Lancer men's hockey coach resigns
By Ryan Rogers
Sports Editor
March 19, 2008
The Athletics Department at the University of Windsor announced last Thursday the resignation of the men’s hockey team’s head coach, Pete Belliveau. The resignation has left the athletics department in a position where they’ll have to evaluate the future of the men’s hockey at the varsity level.
Athletics Director Gord Grace said, “We’ve got to sit down and discuss where we go from here. We’ve lost two really good hockey men in the last couple years with Vern (Stenlund) and with Pete.”
The reasoning for Belliveau’s departure was an inability for the athletics department to solidify the coaching position at a full-time level. Grace said, “I knew that it was a possibility and the fact is that Pete needed to pursue full-time employment, or wanted to pursue a full-time opportunity.”
“We (athletics department) weren’t able to get it done and knew that he’d likely look elsewhere,” continued Grace.
Belliveau accepted a full-time position as the head coach at Dalhousie University. Belliveau said that negotiations to implement a full-time hockey coach at the University of Windsor started early. “Probably after the beginning of the season, we kept on meeting, Gord and I. It (a full-time position) couldn’t really happen from his end, and I could appreciate that.” Belliveau saw that the coaching position at Dalhousie was accepting applications only until Feb. 22, and he applied knowing that he wasn’t able to coach full-time in Windsor.
“This is the first time I had to leave a university behind,” said Belliveau. “I said … I would coach and teach high school for a year. The teaching was just replacing maternity leave, so I was up in limbo, there was no guarantee that I could teach. When this (new job) came up I had nothing to lose and applied.”
Belliveau said he was offered the job around 10 p.m. on Wednesday evening, and announced to his team that he would be leaving before noon on Thursday. His official resignation was announced by 4 p.m. later that day.
The athletics department continues to have difficulty making the most of their budget, and they remain unable to offer a full-time coaching position for men’s hockey. “That’s primarily what it came down to, absolutely,” said Grace. “It was not only a decision financially for Pete, but an opportunity with the Dalhousie program. We continue to struggle with our budget. We cut it again last year. We don’t have the funds, at this point in time, to compete with teams across the country or across the province.”
Grace continued, “With the declining enrollment, it is difficult.”
“We anticipated for 2008, $120,000, we’ve been able to do a lot of great things in terms of facilities, but our Achilles heel, remains our students’ fee which ranks among the lowest in the province. Combined with declining enrollment we don’t have the funds,” he said.
Last year the department struggled to even acquire a Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment in student fees, which jeopardized Campus Recreation, varsity teams and facility availability. In 2005 a UWSA Auxiliary Fee Board approved a retroactive student levy for the CPI adjustment on student athletic fees, which amounted to $12.60 per year.
With money in short order and the program struggling under part-time management, Grace says that they’ll need to evaluate what they want to do next with the program.
“The question’s got to be asked,” said Grace. “If we’re going to field the team, are we fielding it to be successful? The results don’t lie, we just haven’t been able to get back into the playoffs, and quite frankly it’s because we only have a part-time coach when everybody has a full-time coach. And that makes it really difficult to build a successful program. So we have to evaluate.”
Windsor competes in one of the most difficult division in Canadian Interuniversity Hockey with powerhouses like Lakehead and Western dominating the league. Windsor had a meager six wins in 28 games, and were in last place of their division and the league with 13 points.
The only other team in the OUA with a part-time head coach is the University of Ontario’s Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks, mostly because this is the team’s inaugural season in the OUA.
The Ridgebacks had a record of 6-19-0-3, which still put them two points up on the Lancers.
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