What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

UMaine 25-26: Marques My Word: Back to the Big Time

iu
 
AMC said:
Two things can be true at the same time- this season was ultimately a bit disappointing because the difference between an NCAA tournament appearance and finishing in the Hockey East quarters wasn't an inability to beat the best teams on the schedule but rather avoiding losses to the worst teams on the schedule. At the same time, I'd have probably taken an 18 win season if you offered it at the start and told me about the goaltending issues. A top 5 Maine team was predicated on an All-American Albin Boija, and that Albin Boija wasn't here this year.

I do keep coming back to the question of whether it's reasonable for us to consider a Maine hockey season that finishes ranked about #20 to be a failure. I'm not overly sold that it is. I keep harping back to the funding/investment in the program- we live in a hypercapitalist society and expecting results beyond investment is a fallacy. Mike McMahon recently answered a question in his newsletter about Hockey East funding, and he tiered it out as follows:

HIGHEST LEVEL: BC, Providence, UConn, BU
MIDDLE LEVEL: Maine, Northeastern, Lowell, UMass
LOWEST LEVEL: Merrimack, UVM, UNH

Which does make sense on the one hand, those high investment programs are in the ACC, Big East, or a major city with no other baskets to put eggs into. On the other hand, Maine has always cared more about hockey than Providence and especially UConn. If we are at the point where the money gulf is so large that Providence can spend, in one year, enough to pay a basketball roster $12M, pay their basketball coach a $10M buyout, AND put together the best hockey roster in the conference including first round NHL draft picks, we may be stuck.

None of that is to absolve the micro level issues like consistency, and wondering why two straight All-American level goaltenders finished their careers benched due to their own poor performance and not being run down by some freshman stud. But "we invest the fifth most money in the conference and we finished fifth in the conference and 20th in the nation" isn't an absurd result.
Click to expand...

This may be a stupid question and take, but in what way is money an issue? Maine would’ve pulled in McQueen, Boisvert, and McKenna, if they were offered the same ballpark?

Talent and depth wasn’t really the issue this yr. Has anyone involved in recruitment or player development alluded to an unmet need or a problem being funding? If there were unlimited funds what would be done differently? I thought that most people thought (1) Maine has the coach it wants (2) extremely nice facilities and (3) not a huge need for one-and-done-paycheck-chasing-players. I also don’t really know the program for being that hard to fundraise for
 
Yes I do want to add my congrats to the Mack. That was an unbelievable game and performance by Lundgren. Its great to see you guys get a shot at the NCAA's finally, anything can happen once you're in.
 
It’s massively impressive that Borek was able to get Merrimack into the NCAA’s with two completely different groups of players and he recruited all of them. Also, that he was able to overcome the passing of their assistant coach who played at UNH.
 
Whenever the topic of campus site regionals comes up, I always have to wonder if it would be feasible and realistic. I know it's how the NCAA tournament was held back in the day, but things have changed a lot. The way I see it, if you were to do it, you would have two options: either a), the #1 seed hosts the entire regional in their arena, all three games, or b) you have the higher seeded team host the games as they come up. Both of these pose major challenges. In scenario A, what happens if in a hypothetical situation, an Atlantic Hockey team has an exceptionally strong season and gets a #1 seed? You want to have a regional held in a building that seats less than 2000 spectators, as most of those are? Or in a more realistic option, what if UConn and their tiny new arena got a #1 seed? Or what if a school in a really remote location was a #1, think Clarkson, or Michigan Tech, would there be enough fan travel capability to get there, and even if there was, could a remote area like that accommodate enough people? I know they recently held a regional at a practice arena in Maryland Heights just like two years ago, but that was rightfully panned by fans and teams across the college hockey world and was a bit of an embarrassment for the NCAA. The alternative could be that you have a larger building elsewhere nearby host, i.e the XL Center in the UConn scenario, but then that almost defeats the purpose of a "campus site regional", dosen't it? Or, in situation B, what if there was ridiculous travel at play? For instance, what if in a hypothetical region, the NPI shakes out where the #1 seed was BU, #2 was Arizona State, and #3 was Maine. Would it be fair to expect Maine to fly from Orono to Tempe, and then assuming they both won, fly back east to Boston and play another game 2 days later on Comm Ave? I suppose you could try and argue thats just how it is, but thats a hell of a lot of travel to ask of a team and could just as easily argue that it would do harm to competitive balance. I think the current system of having regionals in minor league arenas is about the best they can do, as much as they can be lame sometimes. If anything, the major change you could advocate for more, and maybe even possibly get passed, would be to end the practice of locking the host school into their regional should they qualify. Either you just let the bracket fall where it may, or alternatively you do what the NCAA itself already does in the March Madness basketball, where the host school is actually barred from playing in their arena, even if the seeding fell that they would have otherwise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top