Re: Maine Black Bears 2010-2011 - Part Deux
I'll be at the weekend games coming up vs. PC and BC. Gotta go, be as supportive as I can, plus having laid out serious cash for season's tickets...
We, all of us, are frustrated with the UM hockey team, the play, the coaching, etc. yet we still love the Black Bears. If we did not give two cents, we would not be crabbing about their performances, or lack thereof....
Look, in my book, a coach is the teacher, the leader, the man who runs the show and uses his talents to convey the message to the other coaches and team members. If the head teacher is not up to par, then the players cannot be faulted since they are without proper guidance. They have the raw skills, of course, but they need to be taught more about working together, anticipating the movements of both fellow team members and the opposing players. It seems so basic, but it's not easy, as we all know. So, if the teacher is not any better at conveying the message to his players, the whole team philosophy cannot work. Period. Then it's chaos and endless skating without purpose. For example, skating back behind our net to set up some kind of play, has guaranteed that the opposing team has time to change up, set up and wait for Maine to (finally) come down the ice to dump the puck into a corner. ***! No transition, no racing up the ice, no quick, one time passing, no catching the other team off guard. It's as medicore as the coaching method. Remember early in the season when it was apparent that the players were told to pepper the opposing net with shots? What happened? We won! Remember how we played against North Dakota? I mean, honest to gawd, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven on that Friday night! I had not seem Maine play that well for ages.
Those kids, all of them, are dying to race up and down the ice and pound the other players in the corners, chase the puck, shoot the puck and score. Again and again. Take that NoDak series as an example. It was wide open and...those kids were having a blast. You could see it, you could FEEL it, they were greyhounds enjoying the run; and then look at what happened the past month and a half. Flat. Like watching Bangor play Brewer in HS basketball and the score was 17 to 12. Slow, painful, excruciating. Only difference was Bangor won.
But now it's bickering and excuses. Finger pointing and excuses. It is the fault of the coach. Buy Whitehead's contract out. Hell, I'll start passing the hat now and donate the proceeds. Get a coach with some fire in his belly, and is a teacher. Walsh was a teacher, a motivator. So is Jackie Parker, and so is our pal at Boston College. They TEACH and they MOTIVATE and they RUN THE SHOW. If a player does not cut it, he gets to sit and contemplate his future. The last thing a coach from Maine should say is we got out hustled. We can screw up, but NEVER should he have to say, 'we got outhustled." THAT my friend is NOT the way Maine hockey should be portrayed. Remember the days when we did not have the talent year in and year out when measured up against BC, or BU or Minnesota or North Dakota? Yeah, we all do, but one thing that was apparent....we might lose, but rarely were we 'outhustled.' It would not have been tolerated. Every opposing team knew that when the puck went into the corner, a Maine player was there too, to pound the opposing team player into the glass. Outhustled? Pathetic.
Outhustled...by Merrimack, by Miami, by UNH in the 3rd period, by BC twice. Wretched. And further, if I know it and sense it, , and other fans know it and sense it, you can bet other teams know it, too.
Start looking for a new hockey coach now...
Get rid of the coach, please.
