St. Cloud Times — Mike Hastings might need to either build an addition to his house or rent a storage garage for all the honors he has won as a coach.
“He’s a very well-decorated coach and one of the best in the country,” St. Cloud State head coach Bob Motzko said of Hastings.
Hastings is the reigning Spencer Penrose Award winner as the American Hockey Coaches Association’s coach of the year and he is the all-time winningest coach in United States Hockey League history in junior hockey.
He led the Omaha Lancers to three Clark Cup playoff titles in the USHL during his 14-year reign. The Lancers never had a losing season and he was named the USHL Coach of the Year three times and USHL General Manager of the Year five times.
In his three seasons as head coach at Minnesota State-Mankato, Hastings has led it to three straight NCAA Division I tournaments, been named WCHA Coach of the Year twice, led the Mavericks to their first WCHA Broadmoor Trophy (playoff champions) in 2013-14 and then to their first WCHA MacNaughton Cup (regular-season champion) and another Broadmoor Trophy last season.
Yeah, it’s been a good run for the 1993 St. Cloud State graduate. The Mavericks, ranked No. 14/15 in the two NCAA Division I polls, play a nonconference series against 12th-ranked St. Cloud State this weekend at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center. The teams play at 7:37 p.m. Friday (FOX Sports North Plus/FOX College Sports) and 7:07 p.m. Saturday (Charter Channels 426 and 823).
It is alumni weekend for the Huskies with a pre-game social on the third floor of the Brooks Center for former players before Saturday’s game.
“My daughter will be visiting the softball program there and I think St. Cloud is a great city and I hope to run into more than one or two alumni,” Hastings said.
Between his time with the Lancers and Mankato, Hastings was an associate coach for Dean Blais at Nebraska-Omaha for three seasons and an assistant coach for Don Lucia for one season at Minnesota.
Hastings took over the Mavericks program after Troy Jutting’s 12-year run as head coach ended. Mankato was 12-24-2 in Jutting’s last season (2011-12), but went 24-14-3 and made the NCAA tournament the next season under Hastings.
“I’ve been fortunate with my own experiences in Omaha, then fortunate to go work with Don at Minnesota and Dean at UNO and you have your own foundation of philosophies,” Hastings said. “I think you take from your own and then add what you want to add along the way and kind of make it your own.
“You have to have an understanding that the most important piece is the players. Coaches change. Administrators change. There’s a lot of change in what we do. The one thing I’ve tried to focus on is the most important piece is the players and how to position them to succeed.”
In his three seasons with the Mavericks, no other Division I team has won more games (79-36-7), though Mankato has not won an NCAA tournament game in that stretch.
“He sure has them believing and he’s put some real discipline into the program and some hard structure into how things were going to be,” Motzko said of Hastings. “He walked into a group that was ready to win right away.
“He walked into a situation where the cupboards weren’t bare and guided them very quickly into being one of the top teams in the country,” Motzko said of the Mavericks, who were the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 seed last season. “He knows how to win hockey games.”
Hastings played defense for the Huskies from 1986-88 and was an assistant coach for Craig Dahl from 1988-92 and in 1993-94. Motzko was a graduate assistant coach when Hastings was a freshman in college.
“I remember him being young and energetic, and he’d help you in any way he could and he was a good person,” Hastings said of his first impressions of Motzko. “He had just finished playing and that can be a hard place to be in, coaching right after you’re done playing. But I thought he did very well at it and I felt like I could talk to Bob about anything.
“I have a lot of respect for him as a person, first, and second of all, as a coach. You can say what you want, but I graduated from St. Cloud State and as an alumni, I think he’s helped build the program and done an unbelievable job.”
Opposite ends
The two teams are coming off very different weekends. The Huskies opened with two wins at the Kendall Hockey Classic in Anchorage, Alaska, outscoring their opponents 9-2.
“They’ve got depth and young guys who are stepping in already,” Hastings said. “We recruited (SCSU freshman) Robby Jackson and he’s a heck of a hockey player.
“They did not give up a goal in their first 60 minutes and not much (two goals) over the weekend, which says a lot about their goaltending. They’re a well-coached, talented hockey team.”
Mankato was swept at home by Omaha by a combined score of 5-2.
“They’ve got a lot of players back and they did lose some good players (to graduation),” Motzko said. “With them losing twice last weekend, you know the mood in that (locker) room and there isn’t a lot of smiles and you’re going to get their ‘A’ game.”
