Alvarez: Change of direction needed for men’s hockey – University of Wisconsin Badgers

BY ANDY BAGGOT

UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — Mike Eaves is one of the most distinguished figures in Wisconsin athletic history, which is why this moment is particularly difficult.

Eaves has been relieved of his duties as UW men’s hockey coach after 14 seasons, which included an NCAA championship in 2006, a national runner-up finish in 2010 and, at last count, 26 players who’ve reached the NHL.

Eaves is also the all-time leading scorer in program history, a three-time captain, a two-time Most Valuable Player, an honor student and member of the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.

Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez made the decision after the six-time national champion Badgers labored through consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1995-97 and saw fan support at the Kohl Center dwindle.

“I told Mike I appreciated the work he’s done here,” Alvarez said. “I also told him that we have great tradition and standards here in hockey. He’s the gate-keeper of hockey. I’m the gate-keeper of the department. We both have a responsibility.

“After last season, because of the success we’ve had in the past, we felt that Mike had earned a chance to get the ship righted. But now, after back-to-back seasons like the last two we’ve had, I feel we need a change.”

UW won consecutive league playoff titles — one in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association and one in the Big Ten Conference — and subsequently qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2013 and ’14 before the operation rapidly bottomed out.

The Badgers were 4-26-5 last season — the fewest wins and the most losses in a single season in the modern era of the program — and finished 8-19-8 with a loss to Penn State in the opening-round of the Big Ten tournament on Thursday in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“Our fans and everyone expect more,” Alvarez said. “With our facilities and what we have to sell, we feel we should be at a championship level.”

The fact that Eaves has such a distinctive profile — he was a two-time first-team All-America center, starred on an NCAA championship team in 1977 and received the Big Ten Medal of Honor in 1978 — made the decision to terminate his contract extremely difficult.

“I like Mike and I respect Mike,” Alvarez said. “All those things play into it. That’s what makes it very hard.

“These are never easy decisions, but I’ve got a responsibility to the university, to our fans and to everyone else. It’s just not acceptable at Wisconsin to have a hockey program in this state where we are right now.”

Three of the last five seasons have ended with UW owning a losing record, including 17-18-2 in 2011-12.

Eaves was hired in 2002-03 and quickly rebuilt a floundering program into a force. The Badgers, 13-23-4 in his first season, reached the NCAA tournament in 2004 and ’05 before winning it all with a 2-1 decision over Boston College. The stars of that decade-old club, goaltender Brian Elliott and center Joe Pavelski, remain NHL fixtures.

Four years later, UW, led by Hobey Baker Award-winning center Blake Geoffrion, reached the national championship game, where it dropped a 5-0 decision in a rematch with BC. All six defensemen from that squad have reached the NHL.

Alvarez’s approach to hockey has been interpreted by some as indifference, but he made building LaBahn Arena a priority and now the $27.9 million facility, completed in 2012, gives the men’s and women’s programs unsurpassed accommodations.

“We felt that put us in as good a shape as anybody in the country,” Alvarez said.

Prior to becoming full-time AD, Alvarez was the Hall of Fame football coach of the Badgers.

“People interpret that I give all my attention to football and that is simply not true. However, football does demand a lot of attention. It’s the (financial) engine that drives the entire (athletic) program.

“But I care about hockey. I very much believe that we are a better athletic department when our men’s hockey program is thriving.”

Alvarez and his staff will begin to take steps to get the program back to that position with a national search for a new head coach that will begin immediately.