UNH Hockey 2023-2024 Season Thread - End Of The Cellar-Dweller Era??

[HockeyRef]

Don't forget -- Back in the day, Berlin was a major paper pulp producer and even had a couple of footwear factories (I believe Converse was one of them). They had three ice arenas in the '70's.
As soon as factory work and and the paper mills shut down, workers and their families left town. I don't have all the figures, but I believe Berlin's population is now less than half it was 40 or so years ago, which puts a crimp on the quantity of athletes at the high school level. That's why they're a D-3 school rather than a D-1.

I played field hockey up there (littleton high school) and we would just about puke due to the paper mill smell! No wonder they always beat us up there. Have to admire
those Berlin teams even now..the current field hockey coach's daughter married a UNH hockey alum Matt Dawson (I think I mentioned I met him this Fall as they were in the
finals (again). Like MS7 said, 'they meet their wives at UNH' which is what happened lol.

Imagine my surprise...they go to alot of UNH hockey games so I see them quite
frequently there (but never Matt...). Anyway...small world. Even despite the changes in economics, that little high school still puts out a decent field hockey team and
their hockey team, which has Gorham athletes, won the D3 state title over the weekend...

If you get up there do check out 'Mary's Pizza' as its incredible...

[Chuck Murray]

Remind me again what MPBEGAM stands for Chuck. All I can come up with is:

M-Make
B-Believe
P-Playoff
B-?
E-?
G-Game
A-?
M-?

Make Believe Phony Baloney Everyone Gets A Medal

[Snively65]

33 championships is impressive. What caused the relegation to division 3, I’m curious?

Saw some really great OR teams lose championships between ‘05-12. Still stings! That school oughta have a little more hardware, that’s for certain.

ORHS always has been primarily a soccer school, and produced a great collegiate soccer coach in Marc Hubbard, who led ORHS to consecutive NH Class 1 soccer championships before attending Colgate and then raising soccer to become one of most successful sports at UNH, with seven straight NCAA’s, four America East championships, and a 115-32-21 record before he left for NC State this past December after losing to Clemson in the Sweet 16.

Agree with everything written above about Berlin’s recent history, especially HR’s take on Mary’s Pizza, voted best pizza in NH for 2016 and 2018. Location is actually at the northern end of Gorham off Rte 16 on Cascade Flats.

[Chuck Murray]

Don't forget -- Back in the day, Berlin was a major paper pulp producer and even had a couple of footwear factories (I believe Converse was one of them). They had three ice arenas in the '70's.
As soon as factory work and and the paper mills shut down, workers and their families left town. I don't have all the figures, but I believe Berlin's population is now less than half it was 40 or so years ago, which puts a crimp on the quantity of athletes at the high school level. That's why they're a D-3 school rather than a D-1.

Scott's got all of the background right. Direct answer on why Berlin HS is now D-3 instead of D-1 is simply down to a decline in enrollment per NHIAA guidelines. There are some schools that ride the line between D-1 and D-2, then D-2 and D-3, and finally D-3 and D-4, so you do see a fair amount of migration of programs over the course of time. Enrollment can vary due to any number of reasons, including the emergence of new high school districts. Big example further down south was when Bedford opened their own high school, enrollment in Manchester West fell off a cliff. I think both are D-1 now because Bedford draws from other smaller surrounding towns, and realignment of student distribution with the Manchester schools (Central, Memorial, West, etc.) kept a relatively new West facility from shuttering.

Smaller example, in the middle of nowhere, about a decade or so ago, I coached a D-4 program for a few years, and every two years there was a reshuffle. At D-4 you'd see some programs move up to D-3, some move down from D-3, and others would just appear/disappear due to interest or enrollment issues. When my AD hired me, he told me they were a volleyball school, and had a 50 game losing streak in soccer, with only six returning players as of the preceding Spring. His expectation was high that they'd fold the program if I didn't generate enough interest over the summer. Worked my tail off to get to 15 players in time for the Fall - which included several girls (there was no separate Girls Soccer program), but with my Club experience being mostly on the Girls side, we were able to pull it off, and we broke the 50 game losing streak that Fall against their main bordering rival, so Year Two we were up to almost 20 players - this time almost even-steven with 10 boys/10 girls, and started a JV program that allowed kids otherwise buried on the bench to gradually learn to play. Year Three was supposed to be the separation of Boys and Girls teams, as we were approaching a 30 player pool (which was a huge number of the non-volleyball kids at a very small school), but the AD's significant other (Special Ed teacher) glommed onto the idea of creating a Unified team instead of a Girls team, against my plans, and the Girls felt very betrayed, which pretty much dismantled a huge chunk of the progress we'd made in building something out of nothing.

