Hi everyone.. yeah, it's 2 p.m. on Sunday and I have just now brought myself
to check my e-mail.  It is nice to see my fellow fans have similar feelings
to mine.

This has been a great season.  When Shawn died, and then Maine started
slowly we would have jumped for joy had someone upstairs told us that Maine
would be in the national championship game (two days after throttling UNH
too!).  The players dedicated the season to Shawn Walsh and they certainly
did Shawn proud.  Unfortunately, only one team can win the national
championship and for a variety of reasons, it wasn't to be for our team last
night.  But just being in the game *IS* immensely significant.

Shawn used to talk about "puck luck" and in many ways I didn't ever get the
feeling watching last night's game that Maine had the bounces going their
way.  Sometimes you need to create your bounces and Maine worked their tails
off.  Minnesota *DID* get a big lift from that awesome crowd (Michael
Schutte called it "beautiful" after the game) and that helped them get a few
bounces.

Like many others, I am angry at the penalty call in overtime, not because it
wasn't a penalty, but because of what they let Hauser get away with on the
other end.  I saw Hauser at the press conference on ESPNNEWS last night and
he disappointed me by continuing his arrogance.  But many of the Minnesota
players there were very well spoken and had great things to say about Maine.
I do not have much respect for Hauser, however.. sorry.

But the most disappointing part of the game was not the penalty call, but
that we were 50 seconds away from winning the game.  While people can blame
the officiating, if we would made one more play or two, got the puck to the
boards, etc., we would have won.  We didn't, they scored, and in overtime
the rest is history.

My heart breaks for Peter Metcalf.  He left everything on the ice and in my
opinion established his place as one of the best captains in a long line of
great Maine captains.  Whomever takes the reins next season need only look
at Metcalf as a great example of how to go about the job of Maine hockey
captain.  Peter clearly wanted to bring the title home for Maine, for Shawn
and for everyone.  I was sorry he couldn't will that to happen, but he
played a hell of a game vs. UNH and we could not have asked for anything
more from him last night.

I agree that Maine did not play their best game, but I don't think Minnesota
did either.  Both teams deserved to win, but only one can.  I was
disappointed in the play of a couple individuals in this big game, but that
is not worth pointing out since they know who they are and hopefully they
will use that as motivation in the future.

But by and large this was an outstanding effort.  I was so glad to see Matt
Yeats play well.  He was a big reason we stayed in this game, and has been a
big part of this team over his career.  He might like to have the final goal
back, but it could have been a top-corner sniper shot and when you lose the
national championship you'd want another shot.  He has nothing to hang his
head about, and I was very glad to see Mike Morrison play well against UNH.
Some people questioned Morrison after he wasn't so sharp vs. Harvard and
many thought Yeats was the go-to-guy, so it was nice that Morrison could
bring Maine to the national championship game in his final season.

I'm already looking forward to next season.  We'll have new goaltenders, but
most of our team coming back.  Should be a great year in 2002-2003.

There are lots of great stories of this season and I hope as we enter the
off-season we'll talk about many of these stories in a tremendously
successful season.

-Deron


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