This week I decided to take the temperature of Everett Silvertips fans.
It was quite the turbulent offseason for the Tips, most notably with the change at head coach. Kevin Constantine, the winningest coach in franchise history, didn’t have his contract renewed despite leading Everett to an unexpected U.S. Division championship last season. He was replaced by Dennis Williams, who had been the head coach of Tips owner Bill Yuill’s USHL team, the Bloominghton Thunder.
Given Constantine’s history of success, but defensive style, I was curious how fans felt about his removal. The response revealed a lot of mixed opinions:
POLL: How do you feel about the Silvertips's direction following the offseason coaching change? Full context here: https://t.co/kWCTq9PVH9
— Nick Patterson (@NickHPatterson) August 21, 2017
So opinions are divided. Add the two together and 41 percent of the responders are encouraged with the franchise’s direction, 27 percent are discouraged and 32 percent are taking a wait-and-see approach.
I had a chance to get out to training camp myself on Thursday, and while watching each team scrimmage just once isn’t really enough to get a feel for the quality of players taking part, the quantity of players may have said something. There was 100-percent attendance from this year’s bantam draft picks, which is a positive development. Also, there were 97 players on the training camp roster compared to somewhere in the 70s just about every other year, so the Tips were able to get more tryout players to camp this year than in previous years.
Take that for what it’s worth.
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