Re: Maine Off Season 2011
Well Runsub5 thanks for trying to bring some civility to this post. I got so frustrated I quit for a while. Priceless it appears has done the same. I am one of the many Maine fans that typically attends every Frozen Four. What I got a kick out of was back when Tim was getting teams to the FF the same people were on him to be fired then. Like many Maine fans I am disappointed in the results this year and expected more. I also know that next year will be a challenge. But I have mellowed with age. This year we had a team that lost a number of games they should have won, turnovers and soft goals have cost us at least 4 wins, and blowing leads late has been a problem. As we need to learn to win again.
There have been good things this year too! And while I know we will struggle to score I do think our D will be better next year.
I continue to believe that we will once again be back in the future, but I also have enjoyed the ride, knowing there would be ups and downs at every step. Can anyone remember 1994 and how we dealt with all the NCAA forfeits? How about Shawn's suspension? And even Shawn had some bad down years. The game and recruiting have changed sooo much and we lost 2 to 3 years of recruiting between Grant's last 2 years, which were not good, and Guy's one which was mediocre.
Who knows what the future holds, but I'll be there, as I will be in North Andover tonight!
Now if we could get some goaltending.........
BobF, I know you mean well and are trying to be what you think is "reasonable." I know that you're not a newbie, but I think you're lacking the very long term perspective that many of us who have supported Maine hockey since games were played outdoors down by the river, weather permitting. This is very far from a disappointing season or two, it's a long term downward spiral to a program that we all supported and watched get built from scratch. Just we all were excited long ago by the rise of Maine hockey, we're saddened and frustrated by its decline and only one man is responsible for that decline, TIMMAY! By pretending that it's a short term thing and that a few tweaks to the goaltending program or one or two good players coming to Maine might turn things around, you're acting as an enabler to failure. You may see some of the comments on here as uncivil, but I see them as a lot more than that. They are a reflection of the extreme frustration that the true, long term supporters of Maine hockey are feeling. Many of us resisted this as we saw the beginnings of the big fade that is Tim Whitehead, we wanted to believe and felt much as you do now, that it was just a bad year or two or some bad luck that everyone has to deal with. But now it's apparent that it's much more and we can't ignore it any more. If TIMMAY doesn't go, and go soon, Maine will be permanently stuck at the bottom of our league, interest will wane, and we'll have seen the last of players like Nyquist or Moore or even skilled walk-ons like Flynn. This is NOT the time to be fiddling while Rome burns, and make no mistake, the Maine hockey program IS burning down right before our eyes and something has to be done about it or we just won't have a credible Division One program any more and this time around with increased competition for good players, even a modern day Shawn Walsh won't be able to work another miracle in Orono. My roots and ties to UMaine go back LONG before Tim Whitehead ever heard of Orono, Maine and will continue long after he's moved on and is lending his "talents" to some Division 3 school where he'll fit in just fine. I graduated from Orono and my parents met and graduated from there and my grandfather was a Umaine grad (2 degrees) too, my siblings are all Umaine grads and their children are currently excelling as students there. That's where MY perspective comes from. I'm not wealthy so I can't support UMaine with huge donations, but I had season tickets up until a few years ago, when it began to seem like a waste of time to watch listless performance after listless performance, and there are still 4 season tix in my family and UMaine is the only venue were I would consider buying season tix. I'd love to see the Patriots win another Superbowl and the Sox win another World Series, and the Celtics another championship, but nothing in sports can thrill me or make me prouder than ANY UMaine team showing the world the values of outworking and outhustling opponents that were the hallmarks of our successful teams but are now conspicuously missing. There is NO question where all my college and sports loyalties lie and always will lie. But that doesn't mean that I will stick my head in the sand and pretend that ongoing abject failure is very close to success, or that this is just a temporary blip that will soon turn itself around.
Tim Whitehead just isn't up the the task of coaching Maine hockey and he's proven that without any doubt to anyone who's been paying attention. He's a much nicer guy and family man and more gentlemanly than Shawn ever was but he's not being paid to be a nice guy. He's getting paid a lot of money to run what used to be one of the premier programs in college hockey. He's responsible for everything from recruiting, to guiding and disciplining players, to developing strategies that will best take advantage of his players strengths, to choosing and guiding his assistants, to "selling" his team to the public and encouraging support, to making midgame adjustments to counter the tactics and strategies that opposing coaches and teams try to beat us with, to providing overall LEADERSHIP to the program. It's a big job and I'm not suggesting that just anyone can do it, but TIMMAY's proven that he's one of those who can't. He's failed in every possible measure of success and it's time for UMaine to move on and get a coach who might at least get UMaine hockey moving in the right direction again. I'm under no illusion that another Shawn Walsh is going to come along and win a national championship at Orono in the next few years, but we need a new energy behind the bench in Orono, much like Merrimack is experiencing/enjoying right now. It's time for a change!
