Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

[TripleE]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

I'm sure something to this nature has been said already, but all signs point to Abbott returning this Saturday.

First, the injury was listed as 'concussion symptoms'...it wasn't defined as a true concussion. He got his cage rattled (literally) and they needed to take precautions.
Second, If you listened to O'Neill's postgame interview, he answered questions about the PP unit without him on it, and after giving his expected answers about how they did that night, he slipped in: "and with Abbs back next week...."

And if you follow Twitter, Spencer certainly doesn't tweet nearly as often as much of the rest of the team, but on Sunday he tweets: "Tough loss, but we will be ready to go in the NCAAs" ... obviously you could say that one way or another, he was being a supportive teammate, and 'we' refers to the team with him on or off the ice... but he's a smart, and publicly quiet kid. He knows speculation about his status would ensue by what he implied, and if his status was poor enough to be even have a prognosis of questionable, he'd probably stay the course of saying nothing.

 

[FiveHole12]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

That'd be nice. Not sure I could afford the tickets. If I knew for sure those old bahstids from BC werent going to be there, I might. I would like to see the UMD matchup. You going?

Haha... I'll be there, and the pro has told me he will be. Stay home!

 

[claver2010]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

I'm sure something to this nature has been said already, but all signs point to Abbott returning this Saturday.

First, the injury was listed as 'concussion symptoms'...it wasn't defined as a true concussion. He got his cage rattled (literally) and they needed to take precautions.

Sorry that was pretty obviously a concussion. The guy couldn't get up by himself and needed to be guided the entire way off the ice.

For his sake, I hope he's not rushing it.

 

[Runsub5]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

Here's a good article by Larry outlining the possible new regular season schedule and playoff changes in 2013-2014. Playing each team only twice with 11 teams, which means more non-league games. I am expecting either Holy Cross or Quinnipiac to join making it twelve.
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/03/...playoff-format-likely-to-change-in-2013-2014/

 

[KnowItAll]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

Yeah, that's the sort of thing that makes my skin crawl.

If an NCAA athlete in football, hoops, etc., has any contact with an agent, they lose their eligibility instantly. In college hockey..? Not a problem! Just another example of how Bettman's NHL whores-out the NCAA as a free feeder-system, and gets away with it.

College Hockey Inc.'s main reason to exist seems to be to address this issue, and maybe they'll get somewhere... With >30% of all current NHL players having come from the NCAA, they ought to have some leverage.

I am pretty sure that all good college athletes have "family advisors"
unpaid
anyone remember when Tiger had a zillion dollars in endorsement deals the DAY after he finished playing golf at Stanford?

what was the name of the guy you saw on TV?

 

[KnowItAll]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

Look at some of the coaches/programs that didn't get in this year: Wisconsin, Colorado College (talk about history), Nebraska-Omaha (Blais + heart of USHL), Notre Dame (Jackson), Ohio State, Harvard . . . all of these are programs that have real advantages over Maine. High-profile coaching staffs, rich athletic departments, location, recruiting base, prestige (in Harvard's case).

.

if you talk to players, junior coaches and player parents you will hear the same thing over and over.
the players play for a team BECAUSE of who the coach is.
Parents will say, "my son played for peter masters" and not mention which team he was coaching at the time.

the players want their best change of making it to the next level.
money helps, but it is the coach.
Shawn used Grant as bait.

 

[J.D.]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

If they start with 11 teams, I don't think 20 league games is enough but I know many people disagree. Ideally, somewhere in between 20 and 27 would be nice, but hard to accomplish with 11 teams.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

We already have an unbalanced schedule regarding home/away games. We could also just go to plain-old unbalanced. Play 5 teams 3 times and play the other 5 twice. Try to make sure that the 3 game series are divided as evenly as possible regarding opponent strength to make the regular season as level a playing field as possible. There's a lot of parity in HEA (BC excluded), so this won't be the end of the world.

Part of the problem is that nobody else has a 20 game regular season. In that scenario, there might not be enough OOC games to go around. A lot of other teams already schedule the bulk of their OOC games in tournaments like the GLI. They're not going to cancel those tournaments to schedule more OOC games against HEA.

edit:

While the 20-game season seems like a simple solution, it's not. It creates headaches, too.

You're not going to have *two* teams flying to/from Indiana for home-and-home series every single weekend. So what does that mean? Does everybody play home-and-homes except Notre Dame? Or do we get rid of home-and-home weekends and have both games at the same rink? That would mean that season ticket holders would only get to see their team play Notre Dame/BC/BU/UNH (or anyone else) every two years.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

To some degree I think it is riding on it. Don't show up and I'll consider this the same ol Timmay team

Sure - I'd agree with that. You can't just go through the motions.

But if Maine plays hard and loses anyway . . . I'm not going to be writing any angry rants.

 

[J.D.]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

OK, so it seems like you're not in favor of slashing the league schedule by seven games each either...not to mention it might not even be possible based off of what other conferences are doing (as you pointed out).

 

[UncleRay]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

Even if it is two games against each league opponent, how will that look? BC/BU playing a home and home is easy. How does a team do that with Maine? Or Notre Dame? Is it basically a H&H schedule, but one year a team travels to ND for two, and the next year they travel to Maine for two? What about Vermont? Perhaps one weekend you're home, and one weekend you travel. "Hosting partners" could be ME/UNH, UVM/Umass, UMLowell/Merr, BC/Prov, BU/Northeastern and ND unbalances the number of home vs. away games by playing two-game weekends either home or away.

