UMaine 25-26: Marques My Word: Back to the Big Time

[Drew S.]

It's really weird. We've got a whole lot of people thinking it's Maine's birthright to be a top 5-10 program every year, when there was just a 10 year gap of absolute mediocrity. We've got people questioning the character of kids they've never met just based on random rumor and innuendo. I don't know what Sparkee's on about but there's some kind of insinuation that the fans being okay with the team being slightly above .500 is a lack of manhood or something.

Only 16 teams make the NCAA tournament each year, and there are 35-40 programs out there putting an honest effort into it. Some of them are spending a whole lot more money on players than Maine! Not only was Maine mediocre at best, bad at worst, for almost 20 years, but the entire landscape of college athletics just got turned on its head. Maine winning somewhere between 17 and 19 games in one season isn't a disaster.

Some of you act like if Maine isn't prime Walsh-era, 30+ wins, Frozen Four every year there is some malevolent force that we need to root out, be it bad coaching losing the locker room, players not trying their best due to petty interpersonal bullshit, a vague liberal conspiracy that infects junior year goaltenders, or whatever. That's a pretty dark place to live. Sometimes you graduate a ton of talent and even with everyone trying their best and getting along the next season isn't as good!

For those of us who were lucky enough to live through it we need to be thankful for Shawn and the glory days and not have all kinds of angst that they are gone. As you rightly say it’s now been a 20 year stretch where Maine has been roughly a sixth place team and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon. There is no doubt in my mind Barr and everyone associated with the program is doing everything they can to win, it just isn’t very easy. We’re going to have some good years, bad years, and a lot of average years and people need to accept that.

 

[umhockey91]

I think the thing we would all like is more transparency on how the program is funded. I think that the $50 million Alfond renovation could have been cut to $40 million with $10 million set aside for the men’s hockey program to be put toward player acquisition and retention. $10 million at 4% interest = $400K without even touching the principle. That buys a few higher end players every season.