According to a league source, Darwitz's departure comes after she clashed with coach Ken Klee, who has the support of several of the team's veterans, including captain Kendall Coyne Schofield. The source said Klee will be acting GM and will make the team's picks at the PWHL draft Monday at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul.
The break-up is a stunner in Minnesota hockey, where Darwitz, 40, has been a popular figure from her days as a youngster and high school star in Eagan. As a player, she won two NCAA titles with the Gophers, along with three world championships and the three Olympic medals.
Her connections and status in the state's hockey community helped make PWHL Minnesota a success in its inaugural season. Darwitz was instrumental in securing Xcel Energy Center for games and Tria Rink as the team's practice facility. Minnesota was the only PWHL team to play regularly in an NHL rink, and its regular-season average attendance of 7,138 was second to Ottawa's 7,496.
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Surely the clash wasn’t that big of a deal as it didn’t impact the game on the ice. Maybe instead of firing her, you could have separated the level to which they interacted outside of obvious things (contracts, personnel, etc).
We need to charter Russo a plane, the Panthers can wait.
So she was the assistant coach for the Gophers for ~2 seasons, then was announced as head coach of Hill Murray, then left in the span of a few months, then was named GM of PHWL Minnesota and lasted a year.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know something I don’t, because I literally know nothing beyond what I’ve read in some of these public articles, but the job hopping certainly doesn’t do her any favors.
Huh? So she was “Sutered”.
Nice to get a little more clarity on the situation but I feel like this is still just scratching the surface.
So, first coach quits before the season every starts. Second coach clashes with her, and major players seem to be siding with said coach. A lot of this points to Darwitz being, mmm, a challenge to work with?
Ken Klee was up for the GM position before the season. This works out great for him.
I said this in another thread, but something has been fishy since before the start of the season.
The hiring of their first head coach was a head scratcher and then he “left” right before the start of the season for unknown reasons.
Part of me wonders if there was a clash between players and the first coach (I don’t think he clashed with Darwitz because they have a coach/player history from the U) and that led to him leaving. Then the players weren’t exactly keen on Darwitz after that and it kind of led to this situation where the players have Klee’s back in the power struggle.
Could be completely wrong, but the start of this league and franchise has just been odd.