Start of Summer Hodgepodge 6.30.22
Another Mel Pearson Update, Title IX at U of M, Inspiration from the Avs, and More
The 2021-22 University of Michigan men’s hockey season ended on April 7th, courtesy of Carter Savoie’s overtime goal that launched the Denver Pioneers to a National Championship Game they would win two nights later.
Forty days and forty nights of wandering in the desert was not enough for us at Gulo Gulo to process the season’s abrupt conclusion, so we took eighty-four. Now, we’ve emerged from the wildnerness, only to discover a world that remains shrouded in darkness.
Today, we’re here with a hodgepodge of the latest in and around Michigan hockey. We can’t guarantee our summer schedule moving forward, but we can assure you that we will grace your inbox with all the Wolverine hockey news and notes you could possibly desire.
Mel Pearson Contract Update
We begin with what is, by far, the biggest story in Michigan hockey today—Mel Pearson’s contract, or lack thereof. For some time now, we have put off covering it and not just because of laziness. Instead, we presumed that a resolution to the situation would arrive by April 30th, the date on which Pearson’s deal expired. At the very least, it would come shortly after that.
As of this writing, it is June 30th, and Pearson does not have a new contract but seems to remain the school’s head coach. First, a Michigan spokesperson told The Michigan Insider’s Alejandro Zuniga “Mel is our head coach. We will broadly communicate any changes to his contract when that is finalized.”
Then, Athletic Director Warde Manuel told MLive “He’s working and continuing to be our hockey coach. There’s no difference in my mind in what we’re doing. We’re just working through a process and looking at the things that we need to address and we’ll move forward…He’s our hockey coach, and I anticipate him being our hockey coach.”
That Pearson’s status is in any doubt is not a byproduct of his on-ice performance. Instead, the uncertainty surrounding Pearson stems from an investigation into program culture that became public in late January of this year (again thanks to MLive).
We have written about that investigation at length and see little point in rehashing its particulars at this moment. However, we must stress the importance of context in considering the stakes and handling of the investigation. As we discussed in the afore-linked post, the allegedly toxic culture within Pearson’s program is just one of many recent high profile incidents of the University of Michigan showing an inability to adequately address the improprieties of the powerful men steering the school.
The scale and consequences of misconduct varies, but the pattern is inconsistent: the University of Michigan enables its powerful male leaders to abuse their authority with minimal repercussions.
It is a narrative that reeks of arrogance and privilege, and Michigan’s statements about Pearson’s contract status have done little to assuage that concern. In essence, the Athletic Department is asking for the benefit of the doubt, assuring anyone interested that they are taking care of the Pearson situation and will let all of us know when they have done so.
To be blunt, that is a benefit of the doubt the school has done nothing to deserve, based on its handling of all these other scandals, whether it’s the sexual peccadilloes of ex-President Schlissel or the years-long sexual abuse perpetrated by Dr. Robert Anderson thanks to the enabling of the University of Michigan.
This is not to say that it is inconceivable to us that Pearson deserves to retain his job. That seems possible based on what little we know of the investigation. However, hand-waving away any concerns about Pearson’s future and allowing him to continue to do his job without a contract (for now) as though nothing is out of the ordinary here is irresponsible and unacceptable.
Manuel’s statement makes no guarantee of Pearson’s continuity, but the obvious implication is “we don’t think any of this is a big deal, and we fully intend to press forward with him as our head coach. Trust us. It’ll be fine.” Again, it is not as though we are rooting for the worst to be and become true of Pearson, but that does not seem an appropriate approach to what is supposed to be an “open” investigation. That it is coming from an administration with no track record of handling such misconduct with equanimity makes those statements more troubling.
A Brief Personnel Update
On the ice, there have been two developments with regard to the Wolverines’ roster for the upcoming season.
First, beloved fourth-line forechecker Nolan Moyle has withdrawn his name from the transfer portal, suggesting that he will be back to provide a veteran and physical presence in Michigan’s bottom-six and on the penalty kill.
Second, defenseman Hunter Brzustewicz has decided to move on from his commitment to join the Wolverines as a freshman this fall, instead opting to continue his career with the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers. Brzustewicz, a USNTDP product, was expected to be one of several high profile defensemen joining the Wolverines in the fall, and his move to Kitchener and the OHL will likely make it easier to earn immediate playing time for a touted prospect in the 2023 NHL Draft. All the best to Hunter as his journey continues.
As we move forward, there will be two major events this summer for the myriad Wolverines with NHL aspirations: next week’s NHL Draft and August’s rescheduled World Juniors. We at Gulo Gulo will have you covered for both!
Title IX at 50 & Gender Equity in Michigan Athletics
Last Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, a landmark bill aimed at combatting sex-based discrimination in American education. Today, one of its most tangible legacies is within the world of collegiate athletics, where Title IX has played a major role in promoting the growth of women’s sports at the NCAA level.
USA Today put together an outstanding profile of the areas for growth that persist after fifty years of Title IX. As part of the mini-series, Nancy Armour points out that schools continue to use creative accounting to duck Title IX’s codified demand for gender equality.
One such strategy is schools triple-counting female athletes who participate in, say, cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track, when their male counterparts are only counted once for participating in those three sports. Another is counting male practice players as within the overall umbrella of women’s sports.
USA Today also points out that collegiate athletic departments across the country spend an average of seventy-one cents on women’s sports for every dollar they spend on men’s sports. The paper suggests that most schools would need to add something like the equivalent of a football team on the women’s side to achieve meaningful compliance with Title IX.
One of the schools cited by USA Today as leaning on this sort of misleading accounting is, you guessed it, the University of Michigan.
