Great Hire For The Bench

With the speed that news travels in today's world, you would think that there would be a conscious effort by those who have news to release some sort of announcement in a timely manner. I get that it's summer and communications, public relations, and marketing people might be on holidays from the game of hockey, but you'd think someone would still be at the helm when it came to getting big news out about a collegiate hockey program who made a great addition to its squad. In any case, the Sacred Heart University Pioneers men's hockey team had an announcement that landed in my inbox on July 31.

As per this email I received, the Pioneers were proud to announce that former ECHL Coach of the Year in 2019-20 Steve Bergin had been hired to become the assistant coach of the Sacred Heart Pioneers men's team! Bergin, seen to the right, was the head coach of the South Carolina Stingrays in 2019-20 when he led the club to a 44-14-4 record, earning the coaching accolades from the ECHL. Prior to that, he had been an assistant coach with the team after retiring from hockey in 2016 as a defenceman with the SPHL's Pensacola Ice Pilots. Bergin also played at the University of Connecticut in his university days. In his professional days with Pensacola, Bergin scored 11 goals and 53 assists over those five campaigns.

I think adding a coach of Bergin's calibre to the Pioneers' bench will help that club immensely as they look to make waves in the NCAA after the team ranked among the NCAA's top-20 Division-I hockey teams earlier this year. Bergin has had experience at the NCAA level as well, so he knows the grind that goes into being a Division-I player and can certainly help the players in that regard. Honestly, this was an very astute addition by the Pioneers this summer.

The only problem?

Bergin stepped down from the Stingrays on July 8 to take the position with Sacred Heart. Again, I'm not sure why the university waited for 23 days to make the announcement official when there were multiple websites that posted the news in the days leading up to July 31. Whatever happened with the announcement coming from the school itself may never be known, but I would have thought they'd want to announce the hiring themselves before a pile of other outlets did.

Regardless of the tardiness of the announcement of the school, I think Steven Bergin is going to be a big help for the Pioneers thanks to his experiences both as a player and as a coach. Let's just hope that anything he does that's of significant news at Sacred Heart isn't announced three weeks after it happens.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!