Where are they now: Derek Schooley, the only coach Bob Morris has ever known

Of the 97 professional games on Derek Schooley's trading card, 77 of them were played in Huntington, encompassing the 1994-95 and '95-96 seasons. He came to Huntington fresh out of college: "I played college hockey at Western Michigan and Paul Pickard was a junior coach in Kalamazoo so he saw me play a lot in college. I played against his teams in junior hockey so his team competed against me and my team. He recruited me and I trusted him that he would put together a competitive team." Indeed, after a legendarily bad first season, Pickard's first season put the team in the playoffs. "We had a young team and a team that played with heart and enthusiasm. We all got along great. We had a very good team that had a great first half."

Callups battered the team late, however, resulting in a 2-vs-15 first round draw with the Dayton Bombers. "We had a short bench as we were expecting some players back from the AHL (and they didn't come back) and went to Hara Arena for the first two games. We were outshot badly in game 1 but won as Jeff Levy stood on his head. The next day we had a pregame skate and they left the shot clock on for the team to see how bad we were out shot. We had a very short bench but showed a lot of guts and hearts." This showed in the scores: while the Blizzard lost in four games, three of those games were decided by a single goal.

The offseason upheaval--which led to new ownership and a new coach--affected Schooley's outlook early on in the 1995-96 season; "[It] just wasn't the same from my perspective." While the Blizzard struggled that season, Schooley was traded after 11 games to Roanoke. "In my first week there, I hurt my knee so they released me. After my knee healed, I went to Quad City and then got traded to Flint... 4 teams in 4 years led me to decide to get into coaching." After a few games in the ECHL in 1996 he became an assistant coach for the NAHL's Chicago Freeze later that season.

For the 1997-98 season he would be an assistant at Cornell University, then moved on to the Air Force Academy. He spent five years there--four as assistant coach, one as associate head coach--and built a strong defensive club in Colorado Springs. Schooley also coached the USA Hockey Select 14-15 Festival in 2001 and was an assistant for the U18 Select team at the 2002 Junior World Cup in the Czech Republic.

2003 would see Derek Schooley named as the first coach ever for Robert Morris University as a NCAA Division 1 team. He spent the whole of 2003-04 recruiting, and the team took to the ice for College Hockey America in 2004-05. Their win totals increased every year, from 8 to 12 to 14 to 15 wins in 2007-08; despite a drop in their win total (10 wins) for 2008-09, they only narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament, losing in overtime in the CHA final to Bemidji State. This will be their last season in College Hockey America--and in fact the last season for the conference in men's hockey--as they join fellow conferencemate Niagara University in Atlantic Hockey next season...

A note on Barry Soskin

My schadenfreude light kicked on when I read in the last couple weeks that Barry Soskin has been booted out of the North American Hockey League as owner of the Albert Lea (MN) Thunder over a pay-to-play scheme--the players' families secure roster spots and playing time for large sums of money, a gross violation of the standards set in place for top-level Jr. A hockey.

In July Mr. Soskin sent me a message, on Facebook of all places:

I am looking into Hunn hockey and would like to talk to you about the possibility of bringing back minor pro hockey. Please email me your phone number so we can chat......
Barry

I did in fact have a couple phone conversations with Barry Soskin, who was interested in putting an IHL team in Huntington... THIS year. I told him the logistics would be VERY difficult for such a short timeframe, but I thought if done properly it would be a good move, and as far as official dealings directed him to contact AJ Boleski at the BSSA.

The schadenfreude: when I mentioned the Rutherford story--the USHL rumor--he went on a long rant basically saying that the USHL wasn't worth his time because, in a nutshell, the other junior leagues--namedropping the NAHL in particular--utilized older players that could/would beat the crap out of the primarily U17 stock in the USHL.

Of course now that this has come to light it seems having a team full of bruisers may have been secondary to having a team full of money...