Robb Stauber, who was entering his ninth season as the volunteer goalie coach for the Gophers men’s hockey team, recently resigned.

His picture and biography are still posted on the coaches’ site on www.gophersports.com, the offical website for Gophers teams, but Stauber said Wednesday he is no longer connected with the program.

“I don’t have the time, I can’t make the commitment,” Stauber said. “I probably should have stepped down three years ago. I gutted it out. You know, us goalies are not always the smartest guys. It’s just way too hard.”

Stauber runs a business called Goalcrease, which trains goalies. It has two centers, one in Edina, the other in Blaine. He also travels extensively to conduct goalie clinics.

“I’m on the way to Chicago right now,” he said, “and I’ve got two young kids [Ruby, 10 and Jaxson, 8] and they are in sports. It eventually came to a head.”

Stauber said he quit his volunteer, part-time job at the university about 10-12 days ago.

“No, I wasn’t unhappy,” he said, then joked, “I don’t know how they felt about me. I’m trying to help them find somebody else. … I got some ideas. I’ll throw some names out.”

“[Stauber] did a good job, it became too difficult for him to do this,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said. “I’m not surprised. We are in the process — I actually talked to Robb about some people to take his spot for this year. I would like to have somebody if not next week, the week after.”

Lucia said the team’s three goalies are taking shots in practice as usual but … “We per se don’t have anybody working with the goalies,” Lucia said. “I don’t have any tips [for them]. I am not going to mess up a good thing.”

Stauber is the second member of Don Lucia’s staff to depart this year. Longtime assistant coach Mike Guentzel resigned in April.

Late this summer, Guentzel was hired as an assistant coach at Colorado College. His son Gabe is a freshman defenseman for the Tigers.

Last season, Stauber coached sophomore goalie Alex Kangas who was sensational. Kangas was the team MVP and set school records with a 1.98 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage.

“[Kangas] is going to be good, no doubt about it,” Stauber said.

Stauber should know. The Duluth native was the 1988 Hobey Baker Award winner when he played for the Gophers. Later he had a 10 year pro career including the AHL. He played on four different NHL teams, including the L.A. Kings who drafted him. He was a member of the Kings in 1993 when they lost in the Stanley Cup finals.

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