For the purposes of this newsletter, there is one obvious path forward: add varsity women’s hockey.
In the Spring, the Michigan Daily’s Liza Cushnir offered a thorough analysis of the state of women’s club hockey at Michigan and the obstacles keeping the program from ascending to varsity status.
Cushnir points out that hockey is a uniquely expensive sport, making it more convenient for the school to account for Title IX compliance in sports without the same financial demands.
There would be no time like the present for the University to fix that. Michigan is a state that prides itself on being one of America’s best breeding grounds for hockey talent; it is a shame for that state to not have a single D1 hockey program, and Michigan has the financial muscle to right that wrong.
In other words, this is an opportunity for Michigan to help correct the gender inequity in athletic department spending, earn positive PR at a time when that appears in desperately short supply for its administration, and, most importantly, make a meaningful change to improve conditions and opportunities for women’s hockey players across the state and beyond.
Roe Repeal
This is a hockey newsletter, and we do not purport to offer some unique or incisive view on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. However, we do feel a responsibility to point out the abject cruelty and misogyny of this decision, particularly having just spent a moment discussing gender inequity in our little fiefdom of sports.
In reading more about the particulars of Roe after the leak emerged that the Supreme Court intended to overturn the decision, it became clearer than ever that the case represented a bare minimum of humane treatment for American women. Even with Roe in place, we lived in a country where access to abortion was profoundly limited in many states along the familiar vectors of race and wealth.
As many have pointed out, overturning the decision will not reduce the demand for abortions; it will instead lead to more unsafe abortions, more unwanted births of children whose wellbeing the state is entirely comfortable ignoring the moment they are born, and more unnecessary deaths of women from unviable and unsafe pregnancies.
There is no philosophical, moral, or religious argument that can smooth over those realities.
One day after celebrating fifty years of Title IX, America’s government offered a chilling reminder of its basic identity: a white nationalist theocracy with utter disregard for human life and wellbeing.
Our legislators and institutions have failed us once again. In the meantime, we at Gulo Gulo would urge anyone reading this newsletter to do whatever they can to promote access to safe abortions wherever they are. As a starting point, below is a link to donate to support Planned Parenthood in Michigan:
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-michigan/healthcare/abortion-services
J.T. Compher, Andrew Cogliano, Jack Johnson, (and the Colorado Avalanche) Win the Cup
To close on a more optimistic note, three former Wolverines won the Stanley Cup on Sunday night in Tampa, as the Colorado Avalanche clinched their third championship in franchise history.
Ok, maybe none of J.T. Compher, Andrew Cogliano, and Jack Johnson paved the way for the Avalanche, but all three proved valuable contributors.
Compher pitched in a handful of fourth-line goals, including consecutive two-goal games in Game 6 to close out the St. Louis Blues and Game 1 of the sweep over the Edmonton Oilers.
Cogliano, who arrived in Colorado as a deadline acquisition from San Jose, missed time during the postseason with a broken middle finger. Despite his injury, the veteran winger still managed to score the crucial tying goal in the third period of Game 4 in Tampa while proving that the elite speed that has defined his career persists into his mid-thirties.
Jack Johnson, well, Jack Johnson proved capable and even dependable in a sheltered bottom-pairing role amidst the Avs’ luxurious blue line.
However, the good news for Wolverine hockey fans need not stop there. At the level of identity, the Colorado Avalanche is a team built to put its opposition under relentless pressure, stemming from a ridiculous stable of puck-moving defenseman and progressing to a forward group blessed with elite talent at the top of the lineup and bottom-six players who would crack an average team’s top line.
That formula ought to sound familiar to Michigan hockey fans, and, even with last Spring’s mass exodus to the NHL, the Wolverines will look to employ a similar strategy this season, buoyed by another ballyhooed freshman class.
Throughout last season, we wondered whether the Wolverines’ attacking style and dependence on superior personnel was a viable postseason approach. In the Avs’, Michigan can find proof of concept that such a strategy can bear postseason fruit, a point underscored by Colorado’s coach Jared Bednar in critiquing his team’s Game 5 performance.
Between Games 5 & 6, Bednar explicitly rebuked the Avs for playing a “safe” game in their first attempt to clinch the Cup. It may be one small (even trite) observation to the media, but, for Michigan fans looking for a boost after the scar of last season’s sudden death, this stylistic analogue can be a salve.
Meanwhile, the Avs’ Conn Smythe (as postseason MVP) went to defenseman Cale Makar, a skater of transcendent ability whose skill with and without the puck pops off the screen whenever he steps onto the ice.
The obvious parallel for the Wolverines is Luke Hughes. Like Makar, Hughes went fourth overall in a draft where he likely would’ve gone higher had doubts not persisted about the viability of his skating-dependent game at the NHL level.
If there is one team with reason for excitement after these playoffs besides the Avs, it may well be the New Jersey Devils, who could watch Makar and dream of the possibility that Hughes may play a similar role for them one day.
Makar enteredthe NHL from the NCAA at the same time as Luke’s eldest brother Quinn. By now, Makar has—between his Hobey Baker, Calder, Norris, and Stanley Cup—blown past any comparison to his peers.
However, as we move forward, it may be the youngest Hughes’ brother who compares most favorably to Makar.
As Michigan looks to quench its 25-year national championship drought next season, it will be their superstar defenseman leading the charge. If at any point, the Wolverines begin to doubt their approach, the team can look to the 21-22 Stanley Cup champions as inspiration.
If you want to support the ACHA Michigan Women's Hockey team, make sure you check them out at the rink this coming season. If you want to watch last season's Michigan Women's Hockey games, watch our broadcasts live or on-demand here: https://arborbroadcasting.com/michigan-womens-hockey