College Hockey Update:  First things first, I hope we are all healthy, will continue to be so, and that we are all practicing the precautions that have been outlined for us.  Most of these are very simple things — avoid touching surfaces and others; wash your hands often; keep them away from your mouth/nose/eyes to the extent you are aware of where your hands are; and keep a bit of distance between you and others.  Right now where I live, we are under a lockdown, staying in our houses and not mixing with others, for three weeks.  This virus is a “fairly hot” one, meaning the average carrier would infect more people — perhaps triple the number — than they would infect if they were carrying the flu.  Add to this a seemingly invisible period for the virus of about a week during which one is contagious, and no vaccine to immunize anyone from it up front, and it’s a problem.  So we have huge advantages with the flu — a vaccine to protect many, many people and prevent them from being carriers to spread it; signs of the illness show up pretty quickly; and carriers are not as “hot.”  And even with those advantages, look how that turns out for us, with tens of thousands lost every year.  Let’s hope this can be contained in some way.  And let’s hope we can get commerce back on track quickly in a big way in our country.

Now, with that backdrop, I suppose college hockey/sports, and sports in general being suspended/cancelled is understandable.  Unfortunate, but understandable.  So it’s all over.  As regards college hockey, let’ s be thankful that each and every team completed their regular season, and they all know, plain as day, who their conference regular season champions are.  That’s a big deal.  No guessing on that one.  Closure.

Had games been played over the weekend, and the composition of the top fifteen remained unchanged, I would have featured Maine this week.  I am going to use Maine, and a player there, and this is nearly at random, but I like how this guy probably typifies college hockey players.  He had a really good season, and probably won’t play in the NHL (sorry Tim).  But what percentage does???!!!  I also like the University story, because like a lot of hockey colleges, it’s in a small town.  So let’s celebrate this season with an exposé (pronounced exposay) of this player and this team.  Then we’ll do the unusual and recap the conference regular season champions, give you my thoughts on the season, teams, and what makes sports interesting, and even take a wild shot at revealing who I thought would have made the Frozen Four this season.

COLLEGE HOCKEY UPDATE FEATURED PLAYER

This season Maine had huge help from senior forward Tim Doherty, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, who tied for first on his team in goals scored, with fourteen, and was second on the team in assists, with twenty-three.  As a junior he tied for second in goals, with nine, and tied for seventh in assists, with eight; as a sophomore he tied for second in goals, with eleven, and tied for seventh in assists, with twelve.  As a freshman, he saw no game action on the ice.  Prior to Maine, he played two years on the Boston Bruins Junior Team.

His hometown of Portsmouth is home to 17,000, spread among its twenty-three square miles, and is listed as an elevation of 203 feet, which is curious, since Portsmouth is on several islands.  The highest point on the main island, Aquidneck, is 260 feet.  This island is also the site of Newport, R.I., and Middletown, R.I.  Middletown, as the name suggests, is between Newport on the southern end, and Portsmouth on the northern end.  This island sits in Narragansett Bay, into which the Providence River flows.  Portsmouth additionally is on Prudence, Patience, Hope, and Hog Islands.  Portsmouth was established on March 7, 1638, by a group of religious dissenters from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, led by Anne Hutchinson and a few others.  The location was suggested to them, as a better location for their purposes than New Jersey, by Roger Williams, who had settled in, and established, Providence, two years earlier; therefore Portsmouth is the second oldest town in Rhode Island.  You have to wonder, was Roger Williams somehow super prescient?  Had he envisioned a future episode of Jersey Shore, and concluded this was not quite the place for a devout religious encampment?  Anything is possible, I suppose . . . .

The University of Maine was established in 1865 as the Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and it opened its doors in Orono, on March Island between the Penobscot and Stillwater Rivers, on September 21, 1868.  It became the University of Maine in 1897, and today enrolls 9,400 undergraduates, and 2,100 graduate students on its 660 acre campus; its five colleges offer ninety undergraduate majors.

It is comprised of 140 buildings, including an 87,000 square foot fitness and recreation center and a 200′ x 200′ air supported athletic and recreation dome.  The University of Maine is located in Orono, a town of 11,000 residents spread among its eighteen square miles.  It was first settled by British-American colonists in 1774, and it was named Orono after Chief Orono of the Penobscot Nation.

Need we say it gets cold at the University of Maine?  Average low of 11 in January, and 14 in February.  Daily mean of 20 in January and 24 in February.  Record low of -40.  Brrrrr.

The Maine sports teams are called the Black Bears and they wear dark blue, light blue, and white.  Maine Hockey started in 1977, and in their 42 seasons during which there was an NCAA Tournament (all but this year), Maine has registered eighteen appearances, of those, eleven Frozen Four appearances, of those, five appearances in the championship game, and of those, two National Championships, in 1993, and 1999.  I attended the Frozen Four in 1999 in Anaheim, CA., and have to say their 3-2 OT Championship Game win over New Hampshire was a thriller.

Maine plays its home games in the Alfond Arena, built in 1977, and seating 5,124; it features a 200 x 85 ice sheet.  The arena is named for Harold Alfond (1914-2007), a high school graduate who worked his way up in the Kesslen Shoe factory in Kennebunk, Maine, then started his own company, the Norrwock Shoe Company, with his father.  They sold that company to The Shoe Company of America in 1943, and he stayed on as president until 1956, when he left, bought an old woolen mill in Dexter, Maine, and founded the Dexter Shoe Company, which he sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 1993.  In addition to Alfond Arena, the University of Maine Stadium is the Harold Alfond Stadium.  Additional sports and academic facilities are named in his honor at Rollins College in Florida, The Univeristy of New England in Maine, The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, St. Joseph’s College in Maine, and the Kents Hill Preparatory School in Maine.

