The Div. III hockey team relieved its head coach of his duties after a slow start to the season.

Last week, John Lyne was voted out as head coach by the student-run board of the hockey club. This was Lyne’s third season as the head coach of the Div. III team.

“The official decision from the board is that the organization decided to go in a different direction with the Div. III coaching,” said board President JC Weems.

The move came down to the lack of wins over the last two seasons.

“John Lyne is a great guy,” said Nick Remley, a member on the student board. “The team just wasn’t clicking; the kids on the team weren’t too happy with how things were going. They had a rough season last year and things were getting off on the same foot this year, so we kind of thought we had to make a change, so we went ahead and did it.”

Last season NIU went 4-18 under Lyne, and this season the team was off to an 0-6 start. The board felt a coaching switch could spark NIU.

“Pat Giannini and Nick Madonia will be taking over as interim coaches and they will be co-coaching,” Weems said.

Giannini and Madonia were the assistant coaches under Lyne for the Div. III team before their promotion. Remley believes they are a perfect fit for the team.

“They are great guys,” Remley said. “I don’t think they will have any problem jumping in. Not only that, the most important thing is they are respected by the guys.”

Madonia believes he and Giannini are already making an impact with their new systems after one weekend of play.

“Saturday’s game went really well,” Madonia said. “I’m looking forward to building on that. I think we can string together some wins coming up and hopefully put together a good second half of the season.”

Div. III had its closest game of the season Saturday night against Purdue University, losing 4-3 in overtime.

The two new coaches saw some improvement in their first weekend, but they still have some work to do.

“I would like to see us competing in every game,” Madonia said. “Part of the problem the first couple of weekends was we would go down and just kind of give up and let the scores get out of hand.

“Friday, once the score started to go up, in the second and third period we bounced back really strong and finished the game strong. As long as we keep doing that it will be a win for me for the rest of the season.”

Lyne was unable to be reached for comment.