UNH Hockey 2023-2024 Season Thread - End Of The Cellar-Dweller Era??

[Snively65]

Cant you just see groovy in his mothers basement watching porn and posting videos on Tick Tack of maniacs going crazy in the Alfond.

I would have a hard time with that visualization of any Maine-iac, e.cat.

What I find most comical is that here we get nearly incoherent short jabs from gooverider, but in return the Maine-iacs get eloquent and impeccably written, albeit long-winded, treatises from Chuck on their thread.

 

[Ferrrao1994]

there is no team - no team - i'd rather see unh facing, and no venue i would rather see them playing in than at alfond arena in mid-march. I mean ... You're a 6th place hea team playing for a trip to boston, and a shot at qualifying for the ncaa's. Who did anyone think we were gonna be facing with those circumstances in place?? Unh already got the rub o' the green with three straight games against uml to finish the regular season, and two of those games were home games. Was it gonna be merrimack or uvm at the whitt with boston on the line??? At some point, if you're a mid-table team, you're gonna actually have to beat someone of substance (and do it in their barn) to earn a reward(s) like the one(s) that may be on the line in saturday night's tilt. So you gotta beat umaine, in alfond. Well, what's better than a chance to actually accomplish something big and inflict a little pain onto your self-professed top rival????

It feels like st. Patrick himself has decided to grace unh with a sprinkle of good fortune a day early, with this opportunity falling into their lap. You don't turn around a mediocre program/career with a home rs sweep, and you certainly don't turn anything around with three straight wins over a last place team, no matter what silly gravitas you attempt to bestow on the 3rd game. Nope. What works best is you get on a bus, you travel three hours to the downeast, you walk into the belly of the beast in march, and you leave with the golden ticket(s) to boston (and maybe a regional site tbd). Now that would be a super fun bus ride home, no?!?

I've said it before, and i'll say it again ... Never has a unh head coach done so little, for so long, to deserve such a chance to re-set whatever the state of the umaine-unh "rivalry" currently stands at.

This is no time for "moral victory" like 0-1 at bc. Barr has already blown past you in three short years, and he is not gonna stop improving his program, not unless you - unh/coach souza - do something to slow him down.

It is absolutely so very simple, you've been gifted an amazing opportunity. Now just got out and take it.

chuck fire me up!!!! I'm ready to run through a brick wall!!!!!!!

 

[Snively65]

We always have a chance against PC. See 2014-2015.........

I agree. As much as MS7 benefited (contract extension?) by getting his team to 20 wins with the MBPBEGAM game, I think that we would have had a better chance for reaching the Garden by placing fifth and facing Proviced at Schneider and letting the Minutemen try again in Orono. I think that a trip to the Garden is more important than stickin’ it to the Black Bears in Orono.

 

[Snively65]

I really couldn't agree more. GO EARN IT.



Understatement!

For a little context.

This year is the 100th since the start of UNH hockey first team January 1925, but only the 97th season as like most teams they skipped 3 seasons 1943-1946. Before 1955-56 never played more than 14 games in a season with 42-43 being the low water mark at 2. Many of those years were single digit games played on an outdoor "natural" surface

UNH has had 14 coaches in those 97 seasons

6 have career records below .500

Of those 6 - Souza, most seasons at 6 (and that discounts the horrible "transition plan"), most games coached 197 (by 86)

Nice research. So how about beginning your string when the team moved inside to Snively Arena in 1965 (so the past 60 seasons)?

 

[grooverider]

Cant you just see groovy in his mothers basement watching porn and posting videos on Tick Tack of maniacs going crazy in the Alfond.

Oh e.mildcat you figured me out..I was trying to find tik tok videos as well of "UNH Hockey National championship" but my results came back blank..can you help me Mildcat fan #1?

 

[Robert Balin]

Oh e.mildcat you figured me out..I was trying to find tik tok videos as well of "UNH Hockey National championship" but my results came back blank..can you help me Mildcat fan #1?

