Snow Told Paper Okposo Wasn’t Progressing
January 2nd, 2008 by Tom
I might be late coming to the party on this but I figured some of you folks might have missed it, too. A Dec. 20 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune says Islander GM Garth Snow convinced top prospect Kyle Okposo to sign with the team by telling him his coach at the University of Minnesota, Don Lucia, wasn’t doing a good job.
“Quite frankly, we weren’t happy with the program there,” Snow told the paper. “They have a responsibility to coach, to make Kyle a better player, and they were not doing that.”
“(Okposo) just wasn’t getting better — bottom line. And to me, that’s the frustrating part. We entrusted the coach there to turn him into a better hockey player, and it wasn’t happening.”
The Islanders on Dec. 28 signed Okposo to a three-year deal that could be worth as much as $2.55 million, depending on certain bonus provisions, according to published reports.
In response to Snow’s charges, Lucia told the Start Tribune “I believe our staff does an excellent job of developing our players on and off the ice.
Thanks to Paul Harris’s column at USA Today for pointing out the Star Tribune story.
