Robert Morris coach Derek Schooley says that he’s an impatient person, especially when it comes to coaching.
Schooley, who has been in charge of the RMU program since its inception in 2004, had to rebuild it after the school eliminated the men’s and women’s teams at the end of the 2020-21 season.
It was a shocking announcement. The programs were healthy and successful at the time.
Through a lot of fundraising work, both teams were restored by Dec. 2021, but it would take Schooley and his staff two seasons to rebuild. All but four players transferred out when the program was cut.
Schooley had the benefit of the transfer portal and an extra year of eligibility for players due to the pandemic, but it was still a daunting task.
This year’s squad is comprised of 13 freshmen new to the program, three redshirt freshmen who arrived last year, four leftovers from the 2020-21 team, and 10 transfers.
After an emotional start to the season, the Colonials have struggled at 2-11-3 overall, 1-9-2 in Atlantic Hockey.
“We’re still trying to figure out where we are as a hockey team,” said Schooley. “When you have so many new players, most of them haven’t played together, and the ones that have, it was three years ago.
“There are so many variables of putting a team together and getting everybody on the same page. We’re still trying to figure out where we are as a hockey team.”
That can take some time, but Schooley said, “You have to be patient a little bit, it’s hard to be patient. I’m not a patient person.”
It’s especially frustrating for him because his program was in a good place when it was canceled.
“We had a really good team when they disbanded the program,” said Schooley. “And we were going to be really good the next year. We’re still feeling the effects of it.”
Once the program was reinstated, it was back to the drawing board, but in a different environment than the first time around. And with different expectations.
“You can get older quicker (now), but the difference of when you bring in all freshmen, you knew at that time they were going to be there for four years,” said Schooley. “And you were going to get better as your four years go along.
“You can change your program in a quick way with the transfer portal and all that right now. Compared to when we did it before, we knew that we were building for a four-year plan. Now it’s a quick turnaround.”
Not quick enough for Schooley’s liking, at least so far. The Colonials are struggling to score, currently last in the conference (1.75 goals per game).
Freshman Tanner Klimpke leads the team in scoring (four goals, six assists). Six of the top ten scorers are rookies.
“Our freshmen are leading us right now,” said Schooley. “We’ve got some good players that are fifth years transfers that haven’t hit their stride yet and are still trying to find it.
“Scoring’s been tough, so you need your goalie even more in cases like that.”
Veteran Chad Veltri, who backstopped Niagara for four years, returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh for a fifth and final season at RMU. On Friday, Veltri made his 3,000th career save against Rochester Institute of Technology in a 4-1 loss, a game in which the Colonials were outshot 54-16. He became the 10th player in league history to reach that plateau.
“Both of our goaltenders have played well,” said Schooley. “(St. Lawrence transfer) Francis Boisvert played well in (a Nov. 10-11 series at) Alaska and Chad has been very good.
“The problem that our goaltenders are facing right now is if they get to two or three, we’re in trouble because we haven’t been able to score as much as we need to. If we can keep them playing in the way they’ve been playing, when we hit our stride from a goal-scoring standpoint, it’ll be that much better for us.”
The Colonials have a home-and-home series with Niagara this weekend and then host No. 12 Arizona State before Christmas. While the first half of the season has held some disappointments, Schooley remains optimistic. And impatient.
“We wanted it to be easy,” he said. “We thought we were going to just dive right back in. But it’s a process and we’ve got to stick together and continue to move forward and be prepared to do everything that we need to do to be successful.”
