By Andrew Cuneo

After hearing of Northeastern’s decision to allow former men’s hockey coach Bruce Crowder to walk following the end of his contract, I, like many recent alumni, felt a sense of sadness.

While it was undeniably time for change both for Bruce and the university, we recent grads have come to know the mullet-haired stoic figure that often ruled the NU bench as a permanent fixture on Friday and Saturday nights.

He was fiery. He was quiet. He made some good moves and some bad. Over the course of nine seasons, his record of 50 games below .500 doesn’t show marked improvement in the win column. He missed the playoffs the last two seasons prior to this year and he only had two winning seasons in those nine years. But men’s ice hockey took off when he got here and it hasn’t looked back. NU would often have a tough time getting to the 1,600 attendance mark each night at Matthews. When Crowder came aboard, the attendance grew remarkably. It was not uncommon to see at least 3,000 a night packed into Matthews. On two occasions, I can remember the Dog House receiving pizza courtesy of Crowder. He knew what the crowd meant to the team.

It’s the end of an era in Northeastern sports and that’s OK. Crowder will not go down as the best coach in Northeastern history, but he won’t