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Sunday, April 7, 2002
Shawn would be proud
By MIKE LOWE, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
It was early in the University of Maine hockey team's preseason and the players had just gone through a listless, lifeless practice.
As they sat in the locker room, they apologized to assistant coach Grant Standbrook.
He wanted no part of it.
"If Shawn was here he'd be irate,'' Standbrook told them. Then he pointed at the clock on the locker-room wall. "That clock,'' he said, "it's not going to stop. You have to keep going on.''
So they did.
The Black Bears made it to the NCAA championship game for a fourth time Saturday night, playing the University of Minnesota for a chance at their third title. They made it there on the strength of their talent and belief. Belief in each other, belief in a man who left them far too soon -- Shawn Walsh.
Walsh, coach at Maine for 17 years and architect of perhaps the nation's best college hockey program, died Sept. 24 after a 15-month battle with cancer. His death came the day before preseason practice was to begin.
But Walsh never left this group of players. Ask any of them, or Maine's interim head coach Tim Whitehead -- the man Walsh handpicked to replace him -- and they will tell you Walsh was with them every step of the way, through every loss, every win, every celebration and every tear.
That was evident from the first game of the season.
Thirteen days after Walsh's funeral, Maine defeated Bowling Green 9-1 in the first game of the Icebreaker Cup. As he pondered what had just happened to his team, Bowling Green Coach Buddy Powers said, "Maine played with a passion and a desire in the game that far surpassed anything we brought to the table.''
Maine forward Todd Jackson spoke for the team when he said, "There's been a lot of emotion the last few weeks with everything going on. We're trying to carry the emotion into the season. We're on a mission.''
It was that way all season. For all the ups and downs, Maine never lost sight of its goal: a championship.
While the Black Bears were preparing for the NCAA tournament, defenseman Peter Metcalf -- the captain, heart and soul of the team -- was asked if this squad had exceeded expectations, considering all it had been through.
"My expectation all year has been to win the whole thing,'' he said, matter-of-factly. "I've never counted us out of anything. I expect us to go all the way.''
Others saw the same thing.
After his team was swept by the Black Bears in late January, UMass-Lowell Coach Blais MacDonald said, "They have all the ingredients: great goaltending, special teams, highly skilled forwards. I would be shocked if they're not playing on the last day of the season.''
Whitehead, as unassuming as Walsh had been brash, watched the team closely. Even when it struggled, he remained positive. Standing at 8-5-3 in late December, he said of the Black Bears: "We feel we are improving and heading in the right direction.''
This wasn't the most talented team Maine ever put on the ice. That title belongs to the 1993 team, fueled by Paul Kariya, Jim Montgomery, Garth Snow, Mike Dunham, Chris Imes, Cal Ingraham, Patrice Tardif, Matt Martin and many others.
No, this team was more like the 1999 national champion: gritty, resilient, every player knowing his role.
The Black Bears went into every game thinking they would win. When they didn't, they sought out why and worked on correcting the problem.
Sometimes it was a matter of running into a hot goalie, like the day Maine tied little-regarded Sacred Heart 4-4 despite having a 51-13 edge in shots.
Sometimes it was deeper.
Sometimes the Black Bears didn't regard their opponent highly enough. Sometimes they coasted.
That was evident a couple of times, like when Maine blew a 2-0 third-period lead to Boston University and lost 3-2 in overtime. "It's a lesson to learn,'' said Whitehead. "We took a couple of shifts off and you can't do that.''
But it was one of those lapses that may have turned Maine's season around. On the weekend of Feb. 8-9, Maine went to Boston College and Merrimack and lost both games, 4-3 and 5-2.
After the BC game, Whitehead entered the locker room and wrote these words on the blackboard: "Why we lost: 1) Discipline. 2) No-shows in the first period.'' Metcalf nodded at the blackboard and said quietly, "Those words say it all.''
They wouldn't be spoken again.
Maine rebounded from that weekend. The Black Bears went to Providence next, winning 1-0 when Mike Morrison made 21 saves and then tying the Friars 3-3, coming back from a 2-0 deficit entering the third period to get the tie on a Lucas Lawson goal with 1:11 remaining. "That was a monstrous point,'' said Whitehead.
What it did was proved to the players that work, discipline and belief could carry them through tough stretches.
"Would we have gone on the roll that we did had we not had that eye-opening weekend?'' asked Whitehead. "Probably not.''
Maine wouldn't lose again until the Hockey East final, when it dropped a 3-1 decision to New Hampshire.
