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MARQUETTE — Dave Shyiak has come home, though he’s a bit unsure about how he’s supposed to regard his status as a Yooper.

“I guess I can say I’m half Yooper, but from what I’m told, there’s really no such thing, so I guess I want to say I’m a full Yooper,” the newest Northern Michigan University head hockey coach said at his introductory news conference at the Berry Events Center on Friday morning.

He recounted a story of being hired by a local property owner during one of the first summers when he was an NMU student in the late 1980s. Shyiak finished his Wildcat playing career on Northern’s national championship team in the spring of 1991.

New Northern Michigan University head hockey coach Dave Shyiak gestures while offering his vision for the Wildcats’ program and a few stories of past days in Marquette at an introductory news conference held at the Wildcat Room at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Friday morning. (Journal photo by Caden Sierra)

Back in his early days in the Marquette area, though, he recounted that the man handed him a sledgehammer and told him to get to work.

“What do I do with this?” he recalls saying, then was told he had eight hours to tear down the house he was at.

“So that was the start of my working life, wrecking a house with a sledgehammer in Ishpeming,” he said.

Shyiak, 57, probably won’t have much time to knock down houses or even enjoy a beautiful Upper Peninsula summer as he tries to bring some order back to the Wildcats’ hockey program.

It’s just part of the landscape in NCAA college sports these days. Though he wouldn’t characterize it as a rush job or urgent undertaking, Wildcats athletic director Rick Comley — who was also the NMU hockey program’s original coach and Shyiak’s coach at Northern — agreed that time was of the essence in Shyiak’s hire.

New Northern Michigan University head hockey coach Dave Shyiak gestures while offering his vision for the Wildcats’ program and a few stories of past days in Marquette at an introductory news conference held at the Wildcat Room at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Friday morning. (Journal photo by Caden Sierra)

Of 26 players who looked to be able to return this fall, 14 had entered the NCAA’s transfer portal during the regular allowed time period that allows players in just about every sport in Division I, II and III to declare their intention to transfer, though they aren’t required to go through with it.

That period of time for almost all players to declare ended May 14, except that it reopened again for Wildcats players and recruits for 30 more days when Northern head man Grant Potulny announced his resignation on June 11. Four more of last year’s players plus two recruits declared within a day or two of the announcement.

Comley agreed that “time is of the essence” in a new coach’s hiring mainly for that reason.

Right now, only eight players from last year’s team are certain to return, which will be bolstered by five more who have declared through the transfer portal for NMU from other programs, plus about six to eight recruits among Potulny’s original 11 who are still coming to Marquette.

However, a full roster of what Shyiak and Comley have mentioned a number of 28 players is still a tenuous thing, something Shyiak has to work on in the remaining three months or so before the season begins on Oct. 11 at Colorado College.

“Recruiting today is an 11-month process, but right now, we’ve just got to fill the roster with some good ‘culture’ kids, ones that want to be here,” Shyiak said.

Both Comley and Shyiak feel fortunate to now have each other after the latter had interviewed for his position several times in the past.

“Things happen the way they do for a reason,” Shyiak said, recounting his winding coaching path that brought him back to his alma mater twice after his college playing career ended, the second time leading to his 10-year assistant and associate head coaching stint with Comley and his successor, Walt Kyle, that ended in 2005.

He had interviewed for the head job when Kyle took over in 2002, though Kyle had been a coach at NMU for a longer time, while Kyle had also come back to his alma mater from an NHL assistant coaching position.

Three years later, Shyiak went on to Alaska-Anchorage for eight seasons — “that’s one of the toughest jobs in hockey” — and still is the all-time winningest coach in Seawolves’ history.

“Anchorage made me a better coach, it made me a better person,” he said.

He also interviewed at NMU in 2017 when Potulny got the NMU job, but after not getting it instead remained at Western Michigan as associate head coach for three more years, then moved on to St. Cloud State, where he put in four years with the same title with the Huskies until this week.

“I learned a lot from that situation (in Alaska),” Shyiak said to a later question. “But the landscape in college hockey has really changed.”

That was mainly in reference to the transfer portal that in effect makes every player a potential free agent at the end of each season.

Shyiak said it’s too early a few days in to have picked a coaching staff, but “I’ve had a lot of people calling. This position has gotten a lot of attention.”

While coming back to NMU was always something he was interested in, he still did his homework, making sure the university’s commitment to the program was solid. He was part of a hockey alumni tour last summer when the group saw the revamped facilities at the Berry.

“It’s a matter of keeping up with the Joneses,” Shyiak said, “and we toured the locker room, weight room, lounger, shooting room and saw the size of the rink.”

The last item was about Northern downsizing the overall size of the ice rink last summer to make it of normal college proportions.

Friday’s group of about 50 to 75 people at the news conference — most were area residents with about 12 to 15 media members also present — applauded multiple times and even asked several of the questions of the new coach.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.