stfrank
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Fresh off the presses at the Strib:
St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko will replace Don Lucia as Gophers hockey coach, sources told the Star Tribune on Tuesday.
Motzko turned 57 on Tuesday, one week after Lucia announced he was stepping down “on my terms” alongside Gophers athletic director Mark Coyle.
Sources said a team meeting will take place today at Minnesota, as well as at St. Cloud, to inform players.
Motzko served as a Gophers assistant coach under Lucia from 2001-02 through 2004-05, helping Minnesota win NCAA championships in 2002 and ’03 and another Frozen Four appearance in ’05.
The Austin, Minn., native is a 1987 St. Cloud State graduate who was a two-year letter-winner (1985 and ’86) for the Huskies. Motzko began his coaching career as an assistant at St. Cloud State under Herb Brooks in 1986-87 before serving as coach and GM of the North Iowa Huskies of the USHL from 1987-91. He spent two years as associate head coach at Miami (Ohio) and one year as associate head coach at Denver before returning to Miami for three years. Before he became an assistant with the Gophers, he was the inaugural coach and general manager of the Sioux Falls Stampede of the USHL from 1998 to 2001.
Motzko had plenty of success at St. Cloud State. The Huskies ranked fourth nationally this season in scoring (3.60 goal per game) and 12th on the power play (22.41 percent). They were solid defensively, giving up 2.52 goals per game (16th nationally), but less so on the penalty kill (31st at 81.06 percent).
The Huskies won the NCHC regular-season title this season, finished runner-up to Denver in the Frozen Faceoff and entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 overall seed. But Air Force upset St. Cloud State 4-1 on Friday in the West Regional semifinals in Sioux Falls, and the Huskies finished with a 25-9-6 record.
Motzko declined to comment on the Minnesota job last weekend in Sioux Falls. Earlier in the week last week, he offered praise to Lucia.
“First, the press conference, I thought, was outstanding,” Motzko said. “... He’s one of the true gentlemen in our game. ... His legacy is going to grow greatly as we go through time, as it should.”
Motzko guided the Huskies to eight NCAA tournament appearances, including a trip to the Frozen Four in 2013. St. Cloud State has played in three other regional finals, losing to Wisconsin in 2010, the Gophers in 2014 and North Dakota in 2015. The past two times the Huskies made the NCAA tournament — in 2016 and this year — they were No. 1 regional seeds and lost to No. 4 seeds Ferris State and Air Force, respectively. That left his record in the national tournament at 5-8.
In 13 years at St. Cloud State, Motzko has a 276-192-49 record. His teams won regular-season titles in the WCHA in 2013 and the NCHC in 2014 and ’18. The Huskies also won the 2016 NCHC Frozen Faceoff.
On the international stage, Motzko has been successful, too, coaching the United States to the gold medal in the 2017 World Junior Championship and the bronze medal this year.
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