Author: Vanderbilt Hockey

Changes Coming To The Commodore Coaching Staff This Fall

This fall, the Vanderbilt hockey club’s coaching staff will have a new look.

After seven seasons behind the bench, Coach Bernstein will be moving on to a new role with the program, one that affords him more time to spend with his wife and two daughters – Sally (22 months) and Maggie (5 months).

The club will also bid farewell to six-year coaching veteran Jonathan Holston, a key contributor off the ice who donned the Star-V for the Commodores as a player the last two seasons while pursuing his MBA at the Owen School of Management. Coach Holston will be moving to Atlanta to take a role with Price WaterhouseCoopers in the company’s strategy consulting practice.

“It has been one of the great joys of my life to serve this program as a coach and mentor,” said Coach Bernstein following his announcement to the club’s leadership team. “In life, whether personally or professionally, you rarely have the opportunity to collaborate with such a concentrated group of talented, high-performing young people. To say it was a tough decision to leave the head coaching role would be an understatement.”

The two coaches will not be disconnecting from the program entirely. Starting this fall, Coach Bernstein will set his sights on founding an alumni board for the team, while Coach Holston will continue to support the club’s student officers with scheduling and other administrative tasks.

Asked about the alumni board initiative, Coach Bernstein shared that he’s “always wanted to find a way to better harness the tremendous interest and support from the club’s dedicated alumni.” He explained that the board will be focused on providing players with two specific services: career coaching and job networking guidance.

“If we’re successful, we will build a mentorship pipeline that attracts exceptional student-athletes to the program even before they are on campus, in turn ensuring the long-term strength and sustainability of the team. Ultimately, that’s everyone’s primary mission.”

To replenish the coaching staff, club president Daniel Huyler and his executive board drafted job descriptions that they believe will attract the mentors and coaches the club wants moving forward.

Interested in coaching the team? Apply here! (link)

“We have a special culture, one where the players drive decision-making and a dedicated staff of coaches and volunteers provides mentorship when we inevitably need it,” said Huyler, a rising junior defenseman. “The right coaching candidates will understand and celebrate this culture, while also leaving their own distinct mark on the program.”

So far, response to the descriptions has been fantastic. The leadership team will continue to collect resumes through July with the goal of announcing a staff by August 15th.

In his announcement to the players, Coach Bernstein shared how this transition will provide every current and incoming player a chance to leave a legacy with both the team and University.

“We do not inherit this great tradition from our ancestors gentlemen,” wrote Coach Bernstein. “We borrow it from our descendants. Be sure to leave it better than you found it. I know you will.”

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The Vanderbilt Commodores Ice Hockey Club will open its season Friday night, September 22nd, versus Butler at home at the Ford Ice Center in Antioch, TN. Tickets are free and adult beverages are $2 with a college ID. We hope to see you at the rink!

Vanderbilt Enters The 2017 SECHC Tournament As The #2 Seed, Plays Tennessee In First Round

The 2017 SECHC Tournament kicks off tomorrow at Ford Ice Center with a pair of early games before your Vanderbilt Commodores take on in-state rival Tennessee at 7:15pm. The contest will be the third meeting between the two teams after Vandy downed the Ice Vols 6-2 and 6-3 just four weeks ago.

Here is the full schedule for the weekend:

 

We hope to see you at Ford Ice Center as the ‘Dores look to win their first ever SECHC championship. Anchor down!

 

First Look: Vanderbilt’s 2016/17 Season Schedule

The Vanderbilt Commodores Ice Hockey Club will once again take the ice in 2016/17 with an eye towards winning its first ever SECHC championship crown. To achieve that goal, the club will have to navigate a schedule that includes a little bit of everything in terms of events, travel, and opponents, both new and old.

Check out the 2016/17 Season Schedule

The team will open both its season and SECHC campaign with a home match-up versus Mississippi State on Friday, September 16. The game will be paired with the team’s biannual alumni weekend, an event that will feature the likes of Jotham “Crazy Legs” McCauley and Justin “Steel Curtain” Seibert.

