I've been asked to kinda scan the BDN for hockey stuff and I found
this in the Saturday paper.  Draw your own conclusions.
 
Sounding Off
UM integrity worth more than victories
 
So three University of Maine hockey players are suspected of criminal
threatening and making racially motivated threats against a black
football player.
 
Surprised?  Not me.
 
The specifics should shock us.  The language used on that taped
message should make us feel ashamed, alarmed and angry.
 
But let's not be surprised.
 
This is not, after all, an Ivory-pure UMaine hockey program.  And
while coach Shawn Walsh and the university have made the right
decision by suspending the accused, it's time to recognize that though
the school wants to turn the page on its sordid past with the NCAA,
those woes are indicative of the big problem.
 
Hockey players -- unlike any other athletes at UMaine -- attend the
school primarily for one reason.
 
They want to go pro and cash in.  That' snot why football players end
up here.  Or basketball.  Or baseball.
 
The hockey program has long been cut enormous amounts of slack by the
general public because, despite all its other sins, NCAA-related or
otherwise, it provides a winner.
 
Bottom line for many:  that's all that counts.  Tell them other things
should matter as much and these people will plug their ears, shake
their heads and turn as red as a child being told there is no Santa
Claus.
 
This program, let us say, does not drip with integrity.  Or honesty.
Or class.
 
Most of all, class.
 
It wins.  That's all.
 
The NCAA scandal should have proven to us that from the top on down,
there were people in the program who thought that was good enough.
 
It's not.
 
Surround yourself with people who believe that's true, and you've got
a blueprint for abuses.  Players who punch women.  Players who
racially taunt other students.
 
Some hockey players are undoubtedly fine young men, credits to their
parents and their university.  They shouldn't be tarnished by the
actions of their teammates.
 
But should we be surprised when a program that has a track record for
abuses at least attracts -- and perhaps spawns -- players who treat
other students with less than the dignity and respect you'd afford any
barnyard animal?
 
Of course not.
 
Pull your heads out of the sand, Maine.  Winning isn't enough.  Demand
more from your State U.
 
- John Holyoke, BDN
 
 
 
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