Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

[all bear]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Patience

[umhockey91]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Patience my *ss! The "patience" thing has been preached for a decade now. Programs large and small don't take years upon years to turn things around.

Come on guys and gals......let's fill up "the Old Girl" and make it rock like it's 1999! Best college hockey atmosphere in the world!!!! Anyone got a barf bag?

[hobeyfaker]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Patience

?? We'll all be dead.

[AMC]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Patience

April 2007 was a long time ago.

[J.D.]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

hey, maybe this will cheer you guys up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74jQlG_nTDI

the series is pretty well done by Gary Thorne. even get to see good old Red Gendron with brown hair and a moustache!

[cool breeze]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Go Blue! But this is wearing thin. 0-8? On pace to set fewest goals scored record? Our next star recruit, Baron Thompson: 12 games, 31 PIM, 4 SOG, 1 suspension, ZERO points. Lets get a few over-agers, a few Europeans, and get this turned around.

In Red We Trust!

[BassAle]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

I just don't care anymore. I was seriously considering giving up my tickets for this season. The last few years I split them with someone, and they didn't want to this year. My wife was leaning towards keeping the tickets, so we did. I just don't care enough to want to drive from Bar Harbor to Orono to watch some really bad hockey. Compared to many of you, I'm a short timer: I've had my tickets since I finished grad school in 2004.

[AMC]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

I just don't care anymore. I was seriously considering giving up my tickets for this season. The last few years I split them with someone, and they didn't want to this year. My wife was leaning towards keeping the tickets, so we did. I just don't care enough to want to drive from Bar Harbor to Orono to watch some really bad hockey. Compared to many of you, I'm a short timer: I've had my tickets since I finished grad school in 2004.

Don't worry, you could have had season tickets since the early 1980's, but if you don't renew you won't even get a phone call from the ticket office or athletic marketing.

[rufus]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Patience? Going to take more than that. I see little improvement in any of the players and thats what gets me. Its the same thing Timmay had going, a team full of grinders.

Right. Name one player on this team who's better now than when he was a freshman. Merchant, maybe, and that's it.

[rufus]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Patience my *ss! The "patience" thing has been preached for a decade now. Programs large and small don't take years upon years to turn things around.

Yeah. Bazin took Blaise McDonald's team, with Blaise McDonald's recruits, who won only five games the year before, and won 24 and made the NCAA tourney. Lowell? C'mon, it can't be harder to convince good players to come to Maine than it is to go to Union, or Quinnie, or Lowell ferchrissakes.

Well,maybe it is now, since those teams are good, but it couldn't have been 6-8 years ago. And yet, somehow they did it, and they made themselves into good teams. What's our excuse?

[jcarter7669]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Yeah. Bazin took Blaise McDonald's team, with Blaise McDonald's recruits, who won only five games the year before, and won 24 and made the NCAA tourney. Lowell? C'mon, it can't be harder to convince good players to come to Maine than it is to go to Union, or Quinnie, or Lowell ferchrissakes.

In fairness the team that won 5 games was all sophmores and freshman, the next team was full of juniors and sophmores because Blaise liked to have a winning team at least once every 4 years.

[Patman]

In fairness the team that won 5 games was all sophmores and freshman, the next team was full of juniors and sophmores because Blaise liked to have a winning team at least once every 4 years.

I floated that theory in 2003 and you should have seen the dirty looks I got from other fans. And I just threw it out there as an off-idea that you build a program by establishing for success every 4 years and then use that as the starting point... This is before under my previous understanding of sports mechanics. See below. Now, at the time I just threw it out there. I never fully believed it... But I also said that Blaise could have "evened" the classes in a couple of years if he felt it was important.

---

psychology is an intensely underrated factor in hockey. You got players doing cohesive work in 40-50 second sprint-like shifts. Where the want and desire to push the puck without clear reward is paramount.

Shawn Walsh was once in a life time as I believe Bazin is in this case. Winning in hockey is getting enough players with talent playing in a system where is trust.

I firmly believe that outside of generational talent everything else is too close. At this level it's all mentality. It's crazy to think and that's why getting a good coach is hard... You'll have to plow through assistant hires until you strike gold and that might take 10-20 years. The only other option is backing up the brinks truck.

[ck1969]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Yeah. Bazin took Blaise McDonald's team, with Blaise McDonald's recruits, who won only five games the year before, and won 24 and made the NCAA tourney. Lowell? C'mon, it can't be harder to convince good players to come to Maine than it is to go to Union, or Quinnie, or Lowell ferchrissakes.

Well,maybe it is now, since those teams are good, but it couldn't have been 6-8 years ago. And yet, somehow they did it, and they made themselves into good teams. What's our excuse?

Clearly it's a coaching issue. Because over the last 6-8 years, the last 2 excluded, there have been some talented kids on the team. You don't make it to the NHL without talent. Those players weren't utilized correctly. I'm sick of hearing that they didn't fit into the system bull chit. Then change the friggin system to maximize your talent. That's what a good coach would do. But as Maine has continued to suck more and more the less talent you attract. And here we are.

[AMC]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Decades from now when the history of Maine hockey is written, I'm really starting to believe the Walsh years will be the outlier. He probably deserves more credit than he got.

[umhockey91]

Re: Maine Hockey: Summer 2015 on the Stillwater

Shawn Walsh had a mentality that few people could match. His detractors will of course label him a "win-at-all costs" cheater......but the fact remains that he was an aggressive, magnetic, fully vested individual who lived and breathed hockey.....and he was the consummate promoter of his product who didn't depend on cutesy slogans like "Old Girl" to get people to come out and support his teams. Fans knew that he was in it to win......and win he did. It would be interesting to see how he would have handled the true internet age, social media and today's proliferation of new monied programs like Penn State, Arizona State, etc.