The two bottom Hockey East teams from last season filled their coaching vacancies in the last 24 hours. First, UMASS-Lowell filled their coaching void with the hiring of Norm Bazin. Bazin, is an alum from the class of 1994 and has coached at Lowell(as an assistant), Colorado College(associate head coach), and D-III Hamilton(head coach). Bazin comes in to replace the recently fired Blaise MacDonald who lead the River Hawks to a last place finish in HE and 55 out of 58 teams in RPI nationally. Bazin looks to return Lowell to glory for the first time since Micky Ward was still fighting...I'll believe it when I see the results on the ice, but seems like a good hire to make Lowell competitive once again. It was a fast fall for MacDonald as his team was a controversial goal call in the 2009 HE championship game against BU(thank you Benedetto and Comissioner Bertagna) from grabbing an automatic at-large bid in the NCAA tournament. These last two seasons didn't go quite as well and now he is out and Bazin is to begin the new era in Lowell.
The other cellar team from HE,Providence College, announced today the hiring of former Union head coach Nate Leaman. Leaman was one of three finalists along with former BU associate head coach and Cranston,RI native David Quinn and Newton College associate head coach(read York's successor) Mike Cavanaugh. Quinn is the current coach of the Lake Erie AHL team and is in the middle of a playoff series which could have been a factor to go with Leaman. Union has since announced that it will replace Leaman with associate head coach Rick Bennett.
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