Union’s Head Coach Rick Bennett

I’ve always like listening to Union College’s head coach Rick Bennett in his post-game press conferences. First, I want to be clear, he’s a very good hockey coach and he’s old school. I like that. I think it would be fun to cover him, but you’d have to be on your toes and be prepared. Kind of like covering UND’s former head coach Dave Hakstol.

Coach Bennett tells it like it is, he doesn’t sugar coat things. Also, his team’s results speak for themselves, the Dutchmen hung a NCAA title banner in 2014. The Dutchmen play the game the right way. They don’t take shortcuts. After Saturday’s game against North Dakota, coach Bennett wasn’t pleased with his team’s effort.

You Have to Get to the Dirty Areas

Here’re some of the things from his presser that caught my attention. Coaches talk about getting the blue paint and the dirty areas. Apparently, coach Bennett wasn’t happy with his team’s effort in that regard. I didn’t think that Union played that badly.

“You’ve got to get to the net in order to finish,” coach Bennett said. “I think we went to the net once tonight and we got a goal. What does that tell you? We needed six guys.”

If you listen to what coach Bennett is saying, he’s complimenting the opposition, but he’s also talking to his players through the media.

“We addressed it,” Bennett said. We practiced it. If you don’t want to get to the net against a good team (you won’t finish). That team was excellent and they were heavy. That team was the first team that we saw in our time that was really heavy – and we didn’t like it.”

Would Love to Be a Fly on the Wall

I’d love to be a fly on the wall during Union’s practices this week. Again, coach Bennett is challenging his team to learn from their mistakes and get better. I am willing to bet, it won’t be all fun and games in practice this week.

“That was good teachable game for our guys going forward here – on what it takes, and what it’s going to take to try to reach that top of the mountain that these guys say and our staff wants to get to,” Bennett said. “We are light years away from that. Light years.  Take that record. Take all that other jazz. People tell them how good they are. Absolutely (they’re) far from it.”

What also caught my attention was that Union’s coach also took some ownership for his team’s play.

“All aspects of our game tonight were poor,” Bennett said. “I look in the mirror. Our coaching staff should look in the mirror. We’ve got to get better. That was absolutely a poor performance tonight. Top line, all the way down. Poor Performance.”

Bennett Will Continue to Schedule These Games

There’s some good news for UND hockey fans, Union makes a return trip to the Ralph next season. Bennett want’s to continue these non-conference games.

” am going to schedule these games, we’re going to schedule these games,” Bennett said. “We’re going find players that want to play against teams like this. Or I’ll get rid of them. It’s plain and simple.”

Ouch! Someone mentioned on Twitter, that there might have been a jab or two at the officials, too. Bennett did mention how UND was good with their sticks on the faceoffs and in the defensive zone.

“We took the crowd right out of it by the first shift,” Bennett said. “Obviously, a barn burning start. It was the first team that we, I felt… I felt Quinnipiac at times was a heavy squad, but this team was a heavy hockey team and like I said, we didn’t like it. Some of our guys say that want to go on and play this pro game they are light years away from that too and they proved that tonight, too. Top line, so called top line.”

And finally, this was the classic statement of the night. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t think that Union played that bad. I told someone, that this was a 50/50 hockey game. The game could have gone either way. I can’t stress this enough, I thought Union was one of the faster teams that UND has played this season. This game kind of reminded me of a playoff game. It was tight checking and very defensive.

“In front of the net, they were men,” Bennett said. “It was like men against pee wees.”

This statement here reminded me of former Fighting Sioux head coach Dean Blais. This is something similar to what he would say.

“Teams will  see this score and say they’re just not that good. They are right, right now,” Bennett said. “We’re going to demand it, we are going to practice it. The guys don’t want to buy in will sit in section P, they can sit with their parents.”

Here’s the video in question