Old news, but it got lost among draft stuff last week. Former Dartmouth commit Matt Lindblad is once again a current Dartmouth commit after switching his mind once again. I doubt we'll ever know the full story, but I would guess it's a pretty interesting one.
As fall out, 2011 recruit Gavin Hartzog will now join the Badgers next season.
Meanwhile, SBN's Anaheim Ducks blog Anaheim Calling interviewed Denver head coach George Gwozdecky last week about hockey in California, and had some great quotes from Gwoz that ended up not making the story, including getting his opinion on the Lindblad situation. Gwozdecky's response is fairly boilerplate, but I think important for people to see to kind of keep this whole thing in perspective. He declined to comment specifically on any player, but wanted to talk about the strength of college hockey commitments overall. It's a little long, so I'll put it after the jump.
Here's the transcript of what Gwozdecky had to say:
"I was telling somebody else earlier today because I heard about that.
I don't know a lot of the facts, other than just a kid committed to
Princeton and now he may be going to Wisconsin, another kid committed
to Dartmouth and now he certainly sounds like he's going to Wisconsin.
I will say this, that 99 percent of the time, once a kid makes a
verbal commitment, it's honored by the kid, his family and the
coaches. The coaches not only who have received his commitment but
the other 58 or 57 coaches across the country. A verbal commitment is
as good as a handshake, as good as a contract, as far as college
hockey is concerned, 99 percent of the time.Now there are those rare exceptions-- and again, I don't want to comment on what's going on at
Wisconsin, because I don't know all the facts --but there are those
rare exceptions where a decision is made and for whatever reason
someone changes their mind. But, as I said before, the great, great
majority of the time, those verbal commitments are honored by both
parties, and it never is an issue. it's never an issue. To the point
where, even when a kid makes a verbal commitment and he gets hurt and
he can't play, a lot of times, those commitments will be maintained,
and the kid will be able to come to school if he wants and get his
education paid for without even playing.We're a great example of that: David Carle and Danny Comrie. I don't know if you know the
name, but Danny was a terrific young player out of San Diego a few
years ago, probably five or six years ago maybe, and committed to come
to Denver. He could've been a terrific college player maybe a great
pro player. But [he had] concussion issues during his final season
before he came to college, and he couldn't play. [He] had to retire.
We still wanted him to come to DU [to get an education], and he
decided against it for a number of reasons. He decided to go into an
acting career and things like that.But I think you find that for the most part, as I said before, once that decision is made on a school,
all the parties involved honor that commitment, honor that decision.
And I think that's what still makes college hockey great and unique,
unlike our friends in the Division I basketball level and Division I
footballl level, where it just seems that every weekend they're
changing their minds as to where they're gonna go, so I think that's
one of the things I'm really proud of in college hockey.