You trying to mimick the BC pinheads of the early 2000s? You don't come close

 

[grooverider]

You trying to mimick the BC pinheads of the early 2000s? You don't come close

I don't even know what you're talking about but I'll just go back to the Maine thread and talk to Chuck, a little less hostile over there. I guess that is what happens when your coach has ran your program into the toilet.

 

[e.cat]

I would have a hard time with that visualization of any Maine-iac, e.cat.

What I find most comical is that here we get nearly incoherent short jabs from gooverider, but in return the Maine-iacs get eloquent and impeccably written, albeit long-winded, treatises from Chuck on their thread.

You're probably right. Groovy probably lives out of a van parked at the nearest Walmart.

 

[Chuck Murray]

I agree. As much as MS7 benefited (contract extension?) by getting his team to 20 wins with the MBPBEGAM game, I think that we would have had a better chance for reaching the Garden by placing fifth and facing Proviced at Schneider and letting the Minutemen try again in Orono. I think that a trip to the Garden is more important than stickin’ it to the Black Bears in Orono.

One advantage of your way Snives is then there is the possibility of BOTH UMaine and UNH making it to Boston.

You know Commish Nigel would be praying for such a thing to happen. The old Big Four in Boston? Sign me up.

Having said that, I'm good with where we stand right now. Let MS7 prove he is extension-worthy, or ...

 

[e.cat]

I would have a hard time with that visualization of any Maine-iac, e.cat.

What I find most comical is that here we get nearly incoherent short jabs from gooverider, but in return the Maine-iacs get eloquent and impeccably written, albeit long-winded, treatises from Chuck on their thread.

Chuck does have a way with words. I don't think you were on the board in the early days when Chuck and I sparred but at one point I asked Chuck if he was a Philadelphia lawyer. I don't remember his response but I'm sure it wasn't a one word answer. Haha

 

[Chuck Murray]

Chuck does have a way with words. I don't think you were on the board in the early days when Chuck and I sparred but at one point I asked Chuck if he was a Philadelphia lawyer.

True. The sparring thing, anyway. NOT a Philadelphia lawyer LOL ... good times!!

 

[Snively65]

One advantage of your way Snives is then there is the possibility of BOTH UMaine and UNH making it to Boston.

You know Commish Nigel would be praying for such a thing to happen. The old Big Four in Boston? Sign me up.

Having said that, I'm good with where we stand right now. Let MS7 prove he is extension-worthy, or ...

Oh, for sure, I remember those days, when Maine and UNH had just as many fans at the Garden as did BC and BU. If only we had taken care of business in a couple of those home-and-home HEA series late in the season, it might have been a possibility. “Wait’l next year,” said the diehard Sox fans pre-2004.

 

[e.cat]

True. The sparring thing, anyway. NOT a Philadelphia lawyer LOL ... good times!!

Good times for sure. I've been on the board close to 24 (hard to believe) years and you've got me by a year. It was the wild Wild West back in the day. Groovy would have been swallowed up and spit out back then. Haha

 

[JB]

Nice research. So how about beginning your string when the team moved inside to Snively Arena in 1965 (so the past 60 seasons)?

