At 09:53 AM 3/10/2003 -0500, Kelly Hubicki wrote:
>Almost as hard for me were the chants of "overrated" coming from the RPI
>section.  As I reminded one fan on the way out the door, if it weren't for
>the new ECAC playoff rules, RPI would not have even been in the playoffs.

The "overrated" chants didn't surprise me. You see that all the time when a
lower-seeded team upsets the higher seed. But yes, as a Union fan, it hurt
coming from Troy.

I agree, though - RPI should be thanking their lucky stars that they even made
the playoffs. I am still a bit surprised as to how miserable a season they had
and they probably shouldn't have been in the playoffs the way their season
went. You can't argue against the rules, though. Union's 2001-2002 team was
just as good (if not better) than this year's RPI team and they ended up home
for the playoffs.

>I found Mayotte's quotes in the Sunday paper interesting - not sure that I
>agree that he made the right decision, but then I don't play hockey.

I don't know if he made the right decision, but he had to make it right away.
 From the accounts I read, he actually beat the RPI player to the puck in both
instances, but just didn't get it past him. All Mayotte really had to do
was get
the puck out of the zone - just more bad luck for Union.

In my opinion, Union probably could have avoided either position in the first
place. During the last several games in the season, I noticed that Kevin
Sneddon
has been starting 5 forwards on the power play unit. Joel Beal had been playing
the point position for most of the year, but we started seeing the
Goodjohn-Seney-
Neron line start the PP with Beal and (forward) Nathan Gillies playing the
point
positions. When RPI started the play up ice towards their tying & winning
goals,
Gillies & Beal were caught deep in the RPI zone and couldn't catch up to
the play.
I can't help but think that if at least one defenseman was on the ice, then
maybe
Mayotte wouldn't have had to play the puck.

Does anyone else do this? I can understand the need for offense on the power
play and that Sneddon would trust two of his best players to remember they're
playing defense, but I'm not sold on the idea yet. I'm also not a hockey
coach, so
I'll bet there's another good reason.

-Andy