Vanderbilt will continue its thrust into league play versus South Carolina before hosting its annual College Hockey SCHOLAR SHOOTOUT, an event that features teams from the nation’s academic top-50 rankings each season. This year, the club will play host to Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, and Northwestern. Each team will be vying for the right to take home the Keith Davis Memorial Trophy – a.k.a. “The Davey,” a giant pencil that honors both the celebration of the student-athlete paradigm that the tournament celebrates, as well as one of the founders of the program who lived out the values of the event both on and off the ice.

The semester will be rounded out with first ever trips to South Bend, Indiana, to play Notre Dame just prior to Thanksgiving, then to Athens, Georgia, to play SECHC rival UGA. Mark Sunday, December 4th, on your calendars folks, as Vanderbilt’s meeting with the Ice Dawgs will no doubt be a hotly contested battle between two of the top teams from the 2015/16 campaign. (Georgia claimed the SECHC title in Nashville, beating Vandy en route to the championship, while the Commodores vanquished the Dawgs just two weeks later at the Regional Tournament in Orlando. This year’s contest should be a fantastic match-up.)

The spring semester will kick off with games versus SECHC rival Tennessee, always spirited, before concluding with first ever tilts against Marquette, then the SECHC tournament.

Coming off of a banner year that tested the program in more ways that you can imagine, the Commodores are excited to once again lace up and hit the ice in 2016/17. We’ll be checking in with news and notes about the roster ahead of our season kickoff. In the meantime, thanks for your continued support of the program, as well as for coming out to the rink this fall.

Anchor down, and GO DORES!

Vanderbilt Forgoes Opportunity To Compete At Nationals

On Wednesday last week, our club made the difficult decision not to participate in the 2016 ACHA D3 National Championships. This decision has affected many people and programs across the country, and for that we want to extend our deepest apologies to the ACHA, the tournament host, the 15 other teams participating in the event, and all of our supporters. We also want to explain the circumstances regarding this announcement so our fans and fellow programs understand we did not make this decision without deep thought and deliberation.

Background

Prior to accepting the bid to Regionals, our team acknowledged that a trip to Nationals would mean playing with a short bench due to conflicts with the timing of the tournament. We ultimately decided to compete for two reasons. First, we determined that, despite our constraints, we would have enough guys to make the trip to Nationals if we made it through Regionals. And second, we viewed competing at Regionals as an essential evolutionary milestone for our program, the first chance to do so in our 40-year history.

Winning Regionals

As fate would have it, the team overcame the absence of its two top forwards to win both games in Orlando and we qualified for Nationals. Our players and coaches were all thrilled by the feat, which was undoubtedly the biggest achievement in our club’s history. Our joy, however, quickly gave way to trepidation as we turned our attention towards organizing the players, finances, and logistics associated with the trip.

As of Monday morning last week, we had a roster ready to go and a host of sponsors signed on to provide financial support for the venture. Everything was coming together nicely, but by Monday night following several doctors’ visits, our roster was cut down to nine skaters due to the diagnosis of several significant injuries. For multiple reasons, the biggest being safety, we felt this was too few people to play with, and so we made the decision to decline our bid to compete. The team deliberated one last time on Tuesday evening to confirm the decision before sharing the update with the ACHA leadership team Wednesday morning. Thankfully, the ACHA was able to fill our slot with a talented squad from Liberty University.

The Result

With increasing clarity over the past week, we realize the magnitude of our decision to forgo the opportunity to compete in Grand Rapids. To the host of the event, as well as the entire ACHA leadership team in charge of organizing the Championships, we want to extend our deepest apologies for presenting this challenge to you last week. We are relieved you were able to find a replacement club, and moving forward, rest assured we will never place you in this difficult position again. 

The Future

As a result of this experience, we intend to take a close look at how we articulate our team goals at the beginning of each season, plan for our potential successes throughout the year, and manage risk and contingency planning in the face of uncharted situations like these. In the meantime, our club is committed to earning back the respect of other programs across the country, and dedicated to maintaining a program that the SECHC and ACHA conference leaders can be proud of.

We wish the very best of luck to those teams competing in Grand Rapids next week, and we look forward to following the action from Nashville.

Yours in hockey,
The Vanderbilt Ice Hockey Club