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BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

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Bumbles said:
The new coaches at PC and UMass Lowell seem to have somewhat revived the programs, or at the very least been able to get the teams to play better. Just saying....
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Even in their Championship season in 08-09', BU lost to an awful Providence team at home. That is not the complaint here. The issue is the sense that the players don't seem to care very much. They rarely play hard for the full 60 mintes. That is completely unacceptable but, unfortunately, not completely surprising. We have seen this in recent years. Over the last decade, there have not been enough kids like Peter MacArthur. Used to be that just about everyone played like that.
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Go-UML said:
Not really. As usual for any game getting lopsided, there was chippy play. The refs tried to keep it under control and that included some 10 min. At no point did I think either team was playing dirty.
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Glad to hear it. BU has had a recent trend of getting a little nasty in recent years once the game was out of hand.

Looking at the box it seemed like that might have been the case again.

Congrats on a resounding win. It's been awhile (08-09) since I could sit back and watch a victory comfortably.

Have a great rest of the weekend!
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Depends on who you're rooting for. That 6am practice should be winding up about now
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Hopefully it was at 5 not at 6. With the time change a 6am practice would have been like sleeping in.
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

srsterrier said:
The issue is the sense that the players don't seem to care very much. They rarely play hard for the full 60 mintes. That is completely unacceptable but, unfortunately, not completely surprising. We have seen this in recent years. Over the last decade, there have not been enough kids like Peter MacArthur. Used to be that just about everyone played like that.
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I think the guys who might (or do) care enough may not have enough influence in the locker room to make a difference to the guys who are perceived as being low on the give-a-**** meter.

Not everyone on the team has to be BFFs w/ everyone else, but there has to be more than enough respect for one another where they all want to play for one another. I get the sense that minus the fried chicken, beer and video games, this BU team may have similar traits from a personality, leadership, and work ethic standpoint as the 2011 Sox...
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Your tears, they taste so sweet. Watching Sux2BU this season is almost as good as watching my team march toward their fifth national championship.
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

srsterrier said:
Even in their Championship season in 08-09', BU lost to an awful Providence team at home. That is not the complaint here. The issue is the sense that the players don't seem to care very much. They rarely play hard for the full 60 mintes. That is completely unacceptable but, unfortunately, not completely surprising. We have seen this in recent years. Over the last decade, there have not been enough kids like Peter MacArthur. Used to be that just about everyone played like that.
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I have shared my opinion about this before that the coaching staff has gotten very lazy in recruiting by largely focusing their "top recruits" from the coddled NTDP. Many of these players come with a sense of entitlement and are much more concerned about their personal fortunes then the teams. Character can be recruited but it takes more homework and general effort then it appears this coaching staff is willing to expend.

Friend_of_BU_Hockey said:
I think the guys who might (or do) care enough may not have enough influence in the locker room to make a difference to the guys who are perceived as being low on the give-a-**** meter.

Not everyone on the team has to be BFFs w/ everyone else, but there has to be more than enough respect for one another where they all want to play for one another. I get the sense that minus the fried chicken, beer and video games, this BU team may have similar traits from a personality, leadership, and work ethic standpoint as the 2011 Sox...
Click to expand...

Agreed. I believe there is a "cast system" instilled by the coaches among the players. Certain favorites are established based on a variety of factors often having nothing to do with on ice performance or leadership. This inconsistency in approach creates resentment, lack of understanding what is important to earn playing time and lack of respect for the messages sent by the coaches because they defy conventional logic. I do not see this changing until there is a new leadership in place with the hockey program but don't anticipate that happening until the one individual with no accountability decides he wants to retire.

TimP said:
Your tears, they taste so sweet. Watching Sux2BU this season is almost as good as watching my team march toward their fifth national championship.
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Last night against U Mass was a great example of the Eagles marching toward a national championship! :rolleyes:
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Funny/accurate excerpt from the recap:

The River Hawks continued where they left off in the second stanza, scoring less than two minutes into the middle frame. Michael Budd took what looked to be a relatively harmless shot from the top of the right circle, but Millan had trouble handling it and pushed a bouncing rebound out to Scott Wilson, who batted the puck into the back of the net for his second tally of the season.

Millan’s biggest blunder came just 11 seconds later when Daniel Furlong slid the puck toward the net from an impossible angle along the red line. The puck hit the goaltender’s skate and rolled into the net for Furlong’s first collegiate goal and a 4–1 Lowell lead.

--More Grant please.

Vintage Parker:

“Give Lowell credit, but we were a pond hockey team tonight,” said Parker. “We think we’re good, real good, but we’re not a good team. (The BU players) need to realize that they’re playing like a last place team in this league. They think they’re better than they are.”

