STrib: Bob Motzko driving hard (and long) nearly two months into Gophers hockey job

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per Randy:

Eight weeks into his new job, Bob Motzko marvels at the whirlwinds of change.

“It’s like drinking water out of a fire hose. This happened so fast,” said Motzko, who on March 27 was hired as Gophers men’s hockey coach after spending the past 13 seasons as St. Cloud State’s coach. “… I’m finally starting to feel like my feet are on the ground.”

From the annual coaches association convention, to interviews with players, to the athletic department’s Gopher Road Trip, to finalizing his coaching staff, Motzko had plenty on his plate. Throw in a drive from St. Cloud to Minneapolis on many days — Motzko and his family will wait for the high school year to end this spring before relocating to the Twin Cities — and the 57-year-old keeps busy adjusting.

“Once you start digging in, you look at the blackboard and start figuring out depth charts and making phone calls — that’s the same. There are a lot of things in a coach’s life that are the same. What’s new is driving home,” he said with a chuckle. “I had a three-mile commute before. It’s 75 miles now.”

One of the most important tasks awaiting Motzko when he took the Gophers job was deciding on his two full-time assistant coaches. The two coaches from Don Lucia’s staff, associate head coach Mike Guentzel and assistant coach Scott Bell, interviewed for the head coaching job. Motzko decided to part ways with Guentzel, retain Bell and hire Garrett Raboin, one of his assistants at St. Cloud State.

Motzko said Guentzel, a popular former Gophers player and assistant coach for 21 seasons, is “a tremendous coach and a great hockey person. But the direction I needed to go … the comfort level to get off the ground and running, is really not anything on Mike. It was on me and what I knew I could surround myself with Garrett.”

http://www.startribune.com/bob-motz...two-months-into-gophers-hockey-job/483243691/

Go Gophers!!
 




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