Bob Motzko Leaves St. Cloud State To Become Head Coach At The University Of Minnesota
“MINNEAPOLIS – University of Minnesota Athletics Director Mark Coyle announced that he has hired Bob Motzko as the new head coach of the Gopher Men’s Hockey program, pending Board of Regents approval of the agreement. Motzko, a Minnesota native and an assistant coach for the two most recent Gopher national championship teams, has spent the past 13 years building St. Cloud State into a national program.” - GopherSports.com
Boy did I call this one. Bob Motzko is leaving St. Cloud State to become the Head Coach at the University of Minnesota. And it’s actually kind of crazy, I have been pretty adamant that this was going to happen since the day Lucia stepped down. But I started to think, you know, this guy played at SCSU, he’s been there for 10+ years, why would he leave? But then it hit me. At the end of the day, it’s all about the money, Whit says it every single week on Spittin’ Chiclets. So it was reported that Motzko had a base salary of around 185k while at SCSU, Lucia had a base salary of 375k while HC of Minnesota this past season. 200k bump? Yeah, I don’t care if I led SCSU to 4 straight nattys and was given a golden throne by the school, I’m out for a 200k bump in salary. The exact numbers haven’t been reported about Motzko’s salary at Minnesota, but I did hear they were willing the break the bank for him.
But like I originally said, everyone kind of saw this coming. Motzko has turned St. Cloud State into a powerhouse over the past few years and has become an all star recruiter. Motzko never won a national championship with the Huskies, but he did win two in his previous job before SCSU, with Minnesota. Motzko was an assistant on Minnesota’s bench for 5 years from 2001-2005, helping the Gophers to two national titles in 02 and 03.
After not making the tournament this season with an extremely talented roster, the expectations will be high for Motzko in year one next season. With his ability to recruit and the talent left on the Minnesota roster, expect Minnesota to make some noise in the Big10 and to regain their dominance as a national power house. Big get for the Gophers.