John Forsyth writes:
>One Maine hockey player was found to be ineligible.  Unfortunately, the
>player named was Patrice Tardif, who has endured more than his share of
>heart breaks in the recent past and has risen to become the emotional
>(and scoring) leader on the team.  Accordingto Hutchinson,"[He] played
>by the rules" and "did nothing wrong", the fault goes to the UMaine
>Athletic Department, not the students.
 
I think it is important that everyone realizes that the true victim in
this case is Pat Tardif.  According to the HE release, he had played
in all 30 of Maine's games with 17-14--31, second on Maine to Mike
Latendresse's 16-18--34.
 
John refers to everything Tardif has had to go through lately, and I
know I was not completely aware of it until I watched the "Out of the
Woods" highlights.  In Nov 1992, Merrimack went up to Maine and
dropped a pair by scores of 14-1 and 11-2.  Tardif was, I believe,
Maine's leading scorer on the weekend with 9 points.  At the time, it
just seemed like an aberration...until you learn that his father, who
was extremely ill, had made the trip to Orono that weekend and Pat
knew it was probably the last time his father would see him play.  As
it turned out, his father passed away shortly thereafter.  Losing
those games didn't seem so bad to me after hearing that.
 
I do hope everything works out well for him, this is something he did
not deserve to have happen.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
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