Had a great chat with one of my longtime UNH Hockey buddies yesterday. Despite not having lived in New Hampshire, or in New England, for over 30 years, he still makes it up to several games each year. Our chat, which we had before last night's games were played, centered on who we would rather UNH face, BC or Providence. I was reminded that UNH has not done so well against BC in the playoffs. I looked it up and, since beating them 4-0 in the 1997 HE semis, UNH has lost to BC five times in the HE playoffs. Twice they lost in the final, twice they lost in the semis, and once they lost in the quarters at the Whit. The only permutation left was to lose in the quarters at Conte, something that I was afraid would happen if either Maine or UMass had won last night.
Providence, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. Besides beating them last year in the HE semis, we did the same in 1992, after losing to them four times in the regular season, on a shorthanded goal by the aforementioned (a few days ago) Savo Mitrovic. I also have vivid memories of a quarterfinal loss in 1995 when UNH decided to play the game they were hosting at Conte Forum rather than the Manchester Arena. Umile outfoxed himself, thinking that the larger ice surface would benefit our speedy game. But PC played the trap, we never got going, and suffered one of our ugliest losses ever in the playoffs.
However the PC series I want to focus on is the quarterfinals in 1990. UNH had been pretty awful for the prior four seasons, totaling something like 30 wins in that span. But in 1990 they came on somewhat in the second half of the year, sparked by the energized sophomore and junior classes (sound familiar?). This was a best 2 of 3 and my recollection is that UNH got blown out in the first game, something like 6-1. My buddy, my wife and I went to that game and, on the way home, we wondered why we were planning to go the following night. We did and, lo and behold, UNH shut out Providence, 2-0. So we trek down to Providence on Sunday night (an awful ride) and watch our team fall behind in the second period, 4-2, I think. We figure that it's over, but no. UNH rallies on goals scored by Riel Bellegarde and Dominic Amodeo, pours it on in the third and winds up winning 7-4.
Ever since Merrimack beat NU on Saturday night I have been thinking of the possibility of history repeating itself 25 years later. The similarities of the 1990 UNH team and the current one, though not identical (the 1990 games were a 4/5 matchup), are close enough to make one think it might be worthwhile to drive down to Providence this weekend. We can only hope for the same result.
Hard to believe, it was *only* 20 years ago, but it was still pretty much the dawn of the Internet as most of us know it now (I think I found this place circa 1997?), and so-called social media wouldn't really be coming over the horizon for about another decade. For sure, especially back then, coaches were more insulated from public blowback, as "interaction" back then was FOH meetings, visits to schools or other PR events, radio call-in shows, between periods interviews, and print media a couple times a week.
