It was a bittersweet day for Terry Pegula.The Buffalo Sabres, which Pegula purchased in February, failed to close out the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6 of their first-round NHL playoff series.
However, Penn State has made a great hire for one of Pegula's other hockey teams...
Penn State athletic director Tim Curley announced yesterday that Princeton head coach Guy Gadowsky has been hired as the head coach of the Nittany Lions.
Gadowsky's résumé includes rebuilding jobs at Princeton and University of Alaska-Fairbanks.
Gadowsky was hired by Princeton in 2004, taking over a team that had won a total of eight games the previous two years. The Tigers improved for five consecutive years and reached the NCAA Championships in 2008 and 2009.
In 2008 Princeton athletic director Gary Walters told ESPN...
"I don't think anyone would have expected that kind of improvement that rapidly, and I certainly didn't. I thought we were better than we were at the time, but I knew we had to rebuild our depth and we had to begin to compete again.Prior to Princeton, Gadowsky took over an Alaska-Fairbanks program that had lost 20+ games five years running. By Gadowsky's third season the Nanooks were 22-12-3 and ranked 11th nationally at the end of the 2001-02 campaign.
"There is a foundation in place, but the foundation is only as good as the leadership.
"What Guy has done is he's created a culture that remarkable. He's got a tremendous amount of integrity and he's got a tremendous work ethic, and the team plays with sincerity."
Gadowsky sounds like a perfect fit for Penn State. He is a proven builder of programs and understands the challenges of balancing academics and athletics.
Finally, one item buried deep in the press release was news to us...
Penn State fielded a varsity hockey squad from 1939-40 through 1945-46.Other media outlets are reporting that Gadowsky is Penn State's first ice hockey coach. However, the answer to that trivia question is actually A.F. (Arthur) Davis.
[Hat tip to Kyle Rossi of the terrific blog Thank You Terry for doing this research!]
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