Re: UNH Wildcats Official Wait til Next Year...14/15 thread
Fun reading chucks history of uscho. People used to get tied in knots they'd be so p'ed off. Funny times. The forum was good for hours of entertainment. Now it's barely good for a few minutes.
Totally agree, walrus. Not trying to sound like "Grandpa USCHO" (but realizing I do

) ... but yeah, things were a hoot way back when, and the best part (at least for me) was that no matter what got said on these boards here, many of us actually ended up meeting (on purpose) at games, and then we laughed about the give-and-take. Most of the time anyway. If I've said it once, I've said it dozens of times, I had (and still have) much love for the UMaine-iacs - even for those old "Walshy apologists".

The UMaine USCHO contingent were always cordial, good-natured, and good company when our paths crossed, whether it be at Alfond or the then-Fleet Center.
And even with the Chestnut Hillbillies ... I know most of you who've wandered over here the last few days are the same folks who are using different ID's from the old times, and while I'm not 100% sure who is who, I'm not too worried about it anyway. Met most of the BC contingent, and like the UMaine-iacs, just a bunch of fun people who loved college hockey, and weren't afraid to mix it up in defense of their program. The BU contingent included a lot of folks who were friends, but when I took some time away from here a few years ago, they moved into Agganis, won a D-1 title, but seem to have lost many of the avid followers from the WBA days, which is sad.
Most bizarre moment ever for me during that time was working from home one morning, answering the phone, and finding a former HE head coach on the other line (who shall remain nameless, although I may have disclosed his ID to a few folks privately over the years). I'd taken him to the woodshed on the boards for some well-publicized "recruiting issues" (and no, it wasn't Walshy), and suddenly here he was, wanting to debate with me over the phone. I guess he was running a hockey school at the time, and didn't appreciate the bad publicity. Of course, the info was hardly "news", and all these years later can still be found fairly easily with a simple Google search. But Coach wanted to get some stuff off his chest, so we talked for 5 minutes, and that was it. Seemed like a very sincere guy ... but sadly he'd messed up, and it stuck. Still blown away that he called me, though.
Anyway ... a lot of water has gone under a lot of bridges since then, and it's interesting to look back and see how it all turned out. Not the way I'd hoped obviously, but hope springs eternal (and all that other BS) and while the BC'ers have "won this generation" stacked up against the rest of HE, there's no guarantee how things will turn out over the next generation. Walshy and Parker are out of the picture, while York and Umile are left from the old "Big Four" days, with York having achieved legendary status (yeah, he still looks and talks like Elmer Fudd, but you can't contest the hardware) and Umile hanging on like Captain Ahab in maniacal search for the elusive white whale. But I'm a sucker for a redemption story, and if Umile somehow ever gets there, that could be the greatest redemption story of all time.
It's been a lot of fun - even with the way things have turned out - and eventually we'll see how BC fares when Coach York retires (can't possibly be any better than what he's done, can it?) ... and what's behind "Door Number 3" for UNH when Coach Umile walks away from his double-secret lifetime contract

and whether it's paydirt OR "be careful what you wish for" time ...
Stuff like that just keeps me coming back. Here's to hoping for more "interesting" times to come!