Along the way the Black Bears disposed of Boston College, a two-game sweep in the Hockey East quarterfinals. BC had beaten Maine in last year's NCAA quarterfinals in what would be Walsh's last game.
"They ended our season last year and it feels great to end their season now,'' said Lawson, a junior forward who had 18 goals. "That was a big motivation for us.''
Maine beat BU 4-3 in the Hockey East semifinals on a Niko Dimitrakos third-period goal. Matt Yeats, relegated to a backup role most of the season, made 27 saves.
Then the 3-1 loss to UNH, a game the Black Bears quickly put out of mind.
"We got our loss out of the way,'' Dimitrakos said. "Now we go back and prepare for our next opponent.''
Make no mistake, the Black Bears were disappointed they didn't win the Hockey East title. But that was the little one that got away. They were seeking a much bigger prize.
Martin Kariya, the third of the three extremely talented Kariya brothers to play at Maine, had talked to his brothers Paul and Steve about the Hockey East tournament. Their advice:
"That the Hockey East wasn't nearly as important as the (NCAAs),'' Martin Kariya said. "This (the NCAAs) is the tournament you want to be in, the tournament you want to win.''
Next up for Maine would be Harvard, in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Despite taking five of a possible six points from Boston University in the previous three weeks, Maine had to play a first-round game; the Terriers got the NCAA bye.
"That was disappointing,'' said Whitehead as the Black Bears prepared for Harvard. "But if we had won one more game, we would have had the bye.''
The Black Bears were pushed hard by Harvard, which got in the NCAAs by winning the ECAC tournament. The Crimson actually controlled much of the game, forcing it to overtime.
There, freshman John Ronan fired a high slap shot past goalie Dov Grumet-Morris just 2:02 in and the Black Bears advanced, 4-3.
Morrison started in goal and made 19 saves, several crucial ones in the second period to keep Maine in the lead at the time. Morrison admitted the Black Bears were fortunate. But, he added, they were never worried about losing.
"We've been here four years,'' he said, noting Maine's streak of making the NCAA tournament. "Maybe we got a bounce, maybe luck was on our side. Or maybe good old S.W. (Shawn Walsh) was on our side. Who knows? We're just happy to be playing again.''
The next day they played much better. And they won again.
This time it was a 4-3 victory over Boston University in the NCAA quarterfinals.
Like they had all season, the Black Bears relied on a host of heroes. Yeats, the BU-stopper, made 31 saves. Colin Shields, too sick to play against Harvard because of a bad reaction to pain medication he have been given after he had a tooth yanked two days earlier, scored the winning goal on a tremendous individual play.
With Maine leading 3-2 and time winding down in the third period, the puck bounced out of the Maine defensive zone. Shields, who could barely move in the first period, saw the BU defenseman was skating slowly after the puck. So Shields sped up.
He passed the Terrier and snapped a quick shot in for his 29th goal of the season and a 4-2 lead with 4:23 remaining. The Terriers pressured Yeats in the final minutes, but Maine held on for another trip to the Frozen Four.
As the game ended, Metcalf took the jersey with Walsh's name on it that they hang behind the bench in each game and skated around the ice at the Worcester Centrum, holding it high for all to see.
Metcalf choked up a couple of times talking about his trip around the rink. Yeats explained why it was so special.
"He's still a huge inspiration,'' Yeats said of Walsh. "He built this program, this team. Coach Whitehead has done a great job, but we're really playing for (Walsh). He got us here.''
Whitehead can accept that. "Shawn was and is everything to this program,'' he said.
But in the national semifinals, Maine would need no help.
After a sluggish first period, Maine dominated New Hampshire. The final score was a stunning 7-2 victory for the Black Bears.
"It was a little unbelievable,'' said Morrison, who got the start. "I get lucky that way. The guys always seem to score a lot of goals when I'm in net.''
New Hampshire led 2-1 after one period, then the Black Bears took over, outshooting the Wildcats 31-15 in the final two periods.
Metcalf scored two goals in the second period. His second was a slap shot from the left point that gave Maine the lead for good with 11:44 left in the second.
At 8:16 of the third, Robert Liscak put in a backhander and it was 4-2. The Black Bears sensed it was over. "The backbreaker,'' said Liscak.
Lawson added a goal at 12:20 and freshman Peter Falco got two in the final 6:30.
And Maine was in the final again.
When the team first met in preseason, when the emotions were still stirring, the players set many goals. The one they strived most to achieve was "to make this a season Shawn would have been proud of,'' said Whitehead.
Surely they did.
Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at:
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