Bowling Green State University Athletics
Coach Bergeron Speaks With The CCHA
September 29, 2011 | Ice Hockey
Coach Bergeron Conference Call*
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio – With the college hockey off-season coming to a close, coaches and players alike have started their final preparation for the upcoming year. CCHA Director of Communications Phil Colvin had a chance to speak with the coaches of the CCHA, and see what is on the horizon for the conference. Bowling Green State University head coach Chris Bergeron spoke with Colvin about a number of topics on the mind of the Bowling Green community entering the season. Below is the complete interview.
On last season's playoff-series win at Northern Michigan
"I'm hoping that experience will help our guys with their confidence. (Last season) We found ways for bad things to happen in situations where we could have won games. Northern had nine more league wins than we did but our season series we went 3-3-1 so we're pretty close. I hope that was a small step in that belief in the building of our culture and foundation."
On what he learned in his first season
"First and foremost thing I learned was that people DO care about hockey at Bowling Green, on campus and off. From the perspective of the coaching side, I need to do more of getting more out of each person and realizing that each guy, each staff member has more going on than you think. I think I made too many assumptions last year, personally. I need to do a better job of developing relationships with these young guys where you can develop them through recruiting and when they get here you just carry on. Well, I didn't have a chance to recruit most these guys, in particular, the guys from last year.
On the pros and cons of a youthful team
"Pros are we have a chance to mold them within the foundation and culture that we're trying to create. This year's ten recruits, with the exception of one, chose Bowling Green I hope on the basis of that culture. The con...you can't teach experience. Of the 19 young people that we're going to have in our lineup most nights, most don't have experience. The brand or the model isn't solidified yet so they're looking for someone to lead the way and we're still trying to figure each other out. We want to teach experience every day and you can't. You've got to live it…It's going to sound like an excuse but it isn't. It's a fact. We're young.
Expectation for goalie Andrew Hammond
"His strengths are his everyday approach. He's a very mature young guy and he takes that approach on a daily basis. Self-evaluation. He's very good at talking about where his game is, where he is physically, mentally. On top of that, knowing there's plenty of room for improvement. He has the physical capabilities of being as good as any goalie in this league. Our expectations are very high for them."
Expectations for forwards Marc Rodriguez, Cam Wojtala and Brett Mohler
"Unfortunately Marc (Rodriguez) and Brett are both dealing with injuries. Brett was a fluke thing and Marc was a long-term deal that he had surgery on to take care of. Just consistency with all three of those guys is going to help them. That growth of them being more consistent on a daily basis instead of having a good first half or an ok freshman year, they'll have more of a consistent impact from start to finish. We're going to have to score by committee and we know that. It'll start with Cam and Mohler and once Marc gets healthy we think he's a guy that can do a couple different things. Pretty physical guy when he wants to be.
Defensive personnel
"We brought in four freshman (defensemen) and there's a good chance three of the four are going to play every night. Max Grover, Ian Ruel, and Ryan Peltoma are the three juniors and they're guys that are trying to figure their game out and trying to improve. It's going to be a young, unproven group. We think we're a little bit bigger last year physically and we'll compete hard."
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