Earlier this week, Northern Michigan University Hockey coach Grant Potulny announced he would be leaving the program after becoming just the third head coach in Wildcat hockey history in 2017.

Potulny’s tenure behind the bench at Northern has generally considered to be successful, leading the Wildcats to back-to-back 20-win seasons during his first two years at the helm. While last season proved to be a down year, Potulny’s time in the job was still good enough to land him a job coaching in the professional ranks.

Taking over from Potulny is long-time NMU Coach Rick Comley, who was behind the bench during Northern’s National Championship winning campaign in 1990-91.

On Wednesday, the Mining Journal reported that Comley is part of an “advisory committee” that will be searching for the next NMU coach, a position that the committee hopes to have filled within the “a few weeks.”

It has been nearly 50 years since the NMU Hockey program began and the fact that only three coaches have been in charge of the program is an almost unheard of level of consistency and one of the key reasons that NMU Hockey is highly regarded.

Anyone who pays attention will know that college sports are currently in a brand new era, with more money than ever changing hands and the so-called “transfer portal” keeping players on the move each year. These circumstances make finding consistency more important than ever, not only on the ice but in the community.

We have faith that the brain trust NMU will make the right choice for the fourth coach to come in and steady the ship and hopefully take the Wildcats to even further heights.