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UMaine '26-'27: The Bridge On the River Stillwater
- Thread starter UncleRay
- Start date
I've had something I've wanted to say since last night brewing, but then today I came up with another thing to research and post about. I'm going to share both, though they may be in two different posts since they both could be lengthy. I'll start with the former in this post, what I was thinking of last night.
Barr said in the postgame last night that a lot of guys were gripping their sticks too tightly and were playing nervously, especially as it got closer to the end, and that led to mistakes, which led to the tying and winning goals against, and thus the loss. After having some time to reflect a little bit more on watching the game slip away from them last night, I eventually came to the thought of "the 2024-25 team would have won that game and not let it get away", and connected that to Barr's comments post-game. And the connection I made became "we lack a lot of the on-ice leadership we had back then". Think about who we ended up graduating out after that season, and how much leadership and character they all exuded: in particular I think of David Breazeale, Lynden Breen, Nolan Renwick, Harrison Scott, and Taylor Makar. That's an incredible amount of not just leadership and character like I said above, but also talent and clutch factor to make big plays in big moments. How often when that team needed a big goal or big play did it eventually come from one of those guys? They also all had letters except for Makar, and Breen and Breazeale both wore the C for the second year running. To lose all of those guys at once has left a huge void to fill in terms of on-ice leadership, that I don't really think has come close to being filled. Last year's captains were Holt and Freel, with Djurasevic wearing an A. Other graduating seniors included Chabrier and Arnott. While those guys are all solid players to have around, and Holt was one of my favorite Black Bears since I became a fan, none of them had the innate leadership of any of the prior five, at least in my opinion. And then this year, you have Fowler wearing the C with the A's going to Scott and Scholle. While I do see some leadership ability in Fowler, most of that comes from his hard style of play and always giving the game all he has. The huge skates that were left open by 24-25's leadership group have still yet to be even close to filled, in my opinion. And Barr was the guy who assembled that vaunted group (mostly, as he did inherit Breen and Renwick whom were both recruited by Red), so he's proven he can do it already, but I think for the team to make a jump like they did in 24-25 they will need much greater amounts of player leadership.
Barr said in the postgame last night that a lot of guys were gripping their sticks too tightly and were playing nervously, especially as it got closer to the end, and that led to mistakes, which led to the tying and winning goals against, and thus the loss. After having some time to reflect a little bit more on watching the game slip away from them last night, I eventually came to the thought of "the 2024-25 team would have won that game and not let it get away", and connected that to Barr's comments post-game. And the connection I made became "we lack a lot of the on-ice leadership we had back then". Think about who we ended up graduating out after that season, and how much leadership and character they all exuded: in particular I think of David Breazeale, Lynden Breen, Nolan Renwick, Harrison Scott, and Taylor Makar. That's an incredible amount of not just leadership and character like I said above, but also talent and clutch factor to make big plays in big moments. How often when that team needed a big goal or big play did it eventually come from one of those guys? They also all had letters except for Makar, and Breen and Breazeale both wore the C for the second year running. To lose all of those guys at once has left a huge void to fill in terms of on-ice leadership, that I don't really think has come close to being filled. Last year's captains were Holt and Freel, with Djurasevic wearing an A. Other graduating seniors included Chabrier and Arnott. While those guys are all solid players to have around, and Holt was one of my favorite Black Bears since I became a fan, none of them had the innate leadership of any of the prior five, at least in my opinion. And then this year, you have Fowler wearing the C with the A's going to Scott and Scholle. While I do see some leadership ability in Fowler, most of that comes from his hard style of play and always giving the game all he has. The huge skates that were left open by 24-25's leadership group have still yet to be even close to filled, in my opinion. And Barr was the guy who assembled that vaunted group (mostly, as he did inherit Breen and Renwick whom were both recruited by Red), so he's proven he can do it already, but I think for the team to make a jump like they did in 24-25 they will need much greater amounts of player leadership.
