The Barr Has Been Raised at UMaine

[Fishman'81]

Maine was in tournament position way back in 2020 before Coronavirus canceled everything, but that was many years ago.

Maine was knocking on the door then, yes, but that was all about Swayman.

The team as a whole was pretty bad, no doubt about it. A typical Red crew that couldn't score to save it's life.

That season was pretty-much a sleight of hand deal.

 

[BlackBearFan19]

After reading the football vs hockey debate on here over the past week, I have to ask, why can’t we have both? Personally, I’d rather see the hockey team be successful but they’re not mutually exclusive.

Both programs have made excellent hires at the head coaching positions and both are getting significant upgrades from the Alfond donation. I think most people are pretty pleased with Maine football over the past 20 years, they’re respectable and make the dance from time to time. It’s fun to go to a game here and there. All the people talking about cutting football, it’s not going to happen so give it a rest. Obviously they’re losing money, the stadium is usually half full, but keep sending them to play the two fbs games. Maybe we’re hampering their chances of success a little bit by doing it but if they can’t beat a MAC school in the regular season, they’re not going to beat NDSU or JMU during the postseason.

As for hockey, I have no doubt Barr is going to get this program back on track. If the past 2 months have been any indication, it will be sooner rather than later. The upgrades to the Shawn Walsh center should put Maine on par with the other schools in hockey East. Trust the process and let him do it the right way.

 

[AMC]

After reading the football vs hockey debate on here over the past week, I have to ask, why can’t we have both? Personally, I’d rather see the hockey team be successful but they’re not mutually exclusive.

My theory is that they are mutually exclusive. Maine can have a nationally competitive hockey program that goes toe to toe with BC, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc. or a sort of competitive JV level football team that goes toe to toe with the teams that are slightly worse than North Dakota State and South Dakota State once every 3 or 4 years. It can't afford both.

 

[AMC]

Useless for what? If the purpose of Maine's athletics is to make money, then yes. If it is to raise the school's national profile then you are probably correct. If it's to give fans of football and the school games that they can watch and cheer on their team it's probably not useless. And if it's to give student athletes a chance to get an education and continue to participate in a sport they presumably enjoy then no, football at Maine is not useless.

That said, BU eliminated football back in 1997 as a cost savings measure. While some BU fans have never forgotten or forgiven the then administration for that, because of it BU currently has 22 varsity teams. Meanwhile Maine dropped soccer and volleyball back in 2009 and currently has 15 varsity teams. It's not just offering sports, but offering sports that students want to participate in, fans want to watch, and that might raise the school's national profile, among other factors.

That's my point. Maine is not a massive athletic department like Michigan that can play all the big sports and be competitive. So Maine needs to decide, do we put all of our eggs in one basket and pick a sport to be nationally competitive in and raise the institutional profile? Or do we offer a wide array of sports to have a broad but largely unsuccessful athletic program that lets everyone enjoy their particular sport?

Right now Maine is doing a poor job at both, just muddling on down some middle path.

I also disagree with this statement of yours: "offering sports that students want to participate in." This isn't D-3. The kids who are here to play any sport were recruited to do so. You don't just enrol and say "hey, they've got football! I'll sign up!" If Maine offered D-I water polo scholarships, there would be students on campus who want to participate in it.

To me, Universities offer sports for marketing purposes. And if you (1) don't offer many sports and (2) suck at the ones you do offer, you need to re-evaluate what you are doing.

 

[umhockey91]

That's my point. Maine is not a massive athletic department like Michigan that can play all the big sports and be competitive. So Maine needs to decide, do we put all of our eggs in one basket and pick a sport to be nationally competitive in and raise the institutional profile? Or do we offer a wide array of sports to have a broad but largely unsuccessful athletic program that lets everyone enjoy their particular sport?

Right now Maine is doing a poor job at both, just muddling on down some middle path.

I also disagree with this statement of yours: "offering sports that students want to participate in." This isn't D-3. The kids who are here to play any sport were recruited to do so. You don't just enrol and say "hey, they've got football! I'll sign up!" If Maine offered D-I water polo scholarships, there would be students on campus who want to participate in it.

To me, Universities offer sports for marketing purposes. And if you (1) don't offer many sports and (2) suck at the ones you do offer, you need to re-evaluate what you are doing.

You are not raising the institutional profile by being competitive in college hockey. It is a niche sport....always has been....always will be.

Maine has a pretty good mix of sports that they can be competitive in.....conference wise and regionally. There are only 4 teams on campus that would ever have any chance in hell of ever winning a NC in their sport & division as currently defined:

1. FCS Football
2. Men's Ice Hockey
3. Women's Ice Hockey
4. Field Hockey

While women's basketball has and probably will make it to the NCAA tourney in the future.....the best that they can hope for is an upset or 2 and a possible Sweet 16 appearance in a "perfect" season.

