Giving him credit and the HE coach of the year award are two different
things.


--- Deron Treadwell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Players are the ones who go out there and play.  Coaches can only do so
> much.  I don't put all the blame on Tim's shoulders for the early season
> struggles.  The players did not get the job done.  They did not always
> play hard or together.  They lacked leadership on and off the ice.
> Certainly Tim is not immune to criticism, but the players just did not
> get the job done for him either.
>
> I think there is a hangover associated with losing the national
> championship game.  We saw it after Minnesota and now again after
> Denver.  Those next two seasons just never clicked.  Maybe the players
> think they were better than they were.  Maybe it is "supposed" to come
> too easy.  I don't know.
>
> That team that went to Michigan in the regionals in 2003 was dead on
> arrival.  I don't have the same feeling about this team because I think
> that maybe they've learned something and are better for it (that the
> 2003 never learned).
>
> Ultimately we need to give Tim Whitehead some credit.  He held the ship
> together and kept tweaking with things until it worked.  Has it been a
> pretty season?  No.  But what more do you want from a coach than a guy
> that doesn't give up until he finds something that works?
>
> -Deron
>
> D. B. Doucette wrote:
>
> >How soon we forget.
> >
> >I think two coaches deserve the honor more for taking teams who were
> >considered in the pre-season to fall in the second tier and made them
> >instead solid performers this season in HEA.  Those would be Boston U
> and
> >Mass-Lowell (Parker and MacDonald, respectively).  Two over-achieving
> teams;
> >your choice, Steve, is coach of a team who slipped a notch.
> >
> >Maine is a team that by and large is populated by the players who
> suited up
> >to take the team all the way to the National Championship game last
> year, to
> >lose by a SINGLE goal; only this year they likely hold on by a thread
> to
> >limp in to the Round of 16.
> >
> >This yeam HAS talent, Steve, it simply was not harnessed into an
> effective
> >system until these past few games.  Why so late ?
> >
> >Whitehead has been playing around with line assignments all year, and
> one
> >early season leadership candidate has been benched for most of the
> second
> >half of the campaign.  A more wide-open playing style that clicked
> against
> >Mass-Lowell in 4 recent wins was fairly well absent most of the early
> season.
> >
> >Maine played with a sense of urgency only in the last 10 games or so;
> sort
> >of like how they played some games in the first part of this campaign
> -- not
> >for a full 60 minutes.
> >
> >I know some think when I say "urgency" I imply a longing instead for
> the
> >more "active" game coaching style of our late coach Walsh.   To that I
> say
> >that I have seen "active" coaches lead dull teams (Pat Burns when with
> the
> >Boston Bruins comes to mind).
> >
> >If the team played with urgency for 60 minutes and over 30 games I
> could
> >care less if the team were coached by a bag of pucks.  When I see less
> than
> >a full effort, I look at many places for reasons why, and some of them
> point
> >to choices made obviously by the coaching staff.
> >
> >I get the over-riding sense this team plays and is coached generally
> not to
> >lose.
> >
> >I know hockey as a whole has pretty much been driven to "NJ Devils"
> style of
> >grind-'em neutral-trap defence, but isn't it nice to see Maine ramp up
> the
> >offense and run it up on an opponent ? (yeah, Jim....)
> >
> >Whitehead is Coach of the Year only if we add a third in Columbus in
> April,
> >no less.
> >
> >And BTW, Dick Umile could NEVER be Coach of the Year unless he gets a
> banner
> >for the first time with those Mildcats....but we know he won't.
> Prediction
> >(using Bracketology pairing from today):  Dov "bars" Durham from a
> ticket to
> >Columbus...
> >
> >
> >
> >steve hayes wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>i would vote for whitehead as hockey east coach of the year for
> turning this
> >>team around ......he has taught a team with very little individual
> talent
> >>how to play team defense and what it takes to win...........they may
> not go
> >>far in the hockey east playoffs or the ncaa but they are peaking at
> the
> >>right time and with the freshmen playing like upperclassmen and with
> howard
> >>in net just think of the possibilities!!!
> >>
> >>
>




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