After just missing the ECAC playoffs this season, its hard to imagine that the men's hockey team has anywhere to go but upwards. However, after losing an influential group of nine seniors, it was imperative that head coach Bob Gaudet and his coaching staff find a group of young talent that hopefully could come in and contribute to the Dartmouth program immediately. A very tough task to ask of a coach in his first recruiting season at the helm of the Big Green hockey program.
In Gaudet's opinion, mission accomplished. After watching seven forwards graduate, Gaudet knew that filling holes on offense would be his biggest need. As a result, next year's incoming class has nine forwards joining the program, comprising 75% of the recruiting effort. Filling out the freshman roster will be two defensemen and a goalie. This year's recruiting class is four players larger than last year's class, most likely a reflection on the number of seniors who are leaving the program.
"We knew heading into recruiting that we were going to lose not only a very strong senior class, but a very strong group of seven forwards," Gaudet said. "Therefore, we tried to fill our holes by addressing offense and we think we succeeded in doing that. I think we also brought in a solid group overall with a wide variety of types of players that bring different abilities and character to our program."
Of the nine forwards, six are listed as playing center for their previous teams. While that might lead one to believe there will be a logjam at that position, Gaudet expects that once the players arrive next year, they will find themselves in new positions.
"Typically at the high school level or lower junior hockey level, coaches tend to put their best offensive players at center," he said. "Therefore, its not surprising that in recruiting a strong group of forwards we wound up with a large number of centers. We will have to take a look at them next fall at all different offensive positions to see where they fit into our scheme the best."
Not surprisingly, Dartmouth went after players based on what needs the team had to fill. With two rising juniors returning at goalie and over a half-dozen defensemen returning, it was only natural that the recruiting efforts focused on the offensive end of the ice.
"Our goal was to continue bringing along the Dartmouth hockey program, and I think we succeeded in doing just that," Gaudet said. "Not only do we think these kids will bring talent to our team, but I think the current players will really like the incoming group of players."
Gaudet was very pleased with the productivity of the staff's recruiting efforts, saying that most of the players they tried to recruit wound up coming to Dartmouth. Despite facing the same admissions and academic standards he faced during his tenure as the head coach at Brown, Gaudet believes that Dartmouth's campus gives an added advantage in the recruiting process.
"I think Dartmouth sells itself to many of the players who come to visit," Gaudet said. "Many players are drawn to come here after visiting because they fall in love with the campus. When I was recruiting at Brown, we had the problem of going up against other urban Ivy programs such as Harvard and Yale. Because Dartmouth's location and atmosphere are unique, we may have had an advantage."
Hockey recruiting can be much more challenging at times due to the different nature of the sport. Because of the geographic limitations of the sport, Gaudet and his coaching staff spend the majority of their recruiting efforts scouring Canada's junior leagues and high schools in the Northeast. Perhaps one of the surprises of the Class of 2002 is that it is evenly split between Canadians and Americans. In previous years Dartmouth's rosters has been compiled with more Canadian players.
"The travel involved in hockey recruiting is tremendous," Gaudet said. "Unlike other sports that are played at a high-level throughout the United States, hockey is a regional sport that is played in pockets. Therefore, the recruiting process takes the coaching staff from the western edges of Canada all the way down the east coast. That is a lot of ground to cover for three coaches. It was demanding, but I enjoyed the challenge."
The 12 incoming players will not be completely unknown. Mike Maturo, an incoming center from Manchester, hails from the same high school that produced goalie Eric Almon '00, while another incoming center, Dan Casella, played high school hockey with defenseman Dave Risk '99. While he will not have the opportunity to play with former members of the Penticon Panthers Jeremiah Buckley '98, Shane Ness '98 and David Whitworth '98, wing Gary Hunter has the luxury of joining a program that nurtured three former players from his team in British Columbia.
The other forwards in the class are Chris Baldwin (Glastonbury, Conn.), Craig Lund (Belmont, Mass.), Frank Nardella (Melrose Park, Ill.), Ryan Sinclair (Kirkland Lake, Ont.) and Chris Taliercio (Farmingdale, N.J.). Carl Desjardins (St. Luc, Que) and Pacal Lalonde (Gloucester, Ont.) are the two defensive recruits while Robert Delwo (Moose Jaw, Sask.) is the only incoming goaltender.
Despite being optimistic about the future of the incoming recruits, Gaudet was quick to play down the talents of any one player.
"I'm not sure that any of the incoming players stands out more than the others," he said. "Most of all, I don't want to put any more pressure on them then necessary. The recruits will have a tough enough time coming in as both freshmen students and freshmen hockey players that they don't need the added pressure of lofty expectations."
