He wants to stay involved in hockey in some fashion. Comments from other articles made it sound like he might stick around ND in some capacity or look into NHL stuff (he talked to Brey about that type of transition as an option).
Mentioned the negative recruiting as the last straw. Apparently an agent even told the AD (not sure if it was Swarbrick or Bevacqua) he was too "old school". It's depressing see him go out this way, but I also have massive respect that he's putting the program's interests over his own. Personally, I'd love for ND to find some non-coaching spot in the athletic department for him to keep guiding the program's future.
Sheahan is the ideal successor. And JJ set him up in a good spot to be successful. He'll still have to face the same challenges with cutthroat recruiting/portal/NIL, but he doesn't have the "old school" stigma JJ wasn't able to shake.
The timing was right as well. Juniors can start committing on 8/1. There isn't any question of who their coach will be in a couple years.
Sheahan will have to hire someone to replace himself, but it'll be interesting to see what he decides with Slaggert/Pooley. Do they carry the same "old school" stigma? Should there be a clean slate fresh start with coaching? I can easily see Slaggert sticking around with Carter on the team. Pooley is a wild card.
JJ/Pooley/Slaggert put Irish hockey on the national map. Sheahan better make sure they're out on the ice when trophies get raised in the future.
I was excited about his hiring last summer, but looking at it closer, Sheahan has the potential to turn Notre Dame into a player development machine.
I saw a tweet from the USHL which named all the top-five NHL picks in recent league history. All of them either played for the NTDP or were on Sheahan's Chicago Steel teams. He takes players who are passed over for the highest level as young teenagers and turning them into NHL/NCAA top prospects.
Consider Josh Doan. He came to Chicago with an obvious pedigree, but was just a sixth round USHL pick. He then had a mediocre debut season and went undrafted in the summer. Year two under Sheahan, Doan becomes a surefire prospect and a second-round pick. Now he's in the NHL.
There are a handful of other stores just like this one. I'm excited for the Sheahan era.
Ric Schaeffer and Dave Poulin were hire?
Ric had head coaching experience, Dave had none. Neither did well.
college head coaching experience Shafer brought here. By a long shot. Unless we could have convinced a current college coach with NCAA success (Mike Hastings was someone I thought could get the job done here) then Sheahan is absolutely the right hire. I think people will like the kind of player he will attract and I think they will like the way the team looks on the ice. Time will tell of course.
Have you heard anything regarding Assistant Coaches when Sheahan takes over?
I will say he is going to go with his own people. And I think he should.
Jackson keeping Andy Slaggert around in 2005 was the absolute right thing to do. I love the guy. He's a good coach and for a long time, one of the best recruiters on campus. He's also a tremendous human being who I actually think is as good of a guy as Ara was, and Ara was -- I believe -- the finest man ever associated with Notre Dame athletics. But coaching is a tough, tough business, and sometimes change is what is needed. I think Sheahan deserves to make whatever changes he wants to.
I agree 100%.
I enjoy your analyses.
Do you get to any games? I go to 3 or 4 at least.
Please let me know if you can be contacted by email. I linked mine below
been a season ticket holder since I was a kid during the WCHA days. From the second half of the 1976-1977 season through the 2014-2015 season I can count on my hands how many home games I missed during the seasons Notre Dame was a member of the WCHA, CCHA and Hockey East. The only exception was the 2000-2001 season when I was living in PA for work. My family and friends maintained the season tickets we had for a while after 2015, but for various reasons, little by little it went by the wayside.
I still watch a lot of the home games on Peacock, and road games when they are on a real TV channel. Since leaving South Bend in 2015 I have seen maybe 3 or 4 games at the CFIA, and 1 game in Madison in 2019 when work temporarily took me to Wisconsin for a year and a half.
not the ND coaches who came before him. They existed in a much different time and place for Fighting Irish hockey. Schaefer was building a program back from dead. Poulin was brought in directly from an NHL locker room. Hiring a national championship winner like Jackson was a massive feat of timing and good fortune.
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan*, and Michigan State have all made big time hires in recent years (*until Pearson got fired). Right now, there's no surefire winning coach to poach from another lower tier program as laid out in ndmd99's linked post. Getting a sitting AHL head coach to join the program as coach-in-waiting is as big of a hire as you can get right now. Sheahan has a track record of success at every stop he's made so far and he definitely fits in with the recent trends in the pro and college game towards skill and offensive firepower.
at a big-time college program is less important in NCAA hockey than it is in basketball and football. I really like Marcus Freeman as a person and still think he might do great things at Notre Dame, but if he doesn't a lot of people will point to the lack of a proven head coaching track record at at least a decent football school. I truly don't things the sames things are at play in college hockey.
I’m still surprised he’s our coach this year but this might explain that.