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http://www.portland.com/sports/college/hockey/020321lowecolumn.shtml

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                     Thursday, March 21, 2002

                     COLUMN: Mike Lowe



                        Time to laugh, time to win




                      Copyright  2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.









ORONO - They skated, they laughed, they hooted, they hollered, they skated some more.

"We looked as sharp as we have all year," said defenseman Peter Metcalf.

John Ewing  Martin Kariya says the Maine Black Bears are an easygoing - but prepared - bunch heading into their NCAA tourney game against Harvard.

The University of Maine hockey team practiced Wednesday at Alfond Arena, preparing to play Harvard in the opening round of the NCAA tourney this weekend.

Judging by its appearance, this team isn't overwhelmed by the significance of its next game.

"This the first time you cover our team?" asked Martin Kariya, Maine's junior forward. "That's the way we are, we've got a lot of loose guys. It's one of our team characteristics. If you'd seen other practices this year, you'd probably say we were pretty focused today."

And that can be the Black Bears' blessing and curse for Saturday's game.

It's good to be loose, to not play the game too tight, but it's not good to be too loose.

Kariya is one to say that the team's "personality" has hurt the squad at times this year. Sometimes the Black Bears are too loose. Sometimes they don't take their opponent very seriously.

He wishes it would be a little more focused, like the 1999 national championship team his brother Steve played on - a team that wasn't the most talented in Division I but played harder than anyone else each night - or the 1993 national championship team his brother Paul played on - an immensely talented squad on a mission to win the title.

But, said Martin Kariya, "That's not our guys. If you told them to do that, we'd probably play worse. You've got to play to your strength. Our strength is that we have a lot of outgoing guys who like what they're doing."

There is some concern that the Black Bears won't take Harvard seriously. The Crimson are only 15-14-4. They struggled at the end of the regular season, finishing on a 2-8-1 slide, before pulling together to win the ECAC tourney and earn the league's automatic bid into the NCAAs.

There is concern that the Black Bears will be looking past Harvard to Boston University, which awaits the winner of the Maine-Harvard game. Maine took 5 of 6 points from the Terriers at the end of the season and beat the Terriers in the Hockey East semifinals. Yet it was BU that received the first-round bye.

"It's human nature that that could happen," Coach Tim Whitehead said. "Certainly it shouldn't in this case because Harvard is playing as good as anyone at this point.

"It's a tough draw for us, quite frankly, being a smidgen away from a bye and now facing a team as strong as Harvard. We've got our hands full and we've got to be ready."

The Black Bears know this because they have been there before. On the second weekend of February, riding a seven-game unbeaten streak, Maine went on the road to Boston College and Merrimack, games the Black Bears should have won. But they didn't, losing 4-3 to BC and 5-2 to Merrimack.

Certainly Maine rebounded, going 7-0-2 before losing to New Hampshire 3-1 in the Hockey East final last weekend. But those two losses hurt the Black Bears in the national rankings. "Some of the lapses we had cost us," said Kariya. "That's why we're playing Harvard and not waiting for BU and Harvard."

But, according to Whitehead, those losses also provided the impetus for the rest of the season.

"Would we have gone on the roll that we did had we not had that eye-opening weekend on the road? Probably not," Whitehead said. "The next loss might have been at BU when we needed the points so desperately."

Whitehead knows it will be a challenge to prepare for Harvard. He and his staff will stress the rest of the week just how good Harvard is playing. "Once we show some film," he said,"(the players) will certainly know that's true."

But that shouldn't change the way the Black Bears practice or play. "We've got to play loose, we've got to be relaxed," Metcalf said. "We've got to pretend we've got two more games in Alfond Arena."

And Whitehead wouldn't want it any other way. Considering all that this team has gone through this year - from Shawn Walsh's death just before the season's first practice to the deaths of family members of two of the players during the season - Whitehead wants this team loose.

"Things like that kind of put things in perspective a little better," Whitehead said. "One thing we've tried to do this year is make sure when the guys are on the ice, they enjoy it. If this can be their best time of the day then we're going to get a lot more work done out there too.

"We certainly prepare very seriously for our opponent and we've worked extremely hard to get in great shape but at the same time we want to enjoy our practices and games. That's part of our makeup I think. Let's have some fun with this team."

Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at:

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