the only way the league could afford MSG was for one night only. Renting the Garden for more than one night was too much of a financial strain, so the plan would have been to hold the semifinals at a different location, likely a week earlier, then play the final in the Big Apple.

Logistically, it made better sense to the league to remain at one site for the semis and finals. Other sites in the running included Bridgeport, Providence and Albany.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Kyle Wallack to Vermont

Former UConn, Quinnipiac and Yale assistant Kyle Wallack has accepted a position as assistant coach at the University of Vermont. He will replace John Micheletto, named head coach at UMass last month.

It's a great spot for Wallack, a West Hartford native who left Yale at the end of the 2011 season to take a job as head coach in the USHL. He's an outstanding coach and an outgoing personality who knows how to recruit. His goal is to be a college head coach, and this certainly puts him back on track after being blindsided in Indiana, where he was fired and replaced by the team owner's brother just before the playoffs despite his team being 19 games over .500.

Wallack had interviewed for an assistant's job at UMass just before Don Cahoon resigned. There was some speculation on college hockey websites that UMass had Wallack high on its list of candidates to replace Cahoon, but Wallack did not interview.

Wallack, a former goaltender, played high school hockey at Conard, winning a state title, before moving on to Springfield College.