At 9:45 AM 9/21/95, John Haeussler wrote:
>Did Michigan need Willis?  Yes!  The Wolverines are/were in
>a period of playing for CCHA and NCAA championships.  They
>have a roster full of guys that can put the puck in the net, but
>Willis added much needed emotion and tenacity to the lineup.
>He was a physical force and dependable penalty killer, and
>that's what the Wolverines needed.
>
>Did Merrimack need Willis?  I doubt it.  The Warriors were building,
>try to reach .500 and playing for respectability.  Rick wasn't going
>to produce 20 goal seasons (or even 10-15), and that's what MC
>needed.  They needed some depth at the top lines, not another
>role player.
 
Wow, John, you've hit the nail right on the head.
 
I've got a soft spot in my heart for players who like Willis who don't have
the talent the other guys have but who will do whatever it takes to win.
Every team needs players like that.  But you can't build a winning team out
of them.  You still need the guys who can light the lamp and stop the
biscuit.
 
As it has turned out lately, Merrimack's better players tend to be
Canadians.  The role players tend to be American and many are local.
That's because of the fact that the better local players get offers from
other schools that are more attractive to them.  It sure doesn't make sense
to sign a kid who will only be a role player just because he's local
instead of giving that scholarship to a non-local player who can score
goals.
 
There are two arguments I've heard in the past in relation to this issue
that I'd like to respond to.
 
"If Merrimack would take the lesser kids who were local, they would build
up a rapport with the local coaches who would be more likely to encourage
their kids to go there."
 
A: Maybe.  But maybe not.  I'm not convinced that taking Role Player A this
year means you're going to get Blue Chip Player B next year.  That kid is
still going to want to go to the best place he can go, and if BU, Harvard,
etc. are beating a path to his door, it's going to be tough for him to say
no to them.
 
And if you turn down a blue-chipper from Canada just to take that local
role player and the blue-chipper goes on to star somewhere else, you don't
look good.
 
"Such-and-such a player would have been interested in Merrimack if only
they expressed an interest in him, but they didn't, and this is a sign that
they're not interested in local players."
 
A: I don't know of any local players who would have gone to Merrimack but
were ignored and went on to star elsewhere.
 
I've got a strong regard for Ron Anderson's ability to evaluate players and
bring in the best he can get.  Maybe he wasn't interested in that local
player because he saw something that made him wary of pursuing that player
to the exclusion of a better non-local player.
 
Anderson built his three ECAC East Championship winning teams by going
after players who were largely ignored by the big-time schools.  He almost
always hit paydirt in the form of players who proved they could do the job.
One was Jim Vesey, who scored 95 points in 1987-88 and won the DivII-III
Hobey.  Vesey is from Charlestown, Mass...just outside Boston and about 20
minutes from Merrimack.
 
Many of the players Anderson brought in were known as "projects" - players
who didn't draw immediate interest from the big-time schools.  Anderson
built his teams in part with these project players who matured late
hockey-wise and may have gotten off to a slow start but became contributors
by the time they were juniors or seniors.
 
But when Merrimack made the move from a mostly DivII-III schedule to
full-time DivI and Hockey East, Anderson faced three big problems.  First,
they had just graduated almost their entire team from the late-80s glory
years.  There was no nucleus to build upon in HE - that first year, perhaps
a handful of players were ones who really belonged in HE.
 
Second, the school did not decide until late January of 1989 that they
would agree to allow the program to enter HE the next season.  By the time
the decision came down, many quality recruits had already decided to go
elsewhere.  Prior to the decision, Anderson was straight up with recruits
in informing them that he could not tell them where the team would be
playing next year (89-90).
 
Third, the "project" players who Anderson had relied upon previously while
playing a mostly DivII-III schedule were no longer enough to enable the
team to be competitive in full-time DivI.  Even the middle-of-the-road DivI
teams bring in players who can play right away.  Anderson was forced to go
the first few years almost entirely with players who were not ready to play
right away.  It was not until about two years ago that he was able to bring
in freshmen who could make an immediate impact.  Those players comprise
this year's junior class and include players like Legault, McKenna, Beck,
Jakopin, and Johnson.  They were among the most important players in
helping Merrimack become competitive last year with the top teams in the
league like Maine, BU, and UNH.  And last year he landed players like Casey
Kesselring who scored 35 points and made the HE All-Rookie Team.
 
There's also the unfortunate situation several years ago where a goalie of
truly All-America caliber was apparently signed to Merrimack until he was
drafted in the first round by Laval of the QMJHL and went major junior.
That was Emmanuel Fernandez, who went on to take Laval to the Memorial Cup
(finals, I believe), played for Canada's World Junior championship team,
and is now one of the top goalies in the IHL with a strong NHL future ahead
of him.  Teams lose players like this all the time, but for a team like
Merrimack which desperately needed a Fernandez to give them credibility and
help them improve quickly, it was a devastating turn of events.  It took
the signing of Legault (All-HE) a couple of years later to stabilize the
goaltending and give them a netminder they could rely upon.
 
>I've been to Volpe and, if I was talented enough to play Division
>I hockey, I probably wouldn't want to play four years there either.
 
I definitely believe this is how many players feel.  We're hoping that
within two or three years, this will no longer be an issue.  And I believe
that any criticism of Anderson isn't valid until he has a basis upon which
to recruit that is more in line with the other programs he goes up against.
 
It just seems silly to me to say on the one hand that Merrimack doesn't
have the ability to recruit top local players because of the rink, but on
the other to maintain that they should still get those local players
anyway.  Unless you're going to start doing something like paying these
players under the table, it simply isn't going to happen.
 
There's just no arguing with the job Anderson has done with his players on
and off the ice once he gets them to Merrimack.  Off the ice, he has a
record 10 Academic Honor Roll members last season (9 the year before, then
a record too) and a record three Distinguished Scholars.  On the ice, he
has taken a team with less talent than many other HE teams and last year,
 
* Became the only team to beat 1995 NCAA Champion BU in its own rink;
* Recorded the lowest combined goals-against of any HE team against Maine
and also against BU, the 1995 NCAA finalists;
* Tied third-place UNH and lost to the Wildcats twice by one goal;
* Was named by NESN color analyst Bob Norton as the coach of his All-Norton
Team;
* Was credited by BU asst coach Bill Berglund at the New England Hockey
Writers Dinner with having helped prepare BU to win its national title by
the way they played BU tough in three games down the stretch and in the
playoffs.
 
There's still work to be done, but I like the direction in which things are
headed.  Solve the rink problem and who knows how far Anderson's Merrimack
teams could go in the future.
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                   [log in to unmask]            *HMM* 11/13/93
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