This is part 1 of a two-part series by The Flight Path on how the Air Force Academy hockey coaching staff navigates the world of recruiting under a set of constraints only it and Army West Point have to contend with in NCAA Division I hockey. 

 

Air Force hockey coach Frank Serratore likes to quip recruiting at the Academy is a breeze. All he and his staff have to do is find U.S. citizens who are excellent hockey players, exceptional students and willing to dedicate their first five years out of college to serving in the Air Force.

So how – and where – do the Falcons find their players?

“We find them the same way everyone else does,” said assistant coach Andy Berg, a former Falcons player who has been on Serratore’s staff for 12 years.

That means Junior leagues around North America and occasionally some Midget 18U players.

Locating Junior achievers

“Every Junior league has a big showcase at the beginning of the season. We can come up with a pile of names through those,” Berg added. “We try to hit as many USHL tryout camps (usually in June) as we can. You can see 100-200 kids at a time.”

Berg’s tag-team partner on the recruiting trail is fellow assistant Joe Doyle, another former Falcons player who rejoined the program in 2013 after a stint with USA Hockey that followed his retirement from active service.

“We would go anywhere there is an American with good grades,” said Doyle, who coaches at many of USA Hockey’s District camps. “Midget or Junior showcases usually are competitive. There will be some future commits there. We might see NA (North American Hockey League) or USHL kids there who might have interest in the Academy.”

A collateral benefit is spending time with junior and youth hockey coaches, he added.

“If I’m on the bench there, I get to mix with a bunch of other junior coaches that I’m going to be asking about players,” Doyle said. “The relationship part of that showcase is huge, as well as watching. Being around Midget coaches, Junior A coaches that I’ve stood on the bench with can be hugely helpful when trying to locate players.”

An examination of the Falcons’ recent rosters reveals they skew more toward the NAHL than any other league. Take the 2017-18 season for example – 21 of 30 players (70 percent) came from the NAHL. The USHL contributed five players (16.7 percent).

“The NA is our main supplier. We believe in the league and the quality of players in the league. There are good coaches,” Berg said. “How that league plays the game mirrors how college hockey is played. It’s fast and physical, not a lot of room to move around.

“All of the Junior leagues are different, and all are good in their own way. All develop kids differently.”

That makes keeping up with the NAHL a priority for the Falcons’ staff.

“We try to know NA inside and out,” Doyle said. “We might get the odd player from the USHL, but some other leagues don’t have the density of players or the depth the NA does.”

Those other leagues also don’t have nearly the amount of American players still in play for college commitments.

“The NAHL is a quality league comprised of 90 percent American players, the majority of which are uncommitted,” Serratore said. “The USHL has the same percentage of Americans but the majority are verbally committed before they enter the league. If the percentage of committed to uncommitted players in the NAHL is 20/80, it is 80/20 in the USHL.

“The Junior leagues in Canada have quality players as well, but the percentage of Americans participating in these leagues is less than the NAHL and USHL. We still get some Americans who choose to play their Junior hockey in Canada. Billy Christopoulos and my nephew Matt Serratore are two of them.”

There are a few other ways of locating players, but they are far less common, Berg added.

““On occasion we’ll get emails or leads about a player that we have to filter,” he said. “And most junior, midget and high school programs will put together a grade sheet, which helps us filter out kids who can’t get in. … It’s not typical, but we will get leads from liaison officers at times.”

MORE: A sneak peek at the fall 2018 recruits

Location, location, location

The Falcons have a couple of built-in advantages on their staff.

Doyle is from Massachusetts and is well connected in the Northeast corridor, while Berg, Serratore and Director of Hockey Operations Corey Millen (a former NAHL coach) are from Minnesota and are well networked throughout the Upper Midwest.

However, those are not hockey’s only fertile recruiting grounds in the 21^st Century.

“The rise of Air Force hockey coincides with the increase in the number of quality Americans playing the game,” Serratore said. “At one time if you were an American hockey player who didn’t come from one of the three M’s (Massachusetts, Michigan or Minnesota), the prospects of being able to play at a high level were slim.