AMC
Registered User
And I do want to be clear that I'm not questioning the desire, effort, etc. about any of these guys. I do not doubt that they are all high character, high effort guys. I think all of them could be great pieces of a team that contends for Hockey East titles. They'd just all max out as 2nd/3rd line guys. That top line of guys who can go out and score goals and control the puck on a night-in, night-out basis isn't there, and those are the guys that cost money.
umhockey91
Well-known member
And then we have a football program that is hitting a historical rock bottom with quite possibly the worst football coach that Maine has ever had. Football pulled a Cindy Blodgett-like hire sim ply because he was an alum and Cosgrove put in a good word for him.....not because he had demonstrated successful or even adequate coaching ability. Football has a $6 million budget.....so far the average cost of their wins this season is $6 million.
The other thing I had thought of, and did some digging on this morning, was about our top scorers in the Barr era, and where they came from. I ended up dividing them into three groups: recruited as freshmen by Barr, recruited as transfers by Barr, or inherited from Red, and for that last category I defined it as simply if they originally committed to Maine while Red was the coach, not necessarily if they ever played for Red. In terms of our Top 5 scorers per year (so 25 total, five per year for the five completed years of Barr's tenure), 5/25 (20%) were recruited as freshmen by Barr, 13/25 (52%) were inherited from Red, and the rest, 7/25 (28%) were recruited by Barr as transfers. If you exclude the first two years of his tenure, i.e where it would be most expected to have a lot of inherited players on the roster, those numbers go to 4/15 (~27%), 5/15 (~33%), and 6/15 (40%), respectively. Last season was the best year for players recruited by Barr as freshmen in the scoring ranks, as 1st, 3rd, and 4th on the team in scoring (Holt, Poirier, and Marques, respectively) were freshmen recruits, with 2nd place being a Red inheritance (Josh Nadeau), and 5th being originally a transfer (Fowler). If you look at this year so far, each of the Top 3 scorers on the team were/are transfers (Parks, Scott, Klimpke) with a three-way tie for fourth place so far between Parekh (transfer), Peterson, and Gerrior (both freshman recruits). In 24-25 when they won Hockey East, four of the top 5 scorers were transfers (Scott #1, Makar #2, Djurasevic #4, and Russell #5), with #3 being Josh Nadeau again, a Red recruit. The top scorer originally recruited by Barr as a freshman was #8 Brandon Holt. This tells me that Maine has leaned heavily on transfers for impact scoring, especially in recent seasons since the rule change. Another thing I tracked that I found interesting, of the Top 10 individual scoring seasons by players recruited as freshmen by Barr, 4/10 were from defensemen (Brandon Holt 2026, Holt 2025, Brandon Chabrier 2024, and David Breazeale 2022). Of the six who were forwards, three left Orono after one year (2024 Bradly Nadeau, and 2026 Justin Poirier and Miguel Marques). The only ones who were forwards that stayed more than one year were both four-year players, Thomas Freel (2023 and 2025), and Sully Scholle 2026. While I think this shows that Barr and his staff have done well on the recruiting trail with defensemen, the offensive impact from players that end up in Orono as freshmen forwards could use some improvement. However, I do think there could be light on the horizon, as I think Poul Andersen and Malachai Mackinnon in particular will be impact players as freshmen, with Olle Darth and a few others looking promising as well. Just a little project I decided to undertake this morning that I thought yielded some interesting results.
BlackBearHockeyFan
Well-known member
Football needs to move to a conference with no flights. Cut half their coaches as well. Way too many staff for the black hole team.
ticapnews
Never graduate.
NIL is not just a hockey problem or a Maine problem, but a problem for almost all but the very biggest football factories in the country. Football players at Texas and Michigan are (reportedly) making more in a weekend than Maine's entire NIL budget for a year. There's a lot of people very nervous about where this ends up. EA Sports is probably going to stop making the college game because almost all of its game sales are now going just to pay NIL. Utah already turned its entire athletic program over to private equity (that never ends well). College sports are already unrecognizable from my days; in a decade or less it will be entirely different again. It may not even exist anymore.