Men's hoops....we all know about them but that sport is a pillar of every D1 athletic dept.

Baseball & softball are expendable and probably should have been traded for men's and women's lacrosse by now. We should have followed UNH & Vermont in that regard. Big alums and donors have kept the baseball program afloat.

 

[Fishman'81]

You are not raising the institutional profile by being competitive in college hockey. It is a niche sport....always has been....always will be.

Maine has a pretty good mix of sports that they can be competitive in.....conference wise and regionally. There are only 4 teams on campus that would ever have any chance in hell of ever winning a NC in their sport & division as currently defined:

1. FCS Football
2. Men's Ice Hockey
3. Women's Ice Hockey
4. Field Hockey

While women's basketball has and probably will make it to the NCAA tourney in the future.....the best that they can hope for is an upset or 2 and a possible Sweet 16 appearance in a "perfect" season.

Men's hoops....we all know about them but that sport is a pillar of every D1 athletic dept.

Baseball & softball are expendable and probably should have been traded for men's and women's lacrosse by now. We should have followed UNH & Vermont in that regard. Big alums and donors have kept the baseball program afloat.

Post of the Year on this thread, and I mean that.

Some folks seem to think that Maine can just pour every dollar into hockey, but it can't work that way, clearly. Football has been far more nationally-relevant than has been hockey for a good 10 years now. No question about that. All the money in the world won't save hockey just now, but perhaps Barr can revive the program. We'll see, but he has a very steep hill to climb.

Womens' hoops is worth keeping, same with field hockey, but baseball has out-lived its utility, sad to say. (And I used to love Maine baseball before it became a punching bag.)

If Maine wants to garner any attention at the National level, it might as well focus on the two programs that have a chance to do so... Hockey and football, period.

 

[Wayuphere]

Just guessing here: Pending how ugly the local Covid numbers reported are this week, especially the local hospitals admissions, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a policy update that says the Alfond doors will be shut to fans.
The shit is about to hit the fan…

 

[dunbar]

Just guessing here: Pending how ugly the local Covid numbers reported are this week, especially the local hospitals admissions, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a policy update that says the Alfond doors will be shut to fans.
The **** is about to hit the fan…

Risk assumption is on the individual and has been for months. Any policy change at this point is purely reactionary and devoid of the reality that the virus will never go away and the rate of severe illness compared to infection rate is dropping.

 

[AMC]

Post of the Year on this thread, and I mean that.

Some folks seem to think that Maine can just pour every dollar into hockey, but it can't work that way, clearly. Football has been far more nationally-relevant than has been hockey for a good 10 years now. No question about that. All the money in the world won't save hockey just now, but perhaps Barr can revive the program. We'll see, but he has a very steep hill to climb.

Womens' hoops is worth keeping, same with field hockey, but baseball has out-lived its utility, sad to say. (And I used to love Maine baseball before it became a punching bag.)

If Maine wants to garner any attention at the National level, it might as well focus on the two programs that have a chance to do so... Hockey and football, period.

I think there's more national attention for the NCAA hockey tournament than there is for the FCS football playoffs.

 

[Wayuphere]

If risk assumption is on the individual, why the restrictive policies? Take off the masks.
A percentage of them need to be parented, that’s why we are in this ongoing mess. Coronaviruses have been around for many years, and will continue to be. We need the lethal variants to fade away, by being reactionary, until we are back to normal coronaviruses that stay out of the lungs,(head cold).
I say that if the numbers surge, especially hospitalizations, no fan’s allowed.
Let’s see what local hospital EMMC has for data later this week. The reason for my post…

 

[Wayuphere]

I think there's more national attention for the NCAA hockey tournament than there is for the FCS football playoffs.

Definitely, and the hockey chant will be “we’re #1”, not “we’re #64” like a FCS champ.

 

[Drew S.]

If risk assumption is on the individual, why the restrictive policies? Take off the masks.
A percentage of them need to be parented, that’s why we are in this ongoing mess. Coronaviruses have been around for many years, and will continue to be. We need the lethal variants to fade away, by being reactionary, until we are back to normal coronaviruses that stay out of the lungs,(head cold).
I say that if the numbers surge, especially hospitalizations, no fan’s allowed.
Let’s see what local hospital EMMC has for data later this week. The reason for my post…

Just read a story in PPH that hospitalizations are way up again.

