UMaine '26-'27: The Bridge On the River Stillwater

[walrus]

shiny buildings not attracting players was obvious when the 50 million was spent in Orono.

 

[grooverider]

Wouldn't take much if they would give hockey a million a year would make big difference.

They probably ran out of money paying Cooper Flagg

 

[Darius]

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.

How could anyone possibly have foreseen any of this?

 

[Scarlet]

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.

Someone checked attendance for Saturday's games:

@BU 2615; @BC 1508; @MMac 1512; @VT 145*.. Way down all around..

So, it wasn't just Agganis.

 

[amkirby10]

Wouldn't take much if they would give hockey a million a year would make big difference.

This is the thing right here. In the grand scheme of college sports, hockey is pretty niche, as we all know. But if any given school decided they wanted to set their mind onto dominating a niche sport (i.e, not football or basketball), now is the time to do so. It would cost comparatively much less money to reel in the cream of the crop in any other sport than the two above. Hell, you could probably pull together an elite college hockey all-star team for what, a million bucks or a little more? Maybe a couple million at most? That's less than, or at least roughly equal to, what many P4 football teams pay for their backup QB. Nevermind if your school decides that they want to become the best at any other even far more obscure sport, like rifle or bowling or men's volleyball or something. You could probably get together an elite team in a sport like that for well under a million.

 

[walrus]

Someone checked attendance for Saturday's games:



So, it wasn't just Agganis.

So its not just BU that sucks?

 

[umhockey91]

shiny buildings not attracting players was obvious when the 50 million was spent in Orono.

I feel like Maine has done a good job with the other projects but the $50 million spent on the Alfond was somewhat mis-guided IMO......they should have spent more on the fan areas and increased seating capacity including more club level seating.

 

[tylerzx2002]

This is the thing right here. In the grand scheme of college sports, hockey is pretty niche, as we all know. But if any given school decided they wanted to set their mind onto dominating a niche sport (i.e, not football or basketball), now is the time to do so. It would cost comparatively much less money to reel in the cream of the crop in any other sport than the two above. Hell, you could probably pull together an elite college hockey all-star team for what, a million bucks or a little more? Maybe a couple million at most? That's less than, or at least roughly equal to, what many P4 football teams pay for their backup QB. Nevermind if your school decides that they want to become the best at any other even far more obscure sport, like rifle or bowling or men's volleyball or something. You could probably get together an elite team in a sport like that for well under a million.

The 24/25 team gave us a really good blueprint to having the right homegrown leadership in place and pairing it with a much-needed infusion of portal talent to get a team that could make a viable run in the NCAAs. Everything shook out perfectly outside of the seeding in the tournament unfortunately...

Maine isn't the only school that won't be able to just throw big $$$ at the roster every season in the NIL-era. But every couple of seasons? That should be the expectation if the recruited players are sticking around for 3 or 4 years. With how easy player movement is I don't mind being strategic with how those seemingly limited dollars are allocated to go "all-in" if the rest of the leadership group is in place to make a run.

But as AMC said a couple pages back, a little transparency about that would make a big difference in what our own expectations are.

 

[ticapnews]

How could anyone possibly have foreseen any of this?

Tarot cards? A crystal ball? Some eyeglasses?

In other news...

Playoffs return to campus!

 

[ticapnews]

Someone checked attendance for Saturday's games:

@BU 2615; @BC 1508; @MMac 1512; @VT 145*

So, it wasn't just Agganis.

And that is BU/Maine (both ranked) and BC/Northeastern (Beanpot rivals).

Friday attendance: BU/ME 3,525 BC/NE 4,349
A Halloween fluke? Or was it something more?

 

[Scarlet]

Maine would need to climb over at least 4 Hockey East teams offering meaningful NIL dollars to do that (BC, BU, UConn, Providence).
StreamHockey

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.

Someone checked attendance for Saturday's games:

@BU 2615; @BC 1508; @MMac 1512; @VT 145*.. Way down all around..

So, it wasn't just Agganis.

And that is BU/Maine (both ranked) and BC/Northeastern (Beanpot rivals).

Friday attendance: BU/ME 3,525 BC/NE 4,349
A Halloween fluke? Or was it something more?

I think it was totally Halloween.

 

[grooverider]

Someone checked attendance for Saturday's games:




I think it was totally Halloween.

Who needs to trick or treat when you can watch Maine play at BU and lose AGAIN lol

 

[GreenBear]

Maine just doesn’t have the talent. When they play great and the other team is ordinary they can win, but how often is that going to happen? The players are giving it absolutely everything they have and I hope folks appreciate that.

Spot on. Maine is a good but not elite team that will probably be hanging around the bubble for the NCAA tourney but will probably need to win the HEA Tourney to be make the NCAAs. They'll pick up some quality wins this year for sure--they already have with QPac--but I don't know if they can muster enough of them to be in the at-large running at all.

 

[walrus]

This is why NB can't afford to give the hockey team any NIL money

https://www.newbalance.com/pd/ellipse-pykrete/MELPSV1_RU-FTW-829199.html?utm_source=fbig&utm_medium=so&utm_campaign=paid&utm_content=2H26LFRunning&ut

Ugly crap

 

[Fishman'81]

Spot on. Maine is a good but not elite team that will probably be hanging around the bubble for the NCAA tourney but will probably need to win the HEA Tourney to be make the NCAAs. They'll pick up some quality wins this year for sure--they already have with QPac--but I don't know if they can muster enough of them to be in the at-large running at all.

Maine has essentially become a feeder-program for the richer schools, via every sport that matters to the accountants. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable,

In the meantime, Maine has been busy poaching players from even lesser programs. Dog-eat-dog all the way around; nobody is even trying to fake it anymore.

Considering the D-3 lawsuit against the NCAA -which the players will win- I can see the NCAA becoming completely toothless in the future. Some creative realignment for the great bulk of college teams is inevitable, and probably necessary, IMO.

 

[tylerzx2002]

Was nice to see Romaine back at practice today. He was sporting a non-contact jersey, but looks like he could be close to a return to the lineup.

 

[blackbears9]

Maine has essentially become a feeder-program for the richer schools, via every sport that matters to the accountants. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable,

In the meantime, Maine has been busy poaching players from even lesser programs. Dog-eat-dog all the way around; nobody is even trying to fake it anymore.

Considering the D-3 lawsuit against the NCAA -which the players will win- I can see the NCAA becoming completely toothless in the future. Some creative realignment for the great bulk of college teams is inevitable, and probably necessary, IMO.

Maine lost one quality player to a "bigger" program in Poirier, although he got into a fistfight with a teammate in the locker room and doesn't appear to have been popular with his teammates. They lost Marques who wasn't a stylistic fit and made a lateral move to Northeastern. Please, enlighten me on how Maine has become a feeder program.

They kept Boija after being a Richter finalist. They kept Josh Nadeau who certainly could've left for "bigger" programs. Kept Breazeale and Holt for four seasons when they all could've left. Djurasevic could've left after 28 points his first season in Orono. Breen had 30 points, was great on faceoffs and solid defensively in 23-24. Harrison Scott had 27 points, elite faceoffs and defense in 23-24.

People on here are more hysterical than my elderly mother after a 2" snowstorm.