Enrico Blasi’s 2018-19 RedHawks ended up 11-23-4 for a .342 winning percentage, failing to qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight season.
Blasi’s Miami teams won just 32 games his final three campaigns, and as a result he was fired days after that season ended on March 19.
In a fiery press conference speech at the Goggin Ice Center less than a month later, newly-hired head coach Chris Bergeron vowed that under his tutelage, effective immediately, future versions of the Miami hockey program would work harder and produce better results.
Since then, Miami has finished .309, .240, .222 and .278 despite facing weaker non-conference slates.
This season Miami has posted a slightly higher winning percentage overall, going 6-10-2 (.389), and enters its second-half slate having broken even in its last five games at 2-2-1, but MU will play its final 16 regular season games exclusively against conference opponents.
And the RedHawks have been NCHC road kill in recent years.
In Bergeron’s first season, Miami finished 5-16-3 (.271) and matched that percentage in the COVID year 2020-21, when teams played their entire 24-game regular season schedules vs. conference foes.
The RedHawks took seventh in the eight-team league both of those first two seasons but finished dead last in 2021-22 and 2022-23 and are already eight points clear of the NCHC field through a third of the league slate.
Their conference winning percentage was just .188 each of the past two seasons and is .063 so far this campaign.
Since puck drop in 2021-22, Miami is 7-44-5 (.170) in league play.
In the calendar year 2023, the RedHawks were 1-20-3 against NCHC opponents and were outscored, 104-36.
MU has one league point at the one-third point of league play this season, going 0-7-1.
The Miami coaching staff refused to be interviewed for this and subsequent stories and has instructed its staff to block VFTG from all future player interview requests.
To be fair, COVID shut down live recruiting for 16 months and crippled a Miami team desperate to rebuild in Year 2 of the Bergeron era and far beyond.
Athletic department budget cuts and lesser hockey revenue through ticket sales, donations, merchandise, etc., meant more long bus rides than expected to Minnesota, North Dakota and Nebraska.
But regardless of its logistics and financial issues, the program needs to get better. Now.
Blasi was relieved of duty nearly five years ago and by every metric this program has further regressed.
And like it or not, for the forseeable future, this team will remain in the NCHC.
The exit fee is in excess of $1 million, and there’s no guarantee another league would want to add Miami. The CCHA is the most logical geographic choice, but a supermajority is needed to accept new members (it’s three-fourths in the NCHC), and Bowling Green isn’t happy with the RedHawks over transfer protocol and other issues, and Blasi had a bad break-up with Miami and now coaches St. Thomas.
In 11 years of the NCHC’s on-ice existence, every other team has thrived except arguably Colorado College, although the Tigers just opened a beautiful on-campus facility and have an outstanding young coaching staff and excellent young team with a quality pipeline.
The NCHC has won five of the last seven national championships, including two by Minn.-Duluth, which had just one prior national title. St. Cloud State made its first finals appearance in 2021.
Omaha and No. 10 Western Michigan have never been positioned better. Denver and North Dakota have combined for three titles since the league’s formation.
There are no excuses left.
Now 18 years old, the Goggin Ice Center is still one of the best college hockey rinks in Division I. The hockey team has its own weight room just feet from the locker rooms next to Cady Arena, the envy of college hockey.
The town and campus are still beautiful beyond description. The school is one of the best in the Midwest academically. Even the climate is much better than Oxford’s northern counterparts.
Great players have flocked to Miami for decades, including Bergeron himself, who led the RedHawks to their first ever NCAA berth in 1993.
Yet for some reason, suddenly, elite prospects have stopped flocking to Oxford, and the RedHawks’ increased talent of the past couple of seasons hasn’t translated to wins.
This is the second-last season of Bergeron’s six-year contract, and if Miami elected to terminate it early, it would be on the hook for a full year of salary, which would be in the $325,000 range.
That’s a lot of money for a mid-major athletic department with a strapped budget.
Obviously, the better option would be for this team — which has a solid incoming 2024-25 class and boasts more talent than most media give it credit for — to start winning games with regularity in the second half.
Matthew Barbolini is having his best collegiate season yet, and linemate-in-crime John Waldron has been excellent as well. So has a rejuvenated P.J. Fletcher.
The defense corps has been stingier around its own net and is chipping in on offense as well.
Logan Neaton has proven himself a quality NCAA netminder after a long journey, and after a shutout on Dec. 30, freshman Bruno Bruveris will hopefully grab the proverbial torch and become a quality Miami netminder for the next several years.
Injuries decimated the RedHawks the first half of the season but they’re getting healthy.
The sophomore class as a whole seems to be blooming.
There is no reason why this team can’t play competitive hockey vs. NCHC opponents for the balance of 2023-24.
For nine years, long-suffering fans have watched Cady Arena transition from a standing-room mecca to a half-occupied morgue. In the next two months they deserve some talismanic sign that this program, which is teetering on yet another irrelevant season, is in some way on an upward trajectory.
This is Year 5 of the Bergeron era, which means every single player on this current team was brought in by this coaching staff.
If this team — with a roster of 27 players this coaching staff wanted here — can’t nudge the needle during this winter portion of its 2023-24 schedule, the program’s leadership structure needs a major reevaluation.
View From the Glass 