Thursday, October 26, 2017

Seth Appert's Return to ECAC Hockey

Seth Appert spent 2016-17 on the Hot Seat(Times Union)
ECAC Hockey fans may have noticed that a Seth Appert-coached team rolled through Dartmouth and Harvard in late October, as USA Hockey’s U-18 National team split a pair, opening with a 3-0 win at Dartmouth before bowing to Harvard 7-2 the next night. When Appert was fired by RPI last March, coaching at Thompson Arena and the Bright-Landry Center must have seemed light years away. But before the 2017-18 Ivy schedule was even officially underway, there was Appert back on familiar ground, coaching his teenage wunderkinds against the men of the ECAC. The last six months have been a long, strange trip for Appert, and we caught up with him by phone before he jetted off to Finland with the Red, White and Blue.

RinkRap: You’ve been through some pretty intense highs and lows this past off-season. Can you share your mindset as this all went down?
APPERT: You have to go back to mid-March when I had one of the worst professional days of my life, being fired from RPI. People say coaches are hired to be fired, but when it’s you, and it’s your family and your kids that are going to have to be uprooted, it’s hard. I’m really proud of what we built at RPI, and getting that program back towards national prominence, but we had a bad year last year, and those things happen. That’s a hard day.
A Dark Day in March, and then the phone rang-(Daily Gazette)
The next day you’re kind of talked out. Everybody’s calling and checking in on you and all those other things. It’s probably eight in the morning, and my phone’s ringing and it’s John Wroblewski, the other head coach of the (NTDP) national team. I was getting my daughters on the bus, and I let it go to voice mail. I was assuming he was calling to see how I was doing, right? But he was calling to ask me to join their coaching staff for the Under-18 World Championships.

I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity that John and Director Scott Monaghan provided me at that moment. The moment when you’re in a real bad spot, for those guys to call me the next day and offer me the opportunity of a lifetime, to join a U.S. National team for a world championship event, was very, very special. I’m very grateful for that.

I spent six weeks with them, a couple weeks of practice and then a month overseas, and then went right back overseas with Jeff Blashill with their staff for the men’s championship. During that process I interviewed for the job here (in Plymouth with the NTDP) after Danton Cole became head coach at Michigan State.

RinkRap: Were those World Championships an audition of sorts, were they observing you?
APPERT: It wasn’t intended for that, at that point Danton was still on the job and the Michigan State job wasn’t even open yet. Robo (Wroblewski) and I have some of the same philosophies and styles of play and coaching, and he wanted me to join the staff. In the end, it did become a two-month interview process, with USA Hockey people at the highest levels, interacting with me on a daily basis, watching how I interact with both the Under-18  team and also the men’s national team. That eventually led to this opportunity.
Appert at his New Home with the NTDP-(Hometown Life)
RinkRap: You and the NTDP seem like a pretty good fit.
APPERT: From my end, I believe it is, I’m having a blast. It’s extremely re-energizing and exciting. I’ve been coaching college hockey for 12 years and I love college hockey and believe in it strongly, but this is refreshing. They’re younger, they’re hungry to learn, they’re extremely talented and driven; there’s a lot of mentorship in their work ethic and habits and also in their off-ice life. We’re just trying to march forward every day to get them better individually and collectively.

RinkRap: It must have been surreal to leave Thompson Arena with a win, after playing them so many times with RPI.
APPERT: It’s different. When you walk out with a win when at RPI, you’re excited about the two points in the standings and you're thinking about the next game. When you walk out with these young men, and seeing how hard they have to battle to give themselves a chance to win against a college team, it wasn’t about the two points, it’s about all these things we’re trying to do— We’re trying to put our guys in as much adversity as possible, and then helping them through that and growing from it so we can become better. I was really happy for our guys.
Appert's Teens Claim a Scalp up at Thompson 
From the perspective of being back on a Dartmouth-Harvard road trip, it didn’t feel very much different from years past. It’s funny, Rand Pecknold texted me, “Dartmouth-Harvard this weekend, it’s like you never left.” That’s certainly a trip you’re familiar with coming from the ECAC.

RinkRap: Did you allow yourself time for introspection as you exited Thompson Arena? Being back in such familiar surroundings, yet in a totally unexpected setting?
APPERT: That’s not who I am. I’m not a real nostalgia type of guy, I am a live-in-the moment type of guy. I’m not a guy that walks around and tries to soak up those kinds of things, that’s just not who I am, but at the end of the day, it was great. I have tremendous respect for Bob Gaudette, and really cherished the opportunity to coach against him for those 11 years I was in the ECAC. Associate coach Dave Lassonde has been a good friend of mine since I was a young coach in this game the last 27 years. It’s always good to see old friends and visit with them either before or after the game.
  


For the record, the last time a Seth Appert-coached club won at Thompson Arena was November 2, 2013, when RPI defeated Dartmouth 7-1.