Like everyone else, Mark Mazzoleni hears the boos.

He knows what avid fans think when their team is rotting in last place in the United States Hockey League's East Division, its 10-25-3 record as disappointing as the average crowd of 2,494 it has drawn.

All Mazzoleni can do is continue to embrace the rebuilding plan he deemed necessary last April, after the Gamblers were swept in the first round of the playoffs for the second straight season.

"I'm not happy where we are as a team," the coach and general manager said this week, sitting in his Resch Center office, "but I'm confident in my ability, my staff's ability, and I feel we are on the right track. No question."

At 52, Mazzoleni says he has no urge to leave junior hockey and return to the college game, in which he had success with three programs. Those jobs are tough to come by anyway.

No, this is where he wants to stay, in the city where he and his wife went to high school, in a situation that allows him to keep getting his fix developing elite young players. This is where he thinks success is around the corner.

Even with 17 first-year guys on the 23-man roster, though, Mazzoleni couldn't have anticipated anything like the 14-game winless streak the Gamblers snapped with Saturday's 4-3 triumph over the Tri-City Storm.

"This is their self-worth," Mazzoleni said. "This is their identity, is being a hockey player. Then, let alone not finding individual success, which leads to team success — it can be suffocating."

As can an impatient fan base that has voiced its displeasure in the arena and on Internet message boards much of the season.

The Gamblers ranked fourth or better in attendance the past four seasons and were averaging 3,265 at this point a year ago. This season, they're 10th out of 12 teams.

The drop has a lot to do with an unusually front-loaded home schedule and the Green Bay Packers' playoff run, which cut into January crowds.

But losing hasn't helped.

"The win-loss record has obviously had some effect," said Ken Wachter, president of PMI, which owns the Gamblers. "People start to look for other things."

Since starting 13-10-4 last season, the Gamblers are 21-49-5.

Including playoffs under Mazzoleni, they're 85-125-15, with no playoff wins and just one winning season.

Mazzoleni believes in what he has for next season — 13 returning players, a potential breakout star in forward Stephen Carew, a dozen players on an affiliate list he calls "the best in the league" — but with only one season left on a five-year contract, it's possible he'll run out of time to prove the rebuilding was worth it.

The USHL is an entertainment-based business and a developmental hockey league. So, when attendance drops more than 20 percent and there's talk among some NHL scouts that the hockey program is in rough shape, being 22 points back of a playoff spot with 22 games left, only adds to questions about what needs to change.

"We have a good group of kids who are playing really hard," Wachter said. "We're like anybody else — we want to see this thing turn around, and we're hopeful that happens in the next couple weeks."

If it doesn't?

Wachter wouldn't speculate on potential changes, but the situation seems clear enough:

Youth isn't an excuse in February, so the clock is ticking for the Gamblers to show Mazzoleni's plan is working.

Tom Pelissero is assistant sports editor of the Press-Gazette. E-mail him at tpelisse@greenbaypressgazette.com