Chris Solari

Lansing State Journal

It isn’t Mark Hollis’ way to talk about personnel matters during a sport’s season.

That doesn’t mean he won't discuss the continued struggles of Michigan State's hockey program.

“Obviously, I’m spending hours watching over programs that need some recalibration,” Hollis told reporters Thursday during the Michigan AP Sports meeting at the Lansing State Journal offices, “and hockey is one of those.”

Tom Anastos’ Spartans have won once and tied once during their past 16 games and are immersed in an eight-game losing streak. They dropped a pair at Minnesota last weekend to fall to 5-17-2 overall and 1-7-0-0 in the Big Ten.

Solari: Clock ticking for Anastos as MSU hockey struggles

Anastos is 66-92-18 in his fifth season as MSU’s head coach.His Spartans have made just one NCAA tournament appearance, during the program alum's first season in 2011-12. They were 19-16-4 that year and 17-16-2 a year ago, his only two winning seasons.

“It’s a challenging sport to transition based upon how recruiting works there and the age of the guys that are coming in to play in that sport,” Hollis said. “It’s uniquely different. But Tom and I have had several frequent conversations about what that looks like.

“I have great memories of college hockey and great ambitions for college hockey at Michigan State. And that’s what we’re working toward.”

Hollis also talked about MSU’s “transition” from the now-defunct Central Collegiate Hockey Association to the six-team Big Ten hockey league, which is in its third season. Anastos previously was the CCHA commissioner before taking over at MSU for Rick Comley in March 2011.

Bad experience deters Hollis from MSU-U-M night game

To Hollis, creating the new league was “a game-changer,” but not necessarily a positive move for conference schools. Minnesota was the only Big Ten team in the NCAA tournament a year ago, and the Gophers and Wisconsin were the only two from the league to get a bid in the debut season of 2013-14.

“I know what hockey means — it’s a regional sport. It’s a sport where Western Michigan has value in East Lansing, maybe every bit as much as Wisconsin coming in here. I miss some of those rivalries that exist between Minnesota and Duluth and Michigan State and Western that are league games,” Hollis said.

“You know, everything’s give and take. There’s the value of what’s happening with the Big Ten brand. But there’s also that negative. Everything can’t be football and basketball. Everything has a purpose and a position. So there’s some excitement, but there’s also some disappointment. And I think we need to continue the dialogue to save the sport of college hockey the best that we can in the future.”