 

[gscott13]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

OK, so it seems like you're not in favor of slashing the league schedule by seven games each either...not to mention it might not even be possible based off of what other conferences are doing (as you pointed out).

could happen depending on what the big ten conference schedule looks like... those teams will looking to fill 12-13 ooc games (assuming they play 2 home and two away against everyone else in the conference...

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

Good point. I forgot how small the Big "Ten" conference will be.

I have to think that they're going to want to schedule some OOC against traditional rivals in the WCHA. But the WCHA will also be smaller, right?

Maybe it could work. Clearly it'll take more time than I want to spend to figure it out.

 

[BoSox3066]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

What's a good time to remind everyone that Tim Whitehead is 8-0 in Regional games played in the East and has never lost a Regional game outside of his opponent's home building?

Timmmmmmmyyyyy

 

[walrus]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

First, the injury was listed as 'concussion symptoms'...it wasn't defined as a true concussion. He got his cage rattled (literally) and they needed to take precautions. .

Let me preface by saying I think a Hockey player wouldn't ever say he was really hurt unless there was a cast involved but Someone I know talked to Spence before the game on Saturday and he said he was fine, that the Docs were taking precautions because of the nature of a concussion and that he felt he could play but... I expect that means you are correct, he'll be skating Saturday night

 

[walrus]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

But if Maine plays hard and loses anyway . . . I'm not going to be writing any angry rants.

Yup, leave it all out there and get beat by a better team then so be it.

 

[acs64]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

Let me preface by saying I think a Hockey player wouldn't ever say he was really hurt unless there was a cast involved but Someone I know talked to Spence before the game on Saturday and he said he was fine, that the Docs were taking precautions because of the nature of a concussion and that he felt he could play but... I expect that means you are correct, he'll be skating Saturday night

He'll play. He didnt so much as get a headache from that...chhhhhhhhhhitittttt

 

[Priceless]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

could happen depending on what the big ten conference schedule looks like... those teams will looking to fill 12-13 ooc games (assuming they play 2 home and two away against everyone else in the conference...

Set up travel partners like the ECAC (except ND)
When travel partners go to ND, they can play a B1G/WCHA opponent while their travel partner plays ND. Reverse it Saturday.
When ND has to come to Maine/NH, schedule it as a Friday/Sunday trip so they have the extra travel day. Can do the same with UVM and their travel partner if needed.
Set up a scheduling agreement with the new WCHA since Minnesota and the "national" teams are going to demand games at their barn or games at the X. They helped Hockey East when we needed it, it's our turn to give back.
If Huntsville gets the exception, Maine can set up a rotation where they play @Anchorage, @Huntsville and @Fairbanks in successive seasons so they get 36 games each year.
Maine can schedule more OOC games in Portland now. A Thanksgiving game vs UHN would draw a sellout crowd and a December game vs a WCHA opponent would be a draw.

There are plenty of ways to make it work if this is how the league decides to go ahead. It can even be a nice windfall for Maine with the extra home games. Plus it would be a huge recruiting chip to be able to tell a kid that every year he's going to get a week in Florida in December, play in Portland twice a year, play games not just at BC, BU and ND but at Yost, Munn etc as well as two or three trips up to Alaska (big for kids from Western Canada) and a national TV audience thanks to NBC Sports.

 

[KnowItAll]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

What's a good time to remind everyone that Tim Whitehead is 8-0 in Regional games played in the East and has never lost a Regional game outside of his opponent's home building?

Timmmmmmmyyyyy

looking at your .sig, I wonder if you are going to have whitehead's record in regionals before I graduated and...

 

[BobF]

Re: Maine thread (cont) - Hobey Abbott goes Dancing

To some degree I think it is riding on it. Don't show up and I'll consider this the same ol Timmay team we've seen for 5 years with a NCAA game. On the other hand, they did exceed expectations which is great but once they beat BU and BC midseason things changed. I think they're an underdog against UMD but they have to show up for 60 minutes win or lose for me to say it was a successful season. No NCAA experience for any of these players is pretty crucial if you ask me.

Gee Wally (sorry had to do it) I thought you were more level headed than this! Really same old Timmay team? Let's rewind the schedule! Going into the year much of the complaint was our record vs. the other big 3! So we go 2-1 vs. each of them! The only one we had at home was BC, BU on the road and UNH one win was at a neutral location. They win the series vs. the Mack, who they had not defeated all year, get back to the Garden and win again against BU to get to the Championship and this is the same ole Timmay? Well same ole if you mean his first 5 years, but certainly not the last 5!

Let's leave the coaches out for a moment. This TEAM deserves a boatload of credit. They show up, they have improved, they play with confidence and as a team. I expect them to do so again vs. Duluth and will be in the house to cheer them on.

For some people the bar continues to be raised. I.E. if they can beat BU, BC, UNH, then only if they make the NCAA and only if they get to the Garden, then only if they beat BU, and now, only if they beat UMD.

Let's say they do and then lose to BC or possibly Air Force, some will still be calling for Tim's head. As I said at the start of the year I gave up my apologist status, but I am still a realist!!!! We are playing on BONUS time at the moment. Please stand-up and give yourself a pat on the back if you thought Maine would have accomplished all this when the season started!!

It's been a nice run and you know what, it's not over! Anyone familiar with Out of the Woods knows the next line "It's not over!"

Look forward to enjoying watching another game, this time in Worcester.