School was a 50 minute drive (each way) from Effingwoods, so after Year Three's setback, I fell out with the AD (who otherwise was a really nice guy, but under the influence of "home cooking") and gave him another year as a volunteer assistant before leaving altogether. I've never had a losing season at Club or Town Travel level, before or since, and I never came close to a winning season at this place, yet it was probably the best coaching job I've ever done under the circumstances. The school never won another NHIAA Varsity game for four seasons after I left, and then they eventually confirmed the AD's earlier prophecy, and dropped the sport altogether. Now any kids playing soccer play for the rival school, which has more often than not migrated to D-3 because my old school's enrollment gets rolled into the rival school's numbers now.

Effingwoods borders on an NHIAA D-1 district, so I've seen the highest highs and lowest lows of interscholastic athletics, and the differences were (are) stark. It was an eye-opener, and rounded out my overall coaching life experience. Folks who can pull it off at the low end have my utmost respect, as things like booster clubs and feeder programs are usually non-existent, or serve only the school's highlighted sport if they do exist. Maybe I'll give it another shot in a few years after I retire from the day job, and see if I can finish the job, with extra time to do it?

Sorry for the detour, folks ...

[e.cat]

Make Believe Phony Baloney Everyone Gets A Medal

Thank you. Too funny.

If I have this right UNH would be playing Maine anyway in the old system of 1v8 2v7 3v6 and 4v5. Istead UNH has to thump UML again in order to advance.

[Chuck Murray]

Thank you. Too funny.

If I have this right UNH would be playing Maine anyway in the old system of 1v8 2v7 3v6 and 4v5. Istead UNH has to thump UML again in order to advance.

Yup 100% correct-amundo.

[StillKIA2]

Yup 100% correct-amundo.

Except Bazin will have his boys ready and Souza will assume two wins means a third

[Drew S.]

Scott's got all of the background right. Direct answer on why Berlin HS is now D-3 instead of D-1 is simply down to a decline in enrollment per NHIAA guidelines. There are some schools that ride the line between D-1 and D-2, then D-2 and D-3, and finally D-3 and D-4, so you do see a fair amount of migration of programs over the course of time. Enrollment can vary due to any number of reasons, including the emergence of new high school districts. Big example further down south was when Bedford opened their own high school, enrollment in Manchester West fell off a cliff. I think both are D-1 now because Bedford draws from other smaller surrounding towns, and realignment of student distribution with the Manchester schools (Central, Memorial, West, etc.) kept a relatively new West facility from shuttering.

Smaller example, in the middle of nowhere, about a decade or so ago, I coached a D-4 program for a few years, and every two years there was a reshuffle. At D-4 you'd see some programs move up to D-3, some move down from D-3, and others would just appear/disappear due to interest or enrollment issues. When my AD hired me, he told me they were a volleyball school, and had a 50 game losing streak in soccer, with only six returning players as of the preceding Spring. His expectation was high that they'd fold the program if I didn't generate enough interest over the summer. Worked my tail off to get to 15 players in time for the Fall - which included several girls (there was no separate Girls Soccer program), but with my Club experience being mostly on the Girls side, we were able to pull it off, and we broke the 50 game losing streak that Fall against their main bordering rival, so Year Two we were up to almost 20 players - this time almost even-steven with 10 boys/10 girls, and started a JV program that allowed kids otherwise buried on the bench to gradually learn to play. Year Three was supposed to be the separation of Boys and Girls teams, as we were approaching a 30 player pool (which was a huge number of the non-volleyball kids at a very small school), but the AD's significant other (Special Ed teacher) glommed onto the idea of creating a Unified team instead of a Girls team, against my plans, and the Girls felt very betrayed, which pretty much dismantled a huge chunk of the progress we'd made in building something out of nothing.

School was a 50 minute drive (each way) from Effingwoods, so after Year Three's setback, I fell out with the AD (who otherwise was a really nice guy, but under the influence of "home cooking") and gave him another year as a volunteer assistant before leaving altogether. I've never had a losing season at Club or Town Travel level, before or since, and I never came close to a winning season at this place, yet it was probably the best coaching job I've ever done under the circumstances. The school never won another NHIAA Varsity game for four seasons after I left, and then they eventually confirmed the AD's earlier prophecy, and dropped the sport altogether. Now any kids playing soccer play for the rival school, which has more often than not migrated to D-3 because my old school's enrollment gets rolled into the rival school's numbers now.

