To compare the sports world to the regular world is always fraught, but one thing is similar — everybody wants job security, whether you work in a factory or coach a Division I men’s college hockey team.
Vermont’s Steve Wiedler entered the season with an uncertain future, being named interim coach of the Catamounts just weeks before the season began, following the dismissal of three-year coach Todd Woodcroft. Wiedler now has the security he was searching for, as the university dropped the interim tag in late February and signed Wiedler to a four-year contract extension.
“It felt like every game was Game 7,” Wiedler said in an interview with USCHO.com. “But inside that, there were things that I learned.”
Although he had plenty of coaching experience (four seasons as an assistant at American International (Atlantic Hockey), one as AIC associate head coach, and two years as an assistant with the Catamounts), Wiedler was forced to learn on the go as a head coach. He leaned heavily on the mentorship of those with whom he previously worked closely.
“The guys in my past that I’ve worked for had definitely helped set me up for success,” Wiedler said. “(They) taught me a lot of things and provided some good pressure to develop, but also taught me a whole bunch of different things in terms of what it means to be a coach and a leader.”
Not only was Wiedler thrust into the head coaching position with little time to prepare, he was also tasked with turning around a Catamounts program that finished dead last in Hockey East the previous season. So far, Vermont has posted a 13-16-3 overall record (7-12-3 Hockey East) and enters the final weekend fighting for home-ice advantage in the first round of the upcoming conference tourney.
The Catamounts are in the midst of their winningest season since 2018-19 when they went 12-19-3.
Adding to Wiedler’s task this season was the weight of the interim tag. Wiedler said he confronted the stress of uncertainty head on.
“If I would have hid from the stress, that would’ve been a bad thing,” he said. “If I would have faked my way through that stress, I think it would have been unhealthy, masking things. It was stressful.”
UVM will be at Connecticut on Friday and Boston University Saturday. The Hockey East tournament — single elimination and every team qualifies — starts March 13. Last year, the Catamounts pulled off a first-round upset at Maine.
Wiedler said he and his assistant coaches have worked to instill a value system that centers around player responsibility and pride in the program, all the way down to the “VCat” logo.
“It’s their program, not mine,” Wiedler said. “It’s the players’ program and they have to have accountability to each other. They really are the guardians of the culture. I’ll set the standard, we’ll set the standard as the coaching staff. But it’s got to be player driven.”
In their first games after Wiedler was extended, the Catamounts had a rough go at Boston College — the No. 1 team in both the Hockey East standings and the USCHO.com D-I men’s poll — losing 7-1 and 4-2. But the season has been full of highlights, including wins over then No. 9 Maine, then-No. 17 New Hampshire and a pair of wins over UMass, when they were ranked 14th and 10th.
“There are nine million nuanced things to being a hockey coach,” Wiedler said. “To make decisions when you don’t have the security of your future and to come out on the other side of it, I think it reaffirms that doing things the right way is usually the way to go.”
