Tapp, Brooks Added to Finalists

Two ECAC assistants added to the initially reported picture

Jason Tapp during his stint at Union College

Yesterday afternoon, a new report dropped naming two more finalists for the next RPI men’s hockey coach. They are Dartmouth Associate HC Jason Tapp and Clarkson Associate HC Chris Brooks. The original report naming Eric Lang, Dan Jewell, and Jim Doyle the finalists was erroneous, which will be discussed more in a bit.

This new list makes a lot more sense. Both Tapp and Brooks were coaches that were on our radar when we wrote about potential candidates since they are both ECAC assistants with national titles on their resumes. They both seem like better fits than Doyle, and they both are more experienced than Jewell. Frankly, it relieves me that these are the type of candidates RPI can draw, as opposed to what the first list looked like.

Tapp was a longtime assistant and associate HC at Union where he helped build and win the national championship in 2014. He joined Reid Cashman at Dartmouth 5 years ago, and he has been the top assistant there and a big part of their rise. As a former goaltender who has been working with the goalies there, he developed both Clay Stevenson and Cooper Black into goalies who earned NHL contracts. He can point to his familiarity with the area, experience in the ECAC, and revival at Dartmouth as reasons he deserves this job.

Brooks built UW-Stevens Point into a D3 powerhouse and won a national championship as the head coach there. Since then, he has done good work with both Michigan Tech and Clarkson. He had numerous NCAA tournament appearances at Michigan Tech, and while Clarkson had a brief dip his first two years there, they rebounded this year and appear on the right track once again. It helps that both are smaller tech schools with good academics as well. He should have some familiarity with what type of kids he can recruit.

Now, talking about where the search stands and getting into the erroneous report. The initial report was clearly wrong: the finalists were not Lang, Jewell, and Doyle. Tapp and Brooks being in the picture now doesn’t mean those 3 aren’t finalists, but the list was not just those 3 as first reported. That being said, I would be shocked if all 5 of these coaches are finalists; it’s just way too big of a list to have for your final round when you’re bringing them all to campus. It’s either a list of 3 or 4, and either Jewell or Doyle or both are not finalists.

It is frustrating to receive a report of finalists stated as fact that is now clearly not the status of the situation. We have heard some rumors the past couple of weeks, but didn’t report any of them without full confirmation. Certainly, these situations can be fluid, but this wasn’t reported on like it was rumor. Lang is the only one definitely correct from the initial report.

So, you may be asking why we can trust this new report if the first one was so incorrect. I had that same question myself, so I sought out to confirm it myself privately. Lang, Tapp, and Brooks are confirmed finalists. It’s not clear what the status of Jewell and Doyle’s candidacies are.

Here is my gut feeling based on what I’ve heard, but I want to make it clear that this information is not confirmed. It appears to me that neither Jewell nor Doyle are finalists. It’s possible that one of them is, but there’s practically no chance that both are as I stated above. That would be too many to bring to campus and cause the process to extend into next week.

One random note that bodes well for those who want Lang to be pick is that the transfer portal showcase he is running was postponed. As I said on Twitter, I think this is mostly related to the RPI coaching search. The date of the portal opening was known well in advance as was the fact the season wouldn’t be fully over. The only thing that has changed since it was scheduled is that Lang is a finalist for the RPI coaching job. What does that mean? Well, in a best-case scenario mindset (if you want Lang of course), he thinks he’s getting the job either late this week or early next week and doesn’t want this event to interfere with that. In the worst-case, it probably was just too much to handle interviewing seriously for the job while trying to administratively put the event together.

With the two new candidates, we would tier them as follows.

1. Eric Lang

2. Jason Tapp and Chris Brooks

3. Dan Jewell

4. Joe Doyle

For the big picture with the process, I expect that the new coach will be named by the Frozen Four at the latest. All the on-campus interviews will take place this week, and it shouldn’t take too long after that. At the earliest, it could be announced Thursday if the interviews were Monday-Wednesday. In actuality, I think it’ll be sometime between Friday and Tuesday. Stay tuned.