Effingwoods borders on an NHIAA D-1 district, so I've seen the highest highs and lowest lows of interscholastic athletics, and the differences were (are) stark. It was an eye-opener, and rounded out my overall coaching life experience. Folks who can pull it off at the low end have my utmost respect, as things like booster clubs and feeder programs are usually non-existent, or serve only the school's highlighted sport if they do exist. Maybe I'll give it another shot in a few years after I retire from the day job, and see if I can finish the job, with extra time to do it?

Sorry for the detour, folks ...

Maine is actually thinking about using a promotion/relegation system instead of basing divisions on enrollment, which I think would be a huge improvement. It’s really sad how much participation is down compared to back in the day. Some of it is obviously fewer kids but a much bigger factor is less interest.

[Chuck Murray]

Maine is actually thinking about using a promotion/relegation system instead of basing divisions on enrollment, which I think would be a huge improvement. It's really sad how much participation is down compared to back in the day. Some of it is obviously fewer kids but a much bigger factor is less interest.

Interesting. I will say, one of the more surprising things I discovered during my long-ago D-4 expedition was the role that rural poverty plays in turnout for some of these small, far-removed school programs. I vividly remember losing players on the roster after preseason, when classes started, and some of the kids had to make really hard decisions to put their families first, and work one or two jobs to supplement their family's income, as opposed to having the "luxury" of competing in interscholastic sports. One kid had a morning delivery job, then would go to classes, and afterwards he'd put in a 4-6 hour shift in the supermarket a couple of towns over. Any time/energy he had left would be saved for him to do homework. I offered to do what I could to help him with his homework on the long bus rides to road games, and to give him some flexibility on attendance at practice. But he was virtually his family's sole breadwinner, with a single parent household and other younger kids to feed. In the end, something had to give, and it was school sports that was cut out to make everything else work. Those kids grow up fast, and really have no choice. I've gotta think it's no different in rural parts of NH, than it is to most of Maine and Vermont, too.

[Chuck Murray]

Except Bazin will have his boys ready and Souza will assume two wins means a third

I'm the one who predicted UML would not get swept by UNH this past weekend. "Because Bazin". Unless Bazin's master plan was to roll out a team that couldn't shoot, could barely defend, and couldn't handle UNH's physical play, and "play possum" so they could sneak up on UNH in the MBPBEGAM round ... this is not your father's UML team. I'm not sure what happened to them this year, but they are a mess. Speed bump.

[TwoStep93]

ORHS always has been primarily a soccer school, and produced a great collegiate soccer coach in Marc Hubbard, who led ORHS to consecutive NH Class 1 soccer championships before attending Colgate and then raising soccer to become one of most successful sports at UNH, with seven straight NCAA’s, four America East championships, and a 115-32-21 record before he left for NC State this past December after losing to Clemson in the Sweet 16.

Agree with everything written above about Berlin’s recent history, especially HR’s take on Mary’s Pizza, voted best pizza in HH for 2016 and 2018. Location is actually at the northern end of Gorham off Rte 16 on Cascade Flats.

I should correct myself and say ORHS Hockey should have a few more in the trophy case opposed to the entire school. We always excelled in Soccer and if I recall Girls Volleyball as well (in my academic tenure). I know of Marc Hubbard but not all of that about his recent success! Too bad he moved on.

[Snively65]

Thank you. Too funny.

If I have this right UNH would be playing Maine anyway in the old system of 1v8 2v7 3v6 and 4v5. Istead UNH has to thump UML again in order to advance.

Also the other big difference maker is that MS7 and his team have a much better chance of reaching 20 wins now with the additional MBPBEGAM game.

[e.cat]

Also the other big difference maker is that MS7 and his team have a much better chance of reaching 20 wins now with the additional MBPBEGAM game.

True dat

[HockeyRef]

True dat

So e.cat got an early prediction for tomorrow? Need a W here obviously. Am prepared to lose to Maine but not...the Ospreys!

UML has thwarted our playoff hopes in the past...most notably in 2013 and the last was a when HE was a 'real tournament' in '17 with an 8-2 thumping...So these guys just have to go away tomorrow.

Expecting a battle and a chippy game...

[e.cat]

So e.cat got an early prediction for tomorrow? Need a W here obviously. Am prepared to lose to Maine but not...the Ospreys!

UML has thwarted our playoff hopes in the past...most notably in 2013 and the last was a when HE was a 'real tournament' in '17 with an 8-2 thumping...So these guys just have to go away tomorrow.

Expecting a battle and a chippy game...

I predict a UNH dub