 

[NorthMike]

If risk assumption is on the individual, why the restrictive policies? Take off the masks.
A percentage of them need to be parented, that’s why we are in this ongoing mess. Coronaviruses have been around for many years, and will continue to be. We need the lethal variants to fade away, by being reactionary, until we are back to normal coronaviruses that stay out of the lungs,(head cold).
I say that if the numbers surge, especially hospitalizations, no fan’s allowed.
Let’s see what local hospital EMMC has for data later this week. The reason for my post…

Not really hockey related but I know a local doctor who works the ER a few shifts a week in the local hospital. He says our healthcare system is on the verge of being completely broken. He's a realist type not pessimistic or optimistic, quite pragmatic. He has some real recent horror stories with folks who need emergency care for other reasons than covid. Theres a wait for a bed or emergency surgery anywhere in the state, then they have transportation problems, including big waits for life flight. Its rather sobering.
It makes one reassess things and consider whats important for self, family, our neighbors and general society well being at the moment.

 

[umhockey91]

If COVID has proven one thing is that this country is definitely "me first". This Kumbaya....we're all in this together....do it for the good of the country BS is nothing more than Hallmark moments for politicians. It really has come down to Republicans stocking up on guns and ammo.....and Democrats stocking up on masks and vaccines. What a world.....

 

[umhockey91]

Some fans on here were lamenting how bad Maine's start to the season was. Now that we can use some hindsight.....

7 of Maine's 11 losses have come to #11 Northeastern, #12 UMass-Lowell, #15 Omaha & #18 BC. Those teams are a combined 48-18-7.

In addition.....that loss to Quinnipiac in Maine's closed exhibition to start the season.....Q is now ranked #2 with a 14-1-3 record.

 

[BlackBearFan19]

Some fans on here were lamenting how bad Maine's start to the season was. Now that we can use some hindsight.....

7 of Maine's 11 losses have come to #11 Northeastern, #12 UMass-Lowell, #15 Omaha & #18 BC. Those teams are a combined 48-18-7.

In addition.....that loss to Quinnipiac in Maine's closed exhibition to start the season.....Q is now ranked #2 with a 14-1-3 record.

Agreed, I was too lazy to go dig through the schedules and find the opponents records. I got blasted not too long ago for saying Maine has played “a fairly tough schedule”. 5 out of 7 of those losses have been competitive games as well. Outside of the first games against Northeastern and Boston college, Maine has been in every game they’ve played. Since the BC shootout win, they’ve looked pretty good.

I expect them to have a pretty solid second half if they continue to play that way. If they hover around .500 for the second half, I think that would be a huge step forward for the program. I think Breen breaks out even further and starts piling up some points and hopefully Dawe can get back on track.

 

[NorthMike]

Agreed, I was too lazy to go dig through the schedules and find the opponents records. I got blasted not too long ago for saying Maine has played “a fairly tough schedule”. 5 out of 7 of those losses have been competitive games as well. Outside of the first games against Northeastern and Boston college, Maine has been in every game they’ve played. Since the BC shootout win, they’ve looked pretty good.

I expect them to have a pretty solid second half if they continue to play that way. If they hover around .500 for the second half, I think that would be a huge step forward for the program. I think Breen breaks out even further and starts piling up some points and hopefully Dawe can get back on track.

Dawe has checked out. Breen has a ton of potential, keeping an eye on him with developing. That should be a good measuring stick to see how Barr does in developing players.

 

[Fishman'81]

Not really hockey related but I know a local doctor who works the ER a few shifts a week in the local hospital. He says our healthcare system is on the verge of being completely broken. He's a realist type not pessimistic or optimistic, quite pragmatic. He has some real recent horror stories with folks who need emergency care for other reasons than covid. Theres a wait for a bed or emergency surgery anywhere in the state, then they have transportation problems, including big waits for life flight. Its rather sobering.
It makes one reassess things and consider whats important for self, family, our neighbors and general society well being at the moment.

Well, there's that.

Good luck getting into any ED right now with some vague chest pain that might actually end-up killing you... The "right to be unvaxxed" crowd is using up all stretchers as we speak, whining about sore throats.

Bunch of little p*******.

Afraid of the shot, but more than willing to displace everyone else when they feel a little sniffle coming on.

 

[Fishman'81]

I think there's more national attention for the NCAA hockey tournament than there is for the FCS football playoffs.

I'd call it a dead-heat, actually.

Even most die-hard, mainstream sports fans know exactly nothing about either endeavor.
.

 

[walrus]

Not really hockey related but I know a local doctor who works the ER a few shifts a week in the local hospital. He says our healthcare system is on the verge of being completely broken. He's a realist type not pessimistic or optimistic, quite pragmatic. He has some real recent horror stories with folks who need emergency care for other reasons than covid. Theres a wait for a bed or emergency surgery anywhere in the state, then they have transportation problems, including big waits for life flight. Its rather sobering.
It makes one reassess things and consider whats important for self, family, our neighbors and general society well being at the moment.

Maine hockey is pretty far down the list