--There's no "they" in "team". If he replaces everyone of those with a "We're" then I'd be in prefect agreement.
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

TimP said:
Your tears, they taste so sweet. Watching Sux2BU this season is almost as good as watching my team march toward their fifth national championship.
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Yeah we already did that. Thanks for playing though. Maybe you guys will actually win at Fenway this year too. Oh yeah and remind me how many BP championships you have. What's the all-time BU-BC series record (BU-125 BC 112)? Should I keep going. I'll give you credit though, it does take balls to post on our thread after losing to a team we beat. Enjoy the success while it lasts, maybe you can even catch us in the all-time series record before the pendulum swings back our way (though you'd have to beat us every time you faced us for like 4 years).
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

At some point, doesn't Parker just walk in to the postgame press conference, say "ibid", turn and walk away?
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

TimP said:
Your tears, they taste so sweet. Watching Sux2BU this season is almost as good as watching my team march toward their fifth national championship.
Click to expand...

eagleh8er said:
Yeah we already did that. Thanks for playing though. Maybe you guys will actually win at Fenway this year too. Oh yeah and remind me how many BP championships you have. What's the all-time BU-BC series record (BU-125 BC 112)? Should I keep going. I'll give you credit though, it does take balls to post on our thread after losing to a team we beat. Enjoy the success while it lasts, maybe you can even catch us in the all-time series record before the pendulum swings back our way (though you'd have to beat us every time you faced us for like 4 years).
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Uh oh... Fanboy vs Fanboy... Unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Grab the popcorn!

buoldtimer said:
At some point, doesn't Parker just walk in to the postgame press conference, say "ibid", turn and walk away?
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Well done.

In all seriousness something has to happen fast here or this team will find itself in a hole that even a classic "2nd half" BU team can't pull itself out of. We already have the type of crippling PWR loses we saw last year (Brown and Harvard meet Holy Cross) and we're only a month into the season. What're the chances we end up sitting around at the end of the season knowing that if the team had beaten HC we'd all be booking tickets to an NCAA regionals? Right now they're staring down the barrel of a 0 point weekend vs Mack and BC.
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Just wondering.....

If BU was an NHL team how would the GM respond to the start of this season following up on the last 2?
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

collegefan06 said:
Just wondering.....

If BU was an NHL team how would the GM respond to the start of this season following up on the last 2?
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Well, the GM would have to first answer to the owners for the players he signed.

collegefan06 said:
Agreed. I believe there is a "cast system" instilled by the coaches among the players. Certain favorites are established based on a variety of factors often having nothing to do with on ice performance or leadership. This inconsistency in approach creates resentment, lack of understanding what is important to earn playing time and lack of respect for the messages sent by the coaches because they defy conventional logic.
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Are these the "deals made with agents for playing time" that you had ealier referenced?
 
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Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

Jack Parker (quote from Sean Fields era)- “We've had some off years but not very many and we've had many, many years where we've had guys you can absolutely depend upon in being if not the star of the team, a solid part of the team. It's just so important. They say 70 percent of baseball is pitching then 80 percent of hockey is goaltending.”

As much as you can point to lapses by defensemen and lack of effort from some of the forwards, poor goaltending is near the top of the list of problems.
 
Re: BU 2011-2012 Season: The bar is low, boys!

buoldtimer said:
At some point, doesn't Parker just walk in to the postgame press conference, say "ibid", turn and walk away?
Click to expand...

He basically did last night.

I have to admit, at some points, it's difficult to cover a team like this because you want to shake people and say, "Tell me something different. Give me a straight answer. Obviously, it's not just doing the little things better. Obviously, whatever you are doing to motivate the team isn't working. Why isn't it working? What else can you do?"

I've been spending all day trying to think of new and different ways to ask questions in order to get better responses out of the coach, the captains and the players. We have tried but been unable to speak to any goaltender for two weeks now (neither goaltender was available after last night's game, Millan, despite being told we wanted to interview him, left before we finished with Parker on Thursday (he may have had class. I don't know), the team left Amherst before we were able to talk to a goalie or captain last week).

I do, however, have to give props to Parker for apologizing to us and returning after giving an 18 second press conference initially about his team. He was clearly furious with his team, and I honestly believe he is at his wits ends at what to do about them.

I think the one thing people should know about this team is that there is a difference between caring and effort. They all care that they lost last night. They all were plenty upset. It's not like they lost and were like, "Oh, whatever, let's go to Ts now." The problem is, they have yet to put in the effort required to actually do something about it as individuals and as a team. I think they simply do not know how to fix this. How (specifically) do you get 26 guys aged 18-24 with plenty of talent and NHL ambitions to come together and play hard for 60 minutes against a lesser opponent?

I think they'll be fine this week against Merrimack and BC because they're tough teams. They play to the level of their opponents big time.
 
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