John MacKinnon wrote:
>
> What happened to Senior Forward Claudio Peca of Merrimack?  His name
> remains conspicuously absent from the Merrimack roster.
 
He was cut during camp this pre-season.
 
> Co-workers of mine tell me Ron Anderson finds one upperclassmen a year to
> cut as an example, and this year's model happened to be Claudio.
 
Your co-workers are welcome to tell me which seniors Anderson cut during
his previous 13 years as head coach. :-)  Seriously...I saw this claim
made earlier on HOCKEY-L and ignored it because there is no basis for it
that I know of.  The implication made by your co-workers is wrong.  He's
not going to cut a player just to serve as an example.
 
Those of us who follow the team closely believed even before camp that
with the way the team played during much of last season and the quality of
freshmen coming in, there was a very good chance that some upperclassmen
would not make the team this year.  If Steve McKenna and Gaetan Poirier had
not turned pro, Claudio might not have been the only upperclassman who
did not make it.  The elimination of the JV team also meant that the
borderline freshmen could not be sent down, nor could anyone else, and
at a point the roster becomes too big.
 
I have no real comment on Claudio being cut.  I did feel that he had a
disappointing season last year and had some things to work on as did a
number of players.  Anderson likely felt that he did not meet his
expectations and some of the other players, perhaps freshmen too, did.
 
Claudio seems to be a nice kid; I hope things go well for him after
Merrimack and that he gets his degree.
 
> Although
> I found him to be undisciplined-- taking dubious penalties, he remained a
> force on the power play ala  Dino Ciccarelli.
 
BTW, he had one power play goal last year in 33 GP, and two PPGs the
year before in 36 GP.  And while I can't say exactly why he was cut
(because I don't know), perhaps what you say in the first part of
your sentence above had something to do with it.  I don't know, but it
is interesting to me that you say this at the same time that your
co-workers say Anderson cut him only to serve as an example.  Just
something to think about. :-)
 
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                [log in to unmask]               *HMM* 11/13/93
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