Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Yeah, that HEPI thing really turned out to be a peach, didn't it? UMass 3rd hahahahaha ...
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UMass and the Carvel/Barr transformation - biggest HEA disruptors since ... ???
- Thread starter Chuck Murray
- Start date
Yeah, that HEPI thing really turned out to be a peach, didn't it? UMass 3rd hahahahaha ...
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Funny thing is, and this is a true story ... I really haven't worn my Expos hat since late 2013, and it absolutely had an FBI angle to it, Rover. That was the year of the Marathon bombing, and I was near the finish line with my then-HS age daughter who was/still is an accomplished distance runner, but we were only there as spectators (we'd both never been before). The skies were the clearest blue skies I could ever remember, we were there when the top runners from both divisions finished, and we were halfway back to NH when the world news happened literally adjacent to where we'd been 90 minutes earlier.
Flash forward to late 2013, and we were attending a cross-country event down in NYC over Thanksgiving Day weekend with several of her HS teammates and their families. One of the other parents comes up to show me a video excerpt of this big old dope standing near the finish line 7 months earlier in Boston, wearing an Expos hat (wonder who?). Apparently he was an FBI guy and this was video taken from one of dozens of surveillance cameras mounted in the area, and he could expand the video to identify it as yours truly, with daughter in front of me. We had a good chuckle about it, but it was spooky, and the Expos hat (which I'd also worn to that NYC event) was replaced as my regular hat by a hat featuring the logo of the local soccer club I'd founded a few years earlier. I still have the Expos hat, but it rarely makes it out of the house anymore.
Our daughter has since run the Marathon several times, and I've been by that site a few times before when it wasn't Marathon Monday, but I haven't been able to go back to that place on the day of the race. Probably some form of survivor's guilt, even though we were long gone well before it happened.
That's my honest-to-goodness "Forrest Gump" story, in the wrong place at the right time.
It's now officially the offseason, I guess ... ;-)
Good story Chuck. A friend of mine actually caught a picture of one if those aholes (the one in the white hat) and sent it in to the FBI when they were asking for photos of the event.
Regarding coaches, I imagine good coaches have been penalized in COTY awards since their inception due to the expectation that they'll have a good team. While I'm not one to own up to a mistake very easily, I will admit to a couple of weeks this year where I actually thought Albie could tell his a sshole from a hole in the ground. The events of the end of the season set me straight pretty quickly.
Regarding coaches, I imagine good coaches have been penalized in COTY awards since their inception due to the expectation that they'll have a good team. While I'm not one to own up to a mistake very easily, I will admit to a couple of weeks this year where I actually thought Albie could tell his a sshole from a hole in the ground. The events of the end of the season set me straight pretty quickly.
I think you are right about the expectations of the team regarding COY. At the pro level, Belichick has only won it 3 times but most will say he is the best of his generation. I think that if you have had a good team consistently the coach gets taken for granted. However, if you exceed expectations then they put you up for COY.
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Interesting to me that Chau and Lagunov are transferring from UMass for a 5th year yet UMass is bringing in two senior transfer forwards in Matt Baker from Dartmouth and Cam Donaldson from Cornell. Maybe those two guys are simply upgrades but you'd think Carvel would be comfortable with the guys he knows.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Sounds like "the guys he knows" want to play somewhere else, for whatever reason(s) ... ???
Darius
Go 'cats!
Winner. Thanks.
If you listen to the CHNsiders podcast with Carvel, you’ll get the answer. Basically UMass isn’t paying to bring back fifth year players.
i hope UVM, Quinnipiac and wherever Murray end up all play at Mullins Center. If any other seniors transfer I hope their schools do too. I wanna give them all big rounds of applause and thank them for the last four years.
i hope UVM, Quinnipiac and wherever Murray end up all play at Mullins Center. If any other seniors transfer I hope their schools do too. I wanna give them all big rounds of applause and thank them for the last four years.
Right, I knew that. But they are letting those two "walk" but bringing in two senior transfer forwards. That's not the same as say Bowling Green where I read they have no room for all their seniors because they have a big freshman class coming in and aren't paying to keep the seniors. Just interesting to me.
Although I guess it might be that Chau and Lagunov would have just the one extra year. Baker and Donaldson last competed as juniors. They will be seniors but does that mean they actually have two years of eligibility left? Everyone who competed this year gets an extra year regardless of class? Same applies to a player from Dartmouth and Cornell? Or do they only get the one year since those schools didn't play this year? I'd like to see a 26 yr old Matt Baker skating for UMass in a couple years.
Every player in the NCAA was "redshirted" this season. If they played a game, it didn't count against their eligibility. Basically, the NCAA took this season and said "it doesn't exist" but we're going to keep track of statistics.
The way I understand the scholarship exemption, it only applies to players utilizing their extra season at the institution they were enrolled in this season. Any transfer players brought in count against the scholarship limit. Institutions that can afford to pay the extra scholarship money can go above the limit for any player on the current roster that stays for the 5th year.
This season would have burnt one of their 5 years. Playing this season was the same as not playing. If a player's team did not play, they don't get a 5th year eligibility.
Harry Cleverly
New member
Jack Parker had multiple offers to go to the NHL, and always turned them down. BU kept on sweetening his pot, but his heart was in college. David Quinn turned down the Rangers twice before they came back with a "Godfather offer."
Providence has boosted Leaman's package to an unforeseen level, especially for a relatively small private school that plays in a small capacity rink and isn't a great draw even when winning.
Will UMass and Lowell, two state schools, go to the hilt when the NHL comes calling?
Somewhat surprisingly, Jerry York never got mentioned for NHL jobs, even when he was a lot younger.
Walsh and Standbrook were college hockey's great odd couple. Walsh had enough ego for the entire state of Maine while Standbrook had none, in what was an amazing partnership. Same with Badger Bob and Standbrook at Wisconsin. Maine's days as a real factor in college hockey ended when Standbrook retired.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Terrific post. I think both Parker and York innately understood they were never going to have it better than running their respective alma mater's programs, including the nearly-annual Beanpot clashes. I'm sure Parker leveraged his NHL offers into better deals at BU, whereas Coach York probably felt doing that just wasn't in his personal DNA. I suspect York had reservations about how his approach with college athletes would transfer into the professional ranks with veteran players, whereas Parker's approach arguably could have worked in the short term, likely not the long term. Both made the correct decisions for themselves regardless.
I don't think anyone is coming for Bazin, and I suspect for reasons discussed earlier in this post, Carvel is more likely to stay at Amherst IF the NHL comes calling. So the state school issue may be moot?
You definitely nailed the Walsh/Standbrook dynamics, and I agree it was Standbrook who was the key to it all. As great a motivator was Walshy clearly was, it was his partner in crime that kept the shelves stocked with talent, and kept the spigot open for about a decade after Walsh passed. Then look at Ben Barr, and his role in multiple programs as an assistant. If he is ever going to grab for the HC role, now would appear to be the time to go for it - this season or next, at the outside? Not many folks are expecting him to stay in Amherst long-term with Carvel ... but one would think he's had the HC opportunities before based on his various successes ... so maybe he is the spiritual successor to the legendary Standbrook after all?
If he is, the hockey fans in Western MA will be as blessed as their Downeast counterparts were a generation or so ago. As the great Vince Lombardi always said, "Winning isn't a sometimes thing" ...