Brad Buetow

Career

In college, he played for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. He played 25 regular season games in the World Hockey Association for the Cleveland Crusaders and 37 games for the Jacksonville Barons of the American Hockey League in 1973-1974. Following his playing career, Buetow was head coach at Minnesota, United States. International University, Colorado College, the Quad City Mallards, and the Waco Wizards.

Brad Buetow began attending the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1969 and started playing under head coach Glen Sonmor the following year.

Buetow"s playing career coincided with an unstable period in the program"s history as Sonmor left in the middle of Buetow"s Junior year and was replaced by Ken Yackel who lasted only the remainder of the season in his position before being succeeded by Herb Brooks. Sonmor tried to put the upheaval of his time at Minnesota with a professional career when he signed on to play for the Cleveland Crusaders of the WHA, but he went scoreless in 25 games before finishing out the season with the AHL"s Jacksonville Barons and hung up his skates when the season finished.

The next season Buetow returned to the Twin Cities to serve as an assistant under Herb Brooks who had taken the Golden Gophers to the first National title the year before. Buetow moved west to take over at United States. International which was set to begin play in the newly formed Great West Hockey Conference the next season.

United States. International managed to hold on for the next two seasons but after 1987-1988 both the conference and the school"s Division I hockey program ceased to exist and Buetow was out of a job.

Fortunately a position at Colorado College opened up and Buetow stepped in to take over for Mike Bertsch. While Buetow would continue to coach he would never again have a chance at an National Collegiate Athletic Association school.

Achievements

• Under Brooks Buetow was part of two more national champion teams before Herb accepted the position of head coach/General Motors for Team United States of America at the 1980 Winter Olympics and Buetow stepped in to replace his old boss. As head coach Buetow was incredibly successful in Minnesota, providing three 30-win seasons and 4 National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament berths in six seasons, but Buetow was fired by his alma mater after the 1984-1985 season. The Gulls won the first conference title, going 9-3 against the competition, but immediately the conference was in trouble when Northern Arizona dropped their program at the end of the year. As with many coaches in Central Committee"s recent past Buetow had a difficult time getting the team to win games but managed to get the team its first non-losing season in over a decade in 1991-1992 and received the WCHA Coach of the Year for his efforts, but his career in Colorado Springs came to an abrupt end after the following season when an National Collegiate Athletic Association investigation revealed that Buetow had committed recruiting violations and culminated in his resignation.