“NHL expansion into the Sunbelt helped change this. Great players are now coming from non-traditional areas as well as traditional. So the pool of quality American prospects is larger than ever, and this has been good for the business of Air Force hockey.”

The Falcons have longed mined California for prospects, for example, and Christopoulos grew up in North Carolina.

Berg and Doyle estimated that in addition to at least a dozen summer camps and showcases, they probably average 12-15 recruiting trips a year between them. Those often are piggybacked onto the front end of Falcons’ in-season trips.

“If we have 12 road trips, I will go out on three or four of them,” Doyle said. “Both of us love to recruit, and both of us love to coach. A lot of staffs have one assistant who does the lion’s share of recruiting. I coach more, but not a lot more. Bergie is away more in season.”

Age-old question

The college hockey world is replete with tales of top Division I programs getting players as young as 13 or 14 to commit to their schools. Part of it is a pre-emptive strike against Canada’s major junior teams, which “draft” 14U players each May. If a player plays major junior, his U.S. college eligibility vanishes. Another part of that is the arms race that the most heralded programs are engaged in.

There are pluses and minuses to filling a college roster with high NHL draft picks.

“Every school has its recruiting advantages and disadvantages,” Doyle said. “Denver, BC, BU, North Dakota, they’re going to get some of the most talented kids in the world. But in reality they only have some of those kids for one or two years.

“The other thing is hockey is a late maturation sport. It’s not like gymnastics or figure skating where you’re 16 and you’ve either made it or you’re done. Physical contact and size matter. Projecting kids when they’re 14 or 15 can be a dicey proposition.”

That is a slope the Falcons don’t bring their skis to.

“When you aren’t getting first- and second-round draft picks, those next-level players, you have them for four years. There’s a benefit to that,” Doyle said. “Yes, our pool is smaller, but when you get a kid out of that pool who is a good player, an overachiever, if you will, we make our living on that.

“We don’t look at it as a disadvantage. Everyone likes to say their (locker) room is special. Our room is special. These guys are willing to come to school and do more and be willing to serve on the back end. That’s a force multiplier.

“The quality of kid at a service academy is second to none in college hockey.”

The focus on older players typically presents a clearer picture of what a player can – and can’t – do at the college level. How many “misses” have the Falcons had? (That’s a rhetorical question because there aren’t many).

The recruiting of older players also allows some flexibility for adding players who excel in their final seasons of junior.

Two-time captain Dylan Abood is one example of that. Abood has said he was probably a month away from being done with hockey before the Falcons took a liking to him.

“We like to see how the season ends and watch for kids who take off,” Berg said. “Kyle Haak took off late. Dylan Abood was another late recruit.”

Added Doyle, “Marshall Bowery is another example of a 20-year-old who was in his last year of (junior) eligibility and needed a home. Sometimes these players have other options, sometimes they don’t.”

Another success story in that genre is Shane Starrett, the goaltender whom the Edmonton Oilers signed last spring after his sophomore season. Starrett was committed to Boston University by legendary coach Jack Parker, but a coaching change and a somewhat inconsistent junior career led to him being de-committed.

Air Force, meanwhile, found itself short in net. Doyle’s contacts alerted him to Starrett’s situation and the Falcons pounced.

“We were scrambling, looking for another goalie to come in with Billy (Christopoulos),” Berg said. “Joe said (Shane) is big and athletic. Frank’s track record with goalies speaks for itself.

“The biggest underrated aspect of his development was how big Academy life was for him. It forced him to be more disciplined and mature. The structure provided him with a good foundation. That’s an extreme example, but there are guys that just come here and thrive.”

There are exceptions, of course.

“Sometimes we have to move on a player earlier than we might usually like to if we think he’s a great fit,” Berg said.

Added Doyle, “Matt Pulver committed in high school, but he was the rare kid we believe understood and appreciated the whole process. There is more a mature decision that goes along with committing to an academy. It takes a special kid at that age to do it and follow through on it.”

NEXT: Part 2, Making their move on recruits

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