One day after making a change at the top of their women\u2019s hockey program, the University of Minnesota is expected to announce a vacancy next door at 3M Arena at Mariucci, as well.<\/p>\n
An official announcement that Bob Motzko is out after eight seasons as the Gophers\u2019 men\u2019s hockey head coach is anticipated this afternoon, according to a source close to the program. The news comes following the Gophers\u2019 worst on-ice season in more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
Motzko, who turns 65 next week, led Minnesota to a pair of Frozen Fours, including a national runner-up finish, and hung four Big Ten title banners during his tenure at the U, widely considered one of college hockey\u2019s blueblood programs. He was named the conference\u2019s coach of the year three times.<\/p>\n
But the 2025-26 Gophers struggled from the opening drop, going 11-22-3 overall and finishing sixth in the seven-team Big Ten. Their season ended on March 11 with a 6-2 playoff loss at Penn State.<\/p>\n
Motzko finishes with a 172-104-24 record at Minnesota. His college career record, which includes 13 seasons at St. Cloud State, is 448-296-73. Motzko was an assistant coach under Don Lucia in the 2002 and 2003 seasons, when the Gophers won their two most recent NCAA titles.<\/p>\n
When he took over the program from Lucia in 2018, Motzko got to work building better relationships with the Gophers alumni, and is widely credited with bringing sellout crowds back to Minneapolis after several seasons of declining attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cBob gave me a second chance in hockey. Not many kids get that,\u201d said Jack LaFontaine, who was named college hockey\u2019s top goalie with the Gophers in 2022 after being cut loose by Michigan. \u201cHe took a chance on me and stuck with me through the highs and lows. I am proud to have been coached by Bob Motzko, not only for his excellence on the ice, but the man and human being he is.<\/p>\n
\u201cBob has reenergized this program and has left it better then he found it; that\u2019s the true measure of a good coach and person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Motzko and his staff recruited some of the most highly-regarded young NHL stars, including Wild defenseman Brock Faber, Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe, Mammoth forward Logan Cooley, Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies and Blues forward Jimmy Snuggerud.<\/p>\n
The 2022-23 Gophers, who are considered one of the most talented teams in the program\u2019s history, fell just short of Minnesota\u2019s sixth NCAA title, losing to Quinnipiac in overtime of the national title game.<\/p>\n
His time at the U was marred by the COVID-19 shutdown of college sports, which prematurely ended the 2019-2020 season and caused much of the following season to be played in mostly empty arenas. The Motzko family was also hit by an unthinkable tragedy when the coach\u2019s 20-year-old son Mack was killed by a drunk driver in the summer of 2021.<\/p>\n
Originally from Austin, Minn., Motzko played college hockey and coached under Gophers legend Herb Brooks at St. Cloud State, and had a successful run as a junior hockey coach before returning to the college ranks. On the international level, he was Team USA\u2019s coach for the World Junior Championships three times, winning a gold medal in 2018, and bowing out early in the medal round this winter when the tournament was played in the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One day after making a change at the top of their women\u2019s hockey program, the University of Minnesota…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[1879,11180,5,161,38,5280,4,43,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-510025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-gophers-mens-hockey","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-minnesota","12":"tag-minnesota-wild","13":"tag-minnesotawild","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}