The next hockey coach at UAA won't face part of the hiring process that three of the school's last four coaches went through.

Members of the public, including alumni and boosters, won't get a chance to meet finalists for the job, assistant athletic director Ian Marks said Thursday.

That's a departure from the procedure followed in 1996, 2001 and 2013, when the Seawolves hired Dean Talafous, John Hill and Matt Thomas, respectively.

In Fairbanks, where UAF is also searching for a new hockey coach, public forums were held this week for the Nanooks' two finalists — Lance West, the interim head coach who led UAF in the 2017-18 season after last year's departure of longtime coach Dallas Ferguson, and Brent Brekke, a former assistant coach at Miami of Ohio.

A press release from UAF announcing its two finalists said the Nanooks "highly encourage members of the community … to attend and ask questions."

UAA decided not to offer the same opportunity to people in Anchorage.

"There is no protocol that states that an open forum must be held or not be held for any searches on campus," Marks said Thursday by email. "The committee decided that due to the changing landscape of college athletics that we would not have a public forum with the candidates out of respect for confidentiality to the applicants."

Confidentiality wasn't a concern in previous searches for a hockey coach. In 1996, Talafous and two other finalists met with the public; in 2001, Hill and one other finalist met with the public; in 2013, Thomas and five other finalists met with the public.

The only UAA hockey coaches who didn't appear at public forums were program founder Brush Christiansen, the coach from 1979-96, and Dave Shyiak, the coach from 2005-13 who was an expedited hire that didn't require a national search. Shyiak was hired in mid-June of 2005, four days after Hill's departure.

Marks said 43 people have applied to become the sixth bench boss in UAA history.

The school has been mum about various online reports providing details about the search, all of them based on unidentified sources.

UAA won't comment on the reports, Marks said in an email earlier this week:

"The University of Alaska Anchorage will not provide any comment on the head hockey coach search. We will announce the new head coach when appropriate."

Marks, who came to UAA last summer, is one of four people on the search committee. Also on the committee are Tim McDiffett, the school's interim athletic director and a longtime administrator in the athletic department; Tanya Pont, who became UAA's associate athletic director in October after working for years as the marketing director at Sullivan Arena; and Deborah Narang, a math professor who was UAA's faculty athletic representative from 2013-16.

Serving as "advisors" to the committee are Brian Kraft, a former UAA player, and Kris Knauss, a lobbyist who is USA Hockey's Pacific Division director.

The new coach will replace Thomas, who was 48-105-21 in five seasons and a career-worst 4-26-4 last season. Three seasons into his time at UAA, a university committee recommend eliminating the hockey team as a way to deal with deep, system-wide budget cuts.

Thomas was hired in 2013 after a tumultuous process that sparked backlash from the Anchorage hockey community and ultimately contributed to the firing of athletic director Steve Cobb.

There were actually two searches that year — a second one was launched after UAA's chancellor suspended the initial search amid public furor over the makeup of the original search committee and the original job description.

UAA let Thomas go in late February and since then a top recruit has decided not to join the Seawolves as planned.

Chris Van Os-Shaw was the Alberta Junior Hockey League's MVP and scoring leader this season, and in December his team — the Spruce Grove Saints — announced that he had committed to play college hockey for UAA.