Maine is coached by Dennis “Red” Gendron (just finished his seventh season at Maine), who is a 1979 alum of New England College, in New Hampshire, and who previously was associate coach at Yale for two seasons, and assistant coach at Massachusetts for six seasons.  Prior to that, over an eleven year stretch, he served as scout and assistant with the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, assistant and head coach of the AHL’s Albany River Rats, and ended the stretch as head coach of the USHL’s Indiana Ice for a season.  And he started all of this first as the head coach at Bellow Free Academy High School, in St. Albans, Vermont, for nine seasons, then as an assistant at Maine for three seasons, and then on to the Devils.  His seven season record at Maine is 100-126-30, and is highlighted by an 18-11-5 record this season, and an 18-16-4 record in the 2017-18 season.  Maine does not have an NCAA Tournament appearance during his tenure — would they have made it this year?  Who knows?  As I just stated, and in the interest of being highly redundant, Maine finished the season 18-11-5, fourth in the regular-season Hockey East Standings (12-9-3), and ranked #15 nationally.  And that’s what I’ve got to say about Tim Doherty and his University of Maine Black Bear Hockey Team!

REGULAR SEASON CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS CORNER

Normally I don’t focus on the conference championships much at all, as I try to keep this nationally focused.  But this year, the regular season conference championships are all we’ve got to focus on, so let’s acknowledge how they ended.

ATLANTIC HOCKEY ASSOCIATION

American International College  21-12-1 (21-6-1), ranked #20 nationally

BIG TEN

Pennsylvania State University  20-10-4 (12-8-4), ranked #8 nationally

ECAC

Cornell University  23-2-4 (18-2-2), ranked #1 nationally

HOCKEY EAST ASSOCIATION

Boston College  24-8-2 (17-6-1), ranked #5 nationally

NCHC

University of North Dakota  26-5-4 (17-4-3), ranked #3 nationally

WCHA

Mankato State University  31-5-2 (23-4-1), ranked #2 nationally

THE SEASON, ETC . . . .

And here’s another thing I don’t do much, comment on teams and the season.  But, here goes.  Refreshing to see Cornell ranked at/near the top, and Clarkson not far behind them.  Always best for the sport (or any sport) to see new blood at the top.  Great seasons by Mankato, North Dakota, Duluth, and Denver who we have seen plenty of over the past several years, if not longer in one case, yawn.  Interesting resurgent year by Boston College after slipping a bit off the radar for several years — apparently don’t count out or underestimate Jerry York (I never would), but again, not quite new blood for us either.  The very existence of Pennsylvania State Hockey really screwed up college hockey and revealed who the real money-focused institutions are, but it’s just a way of life now, and at least they carry their weight on the scene for the havoc wreaked — good year!  Massachusetts at #9 is great — new blood near the top for at least two seasons, after a pretty darn good, if not shocking, display last season.  Ohio State, why not — great season.  And how about Bemidji??!!  What a breath of fresh air from these guys.  Great season, and way to shake up the landscape along with Cornell, Clarkson, Penn State, UMass-Amherst, and Ohio State!  Hope to see more of these guys near the top in the near future, fingers crossed.  And to the bottom half of the top twenty (Bemidji excluded) — good seasons, some real up and downs (Northeastern in particular), some teams we’ve seen plenty of (Michigan and Minnesota), etc . . . .  And talk about a breath of fresh air — how about Arizona State?  And American International College, particularly after their stunning upset win in their first ever NCAA appearance last year?  These are the things that make the sport exciting.

Off the track, but in the same vein — yes, it is better for sports to see new teams who have never won it come in and do so.  It actually makes it interesting.  Here I go.  Do you know who Stephen A. Smith is on ESPN?  What could possibly be more ridiculous than him extolling how pro basketball so badly needs the Lakers to win another championship?  Are you kidding?  Do you know what this is called?  Lack of imagination.  I suppose he sees every NBA Championship Series being between the Lakers and the Celtics.  Whatever!  It is as ridiculous as the assertion (his, and seemingly everyone from New York) that Madison Square Garden is “The Mecca.”  Are you kidding me?  I’m thinking that parquet floor up in Boston has won a few more NBA championships than that thing down in New York.  For that matter, (not really a Laker fan, but come on now), the Forum in L.A. and the Staples Center?  Throw in how many NCAA Championships by UCLA, and you think that doesn’t qualify as possibly “The Mecca?”  I could list at least ten more places with greater basketball success than New York, but what’s the point?  I’ll cede this:  Madison Square Garden is the Mecca of Mediocrity.  More lack of imagination.  You won’t see that here.  Don’t agree?  Great!!  You are allowed to comment on this blogsite!!

WHO WOULD HAVE MADE IT TO THE FROZEN FOUR?

Well, my bet would have been on three teams for sure.  And they are North Dakota, Minnesota-Duluth, and Boston College.  At the end of the season my fourth pick was solidifying as Denver.  But in the last week, as I recounted the season, I put Denver and Cornell as a toss-up, and today, I’m saying . . . . Cornell.  Who would have won it?  Who knows?  I never counted out Minnesota-Duluth at any point in the season, and they sure came on strong at the end.  And it would be very hard for me to count out a team coached by Jerry York.  Don’t agree?  Great!!  You can comment on this blogsite, and please feel free to do so!!

This provides the final poll, the one that actually came out last week, on March 9th, all of the top twenty ranked teams, their rankings and records:

[table id=218 /]

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

I might have something else to send to you this spring, who knows?

Stay healthy!

— Tom