Why your team/coach sucks: UVM Wildcats

This is part 5 of an 11 part series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 can be seen by clicking or scrolling down)

Your Team: UVM Wildcats
Your 2015-2016 record: 15-22-3(6-13-3)
Your outlook: UVM will finish somewhere in the middle of the pack in the conference standings. They were picked 9th by the coaches but they could easily finisher higher if they get an improved year from goalie/midget Mike Santaguida who posted a .913 save percentage last season.  They return virtually all of their forwards from last season as well as adding freshman Ross Colton who should be able to play a top 6 role immediately. The real question will be can the defense provide any offense at all with top dmen Alexx Privitera and Yvan Pattyn graduating. This gets to my next point which is what type of coaching they are going to need but not going to get to make any noise in conference.


Kevin Sneddon has been the coach at UVM now for 13 season with this being his 14th at the helm in Burlinton. He has not had a team finish higher than 7th in the league since 2009 when UVM made the Frozen Four before losing to the great 2009 BU team. His teams have not been good and he has responded to that by overrecruiting to the max. He just cut two defensemen from UVM this week(a month into school) strictly for hockey reasons. He had to cut them because it was obviously he wasn't going to find ice time for 11 defensemen. My biggest issue with it is the timing. Sneddon waited until the exhibition game to make his decision. Cuts happen unfortunately but every other school(besides Jerry York at BC because he sucks too) in my memory has done it over the summer allowing the kids to spend their transfer year finding a new program to go to. Mitch Ferguson and Jake Kearley no longer have this luxury as they are in the middle of a semester enrolled at UVM. Sneddon essentially let the 11 dmen tryout for 9 spots and now is trying to spin it like he did the kids a favor. He isn't looking out for anyone but himself. His roster size of 33 is clearly the biggest in the league which is a direct result of him bringing in 4 freshman defensemen when he already had 7 returning on the blueline. It is really tough to think a coach who has to go this extreme to get marginal talent has any chance of longterm  success. You would think a guy who has spent 14 years on the job could count up to 18 scholarships but apparently he is like Mike Millbury and doesn't know how despite him getting paid 250k a year to do so.

This post turned more into a why your coach sucks post which I'm fine with. UVM the team has average talent and should finish in the middle of Hockey East. UVM the coaching staff on the other hand, sucks and are scumbags on top of it which drags the team closer to the bottom of the standings(hopefully all the way to the bottom) than the top.

Looks like after the exhibition game (and a month into class) @UVMmhockey cut Mitch Ferguson and Jake Kearley. That program is a trainwreck.

— BurntBoats (@BurntBoats) October 4, 2016

I confirmed with UVM, both sophomore Jake Kearley and junior Mitch Ferguson were dismissed from the team for "athletic reasons" #HockeyEast

— Chris Boulay (@chrismboulay) October 5, 2016