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Friday, January 16, 2004
Maine focus: a league title
By KEVIN THOMAS, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
With 14 games remaining on their Hockey East schedule, the magic number for the University of Maine Black Bears to clinch the league's regular-season title is ... well, 14.
Maine returns to league play tonight with a home game against Massachusetts. The Black Bears (15-4-1 and ranked No. 3 in the national polls) sit in second place in Hockey East (7-2-1 record), one point behind Boston Coll- ege.
If Maine goes unbeaten and untied in its last 14 games, including a two-game, season-ending series with BC, then the Black Bears get the title.
No one expects Maine to go 14-0, but it is also unlikely that BC will go 12-0 before playing Maine on March 5-6. The Eagles, who were upset by Northeastern 3-0 on Jan. 3, have some tough games left, including a series this weekend with rival Boston University and a series on Feb. 27-28 with New Hampshire.
The Hockey East regular-season title is the first of five honors that Maine annually aims for. Each honor gets more prestigious - the Hockey East championship (going to the winner of the league tournament), a berth in the NCAA tournament, a berth to the Frozen Four and the national championship.
Maine has two national championships (1993 and '99), eight Frozen Four appearances, 13 NCAA berths, four league championships and three regular-season titles.
The last regular-season title came in 1994-95, when Maine shared the honor with Boston University. A shootout was used after tie games that season, with shootout winners getting an extra point. Maine actually had a better record (15-3-6 to 16-5-3), but BU had more shootout wins.
The regular-season winner gets the No. 1 seed in the Hockey East tournament, and usually a high seed in the NCAA's.
Five teams are within five points of each other, although New Hampshire (6-3-3) and Massachusetts (6-4-2) have played 12 games.
So far, the biggest surprises in the league are BU (3-5-2) and UMass-Lowell (6-3-1). The Terriers, currently sixth after being picked to finish third, looked to be correcting matters with two impressive ties at Minnesota. But then they lost at home to Massachusetts, 2-1.
UMass-Lowell has gone 4-0-1 in Hockey East since its 4-0 loss at Maine on Nov. 16. The River Hawks took 3 of 4 points from BU, upset New Hampshire 5-4 and then swept Massachusetts with two shutouts.
UMass-Lowell is coming off a non-conference series split at Michigan State. The River Hawks can keep cruising this weekend against struggling Merrimack, but their real test will come in the last three weekends of February - two games apiece against New Hampshire, Boston College and Maine.
Maine will play league games on seven of the eight remaining weekends of the season. The Black Bears were not scheduled Feb. 6-7 by the league, so they are bringing in Alabama-Huntsville for a series (when Vermont becomes the 10th team in the league in 2005, there will no longer be an odd team out every weekend).
TV EXPOSURE: Nine of Maine's remaining regular-season games will be televised. Southern Maine is getting more games than usual because NESN is carrying a game of the week and WMTW-Channel 8 is picking up the Maine games that are aired by WABI-Channel 5 of Bangor.
Tonight's game will not be televised, but Saturday's will be on Channel 8. Both games next weekend at Boston University are televised (Friday on NESN and Saturday on Fox Sports New England).
The Jan. 30 home game with New Hampshire has been moved to 8 p.m. to accommodate the College Sports Television network. CST can be accessed by DirectTV, but Maine officials are trying to see if local cable providers will pick up the game. The Jan. 31 UNH game is on Channel 8.
UMASS looked impressive in a 1-1 tie with Maine in Amherst on Nov. 21. The Minutemen beat Vermont a few days later. But an ugly eight-game stretch followed, with UMass going 0-4-4 (0-2-1 in league games).
But UMass (10-6-5, 6-4-2) appears back after a 2-1 win at BU last week.
THE BLACK BEARS should be back at full strength this weekend with the return of forward Greg Moore from the World Juniors and the healing of goalie Jimmy Howard's sprained knee.
Maine responded to two losses in late December, to Ohio State and Notre Dame, with 17 goals in its next three games, in wins over Vermont (6-1), Merrimack (5-2) and Sacred Heart (6-0).
Frank Doyle (1.66 goals-against average) and Howard (1.69) are 1-2 among Hockey East goaltenders. Colin Shields (10 goals, 10 assists) and Michel Leveille (1-19) lead the offense.
Staff Writer Kevin Thomas can be contacted at 791-6411 or at:
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