Mallards coach GM Curran resigns

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By Craig DeVrieze | Wednesday, April 25, 2007 11:56 PM CDT | () comments

Quad-City Mallards coach and general manager Brian Curran resigned from both positions Wednesday in what he and team officials called a mutual decision.

“The organization just feels we didn’t win in back-to-back years, and it is the job of a coach to win championships,” Curran said. “They just felt I wasn’t going to get the job done.

“It caught me off guard, but I respect the ownership.”

Dennis Voss, the lead member of Quad-City Sports Ventures group that purchased the team a year ago, described Curran as a friend, but said more than wins and losses factored into the decision.

“There are just a lot of things,” Voss said. “We agreed the organization wanted to go in a new direction.”

The search for a new coach and general manager comes at a time when much remains undecided about the 12-year-old organization’s future, including what league the Mallards will be a member of in 2007-2008.

A May 1 meeting of the United Hockey League’s board of governors might answer that critical question. The Mallards are waiting to see whether what was a 10-team league this year will be able to field as many as eight next season.

Team president Tim Taylor said earlier this week that is the minimum number of teams the Mallards will accept without re-exploring opportunities to play in the rival ECHL or elsewhere.

Taylor said the uncertainty about where the team might be next year “muddies the waters’’ of an impending coaching search.

Although he will begin the search immediately, Taylor said he won’t hire a coach until he knows for certain what league the Mallards will call home.

Taylor said the mutual parting of the ways with Curran was “something I hadn’t anticipated when I got up (Wednesday) morning. Brian and our ownership group talked and decided this would be best for both.”

Voss and fellow QCSV partners Kevin Murphy and Dave Arnold said winning a championship is the paramount mission for their group — in whatever league next year’s Mallards play.

“Our thing is we want to build a great organization and put the best product we can on the ice and off the ice,” Murphy said.

Curran was 78-55-19 over two seasons at the Mallards helm, winning coach of the year a year ago with a team he put together on the run after being hired in August of 2005.

The Mallards were 37-28-11 this season and Sunday were eliminated by Rockford in a first-round playoff series.

It was the second year in a row the Mallards failed to advance past the first round of the postseason.

“I am disappointed,” Curran said of his resignation. “It’s the nature of the job. If you don’t win, you won’t have a job.”

Players expressed some surprise at the news, but said that is the nature of the minor-league sports.

“It is just what happens,’’ said forward Matt Radoslovich. “One of your buddies can get waived or traded. You take it in stride.”

Longtime Mallard Patrick Nadeau played on the last of three Mallards Colonial Cup championship teams, and during the last five of an unprecedented Q-C run of seven 50-win seasons in eight years.

Voss and Co. were Mallards fans during that stretch and want to see that level of success return, Nadeau said.

“Ownership wants us to win,” he said. “That’s what we did in the past. If you don’t win, you move on and try something different.”

Curran, who is 254-192-47 over seven seasons four hockey minor leagues, said he is disappointed he won’t get the opportunity to try and field a championship team here in years to come.

“It’s the nature of the job,’’ he said. “If you don’t win, you won’t have a job. The reality is, I didn’t win.

“I resigned because it is the right thing to do for all of us. I felt it would be the right thing for Brian Curran and the right thing for a very good organization.”

Curran’s 2006-2007 Mallards started the season at 3-11-1 but rallied for a second straight year to make the postseason.

For a second straight year, the Mallards were weakened by injuries they endured just ahead of the playoffs.

Two players suffered broken legs in the second-to-last game and another was hospitalized by an asthma attack.

“I don’t think I can remember a time when I had so many things happen,” he said. “I felt like everything I did was in the best interest of the players. They may not have liked the way I did things, some of them. But I was very proud of what they accomplished.

“I pushed them places they hadn’t been. Unfortunately, I didn’t get it done.”

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com