Snively opened 2/13/1965 against Norwich. To make my life easier I am going to start with the first full season, the 1965-66 season. [TABLE="border: 1, cellpadding: 1, width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Coach[/TD]
[TD]Seasons[/TD]
[TD]Winning %[/TD]
[TD]Games Coached[/TD]
[TD]Games Over .500[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Bjorkman[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]66%[/TD]
[TD]77[/TD]
[TD]25[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Umile[/TD]
[TD]28[/TD]
[TD]60%[/TD]
[TD]1083[/TD]
[TD]223[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Holt[/TD]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]60%[/TD]
[TD]597[/TD]
[TD]115[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Souza[/TD]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]45%[/TD]
[TD]197[/TD]
[TD]-20[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Kullen[/TD]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]37%[/TD]
[TD]111[/TD]
[TD]-29[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]O'Connor[/TD]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]28%[/TD]
[TD]30[/TD]
[TD]-13[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Little history because fewer of us have been around forever. O'Connor only coached his one year because Kullen was out getting a heart transplant. This was the mid/late 80's so the procedure was very risky, Kullen returned to coach 2 more years and ultimately died because his body rejected the heart, Hockey East coach of the year award is named after coach Kullen. It was Kullen and staff (Sean Coady) that restocked the cupboards and allowed Umile to go 22-11-2 (.657%) his first year as head coach. That 4 year turn around would potentially have been quicker had Kullen not been so sick and out with the heart issues. For reference Kullen (and staff) first 2 recruiting classes included All-Americans Domenic Amodeo and Joe Flanagan, future NHL players Kevin Dean, Scott Morrow, Chris Winnes, and Adren Plavisc. Also Savo Mitrovic who I always liked and was a 1 point per game over his 4 years.

So yeah Souza has had an EXTREMELY long run for what he has produced.

P.S. I think it is clear, that I believe Kullen and O'Connor each deserve an asterisk for extenuating circumstances and that the talent they acquired early on, speaks to the immediate impact they had on program direction.

 

[Snively65]

Chuck does have a way with words. I don't think you were on the board in the early days when Chuck and I sparred but at one point I asked Chuck if he was a Philadelphia lawyer. I don't remember his response but I'm sure it wasn't a one word answer. Haha

Correct-o, as I was only on the old HockeyL list-serve until Greg Ambrose dragged me over here following the Buffalo FF. I chose my screen name not knowing there was already another Snively here, who was also a Durham townie in my younger brother’s class at Oyster River High.

 

[Chuck Murray]

Correct-o, as I was only on the old HockeyL list-serve until Greg Ambrose dragged me over here following the Buffalo FF. I chose my screen name not knowing there was already another Snively here, who was also a Durham townie in my younger brother’s class at Oyster River High.

I miss Greg, he always had an interesting take on things, and his knowledge of the CHDA (College Hockey Dark Ages) was unmatched. I hope he's OK wherever he is. He and his wife Karen were long-time staples at The Whitt and on the many road trips. He is one of those posters I'd love to see back on here. Him, Gibber, Dabigbadcow (now a D-1 Women's HC), Bobo et als and NickUNH (my ol' Three Stooges compatriots), olddog (RIP) and a host of others. Life has a way of sending us all on different paths. A reunion would be fantastic if do-able ...

 

[Markt]

Correct-o, as I was only on the old HockeyL list-serve until Greg Ambrose dragged me over here following the Buffalo FF. I chose my screen name not knowing there was already another Snively here, who was also a Durham townie in my younger brother’s class at Oyster River High.

Pretty wild to think that I last used Hockey-L almost 30 years ago, on an America Online account!

Even wilder that it apparently is still active.

 

[StillKIA2]

I would have a hard time with that visualization of any Maine-iac, e.cat.

What I find most comical is that here we get nearly incoherent short jabs from gooverider, but in return the Maine-iacs get eloquent and impeccably written, albeit long-winded, treatises from Chuck on their thread.

But if chuck wanted anyone besides himself to participate in a conversation, he would shoot for brief and interesting. Treatises are useless if nobody cares to read them.

and yeah.SteveF and the pinheads were pretty awesome….collar up!

 

[Chuck Murray]

But if chuck wanted anyone besides himself to participate in a conversation, he would shoot for brief and interesting.

I see you underestimate the attention span of our audience, KIA. Y'know ... lots of college-educated hockey fans and all, many of whom have an attention span long enough to handle 60 whole seconds of reading. Shocking, eh?

So I'll let you teach me how to be "brief and interesting", KIA. Just me when you start getting to the interesting part, OK ...

 

[walrus]

Pretty wild to think that I last used Hockey-L almost 30 years ago, on an America Online account!

Even wilder that it apparently is still active.

It’s still active but active is pretty subjective : ). I did see the annual pick the tourney emails the other day and maybe another discussion.