Last week, I got blasted for my post game comments, again most likely by a vast majority of peeps who have never suited up for perhaps anything more major than a funeral. I guess many felt that I didn’t give Merrimack College their fair shake and tonight they won at NH which is never easy to do so hats off. However, Merrimack Collage a flash in the pan program who is having their best season since a banner year lifted them from the ranks of Div 2 to Division 1 in 1984. I remember it well, as I too, was looking for a place to call home in 1985 and my uncle sat on the NCAA board that season, a summer during which I worked a at the fledgling HE league offices in the basement of a private home in Wakefield, it was a season that almost put Babson College in DIV 1 instead of them, after that season DIV 2 was fairly dismantled and some schools like UMASS Lowell and Merrimack went up and others like Babson went down to Div 3, also to win a national championship at that level. So why the history lesson, because I see Merrimack as playing well with 20 players who will never play a day of pro hockey in North America and NU as doing perhaps the same but grossly underachieving in contrast, OK perhaps Stephan DeCosta actually might get a minor league contract.
I am not saying MC are lucky, they are having a good season, but let’s face it they are not supposed to be building a National powerhouse in hockey, a school of slightly> 2000 enrollment with a endowment made up of little more than what it costs to pave a Wellesley driveway, is anyway you slice it going to both need and make their luck. So I really could not give a fat rat’s ***, as to how they are doing. Newsflash in the event your ears are not on the track if they don’t find a way to field a woman’s program and I do mean relitivly soon we won’t have to worry about them much longer. Ah can you say Title 9. I really dont care, but....
What I am concerned about, is a top tier nationally ranked academic university with a nearly billion $$ endowment whose value of it's physical plant alone may make it perhaps one of the most profitable institutions in the nation, but yet can yet continue to field an un inspired mediocre program. The idea here, I thought is to be building a program that can compete for a national championship year in and year out, just like BU and BC do. We are now into year five or six of what is kind of shaping up to look like of Rich Rodriguez kind of outcome. Yes I know the NU of hockey is not the Michigan of Football, they $$ and media can’t compare them, but step back a bit and it’s a damm good analogy. The issue is not the coaching, it’s the talent. We are simply not recruiting it!
The goal is to build a team that can win and beat bad teams hands down, not have tough looses against Bentley. That is the goal right, if anyone on this blog does not get that, then you need to spend night out at an alumni fund raiser. Oh we tied, we did well, we finished in 5th this year are not any different than the first 60 years the program was in existence when nothing at all was ever expected of it. Who out there does not understand where I am coming from? Tonight, we were lucky to get 2 points against a poor UMASS Lowell team. So, ask yourself, with the pending loss of both Tyler McNeely and Wade McCloud to graduation and pro hockey, who is going to be replacing those points next year? My God, you need to have 3 strong lines that can put up 30 points per line to win a national championship every year with no holes. You need to recruit guys who are not only drafted but are not drafted # 257. Call this what you like, but it’s the truth, and the truth hurts. So if you happy that Merrimack is doing well you’re the kind of kid whose parents likely saved his 5th place trophies and proudly displayed them with some sort of false pride, and that, without a doubt, is just wrong. Yes they are playing better since the slow start, but every year is just another excuse. BC, North Dakota and Michigan dont have to many excuse seasons, or excuse decades for that matter.
So here we are, with the opportunity to end 23 years of futility, down to the stretch run with 3 games against BC, 2 with BU and 2 with UNH. Time to see what they are made of, or if they are made of anything at all. Can they win the big one ?, who knows, it's hockey and clearly anything can happen. However don't bet the house on it.
