There was a great moment in Tony Granato’s introductory press conference when a Badger fan clad in a Los Angeles Kings Granato jersey requested to ask a question.
Brian Lucas, the director of UW athletic communications, looked less than willing to let this happen. But Tony disagreed.
“Tony says yes, he’s the boss,” Lucas said, conceding to the strange request.
The man, positioned just behind the members of the media, then referred to Granato and his assistants, brother Don Granato and Mark Osiecki, as legends, to which the new head coach looked shocked to hear.
“Wow, a legend,” Granato said. “I don’t consider us legends...wow, legend huh?”
The man then turned around, pointing to the “Granato” on the back of his sweater.
“Yeah I see the jersey, that’s a nice jersey,” Granato said, garnering quite a few laughs from the crowd.
While this was a memorable exchange that displayed Granato’s humility and passion for Badgers hockey, it harkened back to an earlier moment in the press conference when Granato praised previous head coach Mike Eaves.
“Mike Eaves is a Badger legend,” Granato said to close out his opening remarks. “Mike Eaves did an unbelievable job with this program, as a player, as a coach, as an ambassador and represented us really well. I’d like to thank him for everything and all his contributions as a player as well.”
The point Granato makes is a vastly important one. Yes, Eaves struggled in his final seasons at the helm. The Badgers stopped winning games. Attendance drastically decreased. Wisconsin, once a perennial powerhouse, had fallen to the doldrums of college hockey.
Despite this, what Mike Eaves accomplished in his tenure at Wisconsin, both as a player and a coach, should be revered by Wisconsin fans. It was time for the program to move in a different direction, but Eaves should be judged on a lifetime of success, not a few poor seasons.
For starters, Eaves sits at the top of Wisconsin record books in a number of categories. He has the most points ever in Badger hockey history with 267 (94 goals, 173 assists) over a four-year career. The next guy on that list is none other than women’s hockey head coach Mark Johnson. Tony Granato is fourth in all-time points.
Eaves has the longest point-streak in Wisconsin history. From November 12, 1977, to February 3, 1978, he recorded a point in every game he played in, a whopping run of 21 games. He had 48 points in that timespan.
He led Wisconsin in scoring for three of his four years as a Badger. He is second in points scored in a single season with 89, just behind Johnson. It is worth noting that the two played together in both the 1976-’77 and 1977-’78 seasons, and of the top six single-season scorers, Eaves and Johnson hold five of the six spots.
Eaves is second on the all-time list for career and single-season assists, behind Craig Norwich, and is a two-time All-American.
But, maybe most importantly, he helped lead the team to a national title in 1977, a 6-5 overtime victory over the Michigan Wolverines. He earned three assists in that game, including one on the game-winner 23 seconds into the extra period. The national title-clinching goal was set up by Eaves winning the opening face-off.
All of these accomplishments as a student-athlete would be more than enough to consider
Eaves a hero, but he didn’t stop there. After an eight-year NHL career and several other coaching stops, he returned to his alma mater as the head coach in 2002.
In his second year at the wheel, he led the Badgers to the NCAA Tournament, where they lost to Maine 2-1 in overtime, coming just short of the Frozen Four.
Two years later in 2006, Wisconsin won the national title for the first time since 1990, defeating Boston College 2-1 in the championship game. The game provided one of the most iconic moments in Badger sports history, as a Boston College player fired a shot off the post in the final second, sending the Badgers into a frenzied mob of goalie Brian Elliott.
Then, in 2010, Wisconsin played its way back into the national championship, setting up a rematch with Boston College. The Badgers were defeated 5-0, but nonetheless had played for two titles in a span of five years.
As the Wisconsin coach, Eaves finished with a career record of 267-225-76. He took the Badgers to seven NCAA Tournaments. He won two conference tournament titles—one in the last year Wisconsin played in the WCHA and then another in the following year, the first year of the Big Ten—and reached two Frozen Fours.
To call that tenure anything but a success would be simply ludicrous. To put it in some perspective, it would be like Bo Ryan having two poor seasons at the end of his career and then being subsequently vilified by fans who ignored his previous accomplishments.
But if all those stats aren’t good enough to convince you, here’s one striking fact. Barry Alvarez and Bo Ryan are both worshipped by Wisconsin fans. Neither of them ever won a national championship.
Eaves won two. One as a player and another as a coach.
Sounds like a Badger legend to me.