AMC
Registered User
Yes, all true... but, those big football factories aren't necessarily spending on ice hockey players. A few programs, sure (Michigan, Penn State). Maine's getting massively outspent by BU and Denver and North Dakota. And, I get outspent, but should Maine be massively outspent by those schools? They should in theory be in Maine's weight class, or only one or two rungs up.
NorthMike
Well-known member
Fagnano is playing for the ravens today and got crushed by the bills. Lol.
ticapnews
Never graduate.
Those are private schools and/or have mega-rich donors. Maine is a public school funded by taxpayers. People like my sister don't even think the university should have an athletics department funded with tax money. She wants 100% going towards education and nothing else. We don't have donors who can (or will) drop a six-figure gift on the school to get the stud goal scorer or the bruising defenseman. We don't have partnerships with Coke or Ford or EA Sports to offset those costs. We have Sandbar Spa & Pool (show of hands: who had heard of them before reading it in this post?) (Put your hands down, liars, because it's actually Sandollar and you only know that because I just told you.)
In the end it will most likely be irrelevant anyway. As I said, the whole landscape of college athletics is completely different from my day. Now you have players getting paid, conferences that span the entire continent, PE firms getting into the game etc. Within a decade it will be unrecognizable.
It’s a hard sell on the administrative and academic side to say we’re going to pay players serious money while at the same time laying off professors and cutting expenses elsewhere.
ClockaLock
Member
I highly doubt that most colleges are shelling out much money to pay players directly. Most of the NIL money generated for players is from brands that have reached out to specific players for sponsorship deals. Yeah, the 10-15 most talented players in the country every year are getting paid by universities or by private donors in the 50k-700k range. However, outside of that 1% of super sought-after guys, there is definitely good talent out there that Maine can snag without having to pay them directly. Quinnipiac and Denver have a player profile they like to stick with for recruiting (3-6 round draft picks and blue collar players), which I am sure does not cost much for the school. I think Barr is trying to build a program that attracts the correct players but its an uphill battle when the program was shit for 15 years.
BlackBearHockeyFan
Well-known member
Need LL Bean or New Balance to write checks
grooverider
Your Team Sucks
We can harp on NIL all we want and make excuses why Maine doesn't have the money blah blah. The goal needs to be to get in to the tournament. Best of 1. Better team doesn't always win. Best talent doesn't always win. This program needs to strive to be good enough to get into the dance and ride the wave
Do they have to? They have their name on a baseball glove that's made by Wilson.Maybe if New Balance made skates we could get
NIL money from them.
If you live in this area most people can sing the sanddollar jingle from tv ad.
walrus
Wind up workin' in a gas station
Probably not but NB is giving money to schools all over the place. You'd think they would be willing to give a little extra to the state that supported them long before they made it to the big time
AMC
Registered User
Maine would need to climb over at least 4 Hockey East teams offering meaningful NIL dollars to do that (BC, BU, UConn, Providence).
Maine's playing in front of 5,000 fans at home, with high ticket prices. BU can't get 1,500 through the door for a weekend series between two ranked teams. Sure, BU has more alumni, it's a private school, it's in Boston.... but if Maine can't leverage the fact that people care about this program at a level that BU fans don't and figure out how to either aggregate a little cash for players or shake down a big donor or three, that's a Maine failing. Maine's proven to be amazing at getting donors to put their names on shiny new buildings. Unfortunately, shiny new buildings don't attract top 15 NHL draft picks anymore. Maybe the Alfonds aren't into paying players, there are other businesses and other millionaires in the state. Or actually advertise and annoy the hell out of us fans and season ticket holders for aggregated small contributions.
We may not like that that is the game, but it is. And if the answer is "we aren't going to do that" again, fine, BUT LET US KNOW. If the goal is "6th/7th in Hockey East on average, a few better years, a few worse" cool, let's be honest about it and charge people the appropriate amount of money to see that team.
BlackBearHockeyFan
Well-known member
Wouldn't take much if they would give hockey a million a year would make big difference.