My name is Bill Stewart and I am a junior    journalism major at Umaine. I am a
 sports writer for the student newspaper here and also     a contributing write
r to US College Hockey Magazine. I have been following the serious of events th
at have plagued the hockey program here for some time now. I wrote a long piece
 for the magazine on the whole situation here and had a chance to talk to Athle
tic Director Sue Tyler and interim head coach Greg Cronin. Both had some very i
nteresting things to say. Tyler acknowledged that the University was doing "60'
s and 70's" things but it was the late "80's".  I have listened to a lot of dif
ferent people's opinions on what should happen to the hockey team and what shou
ldn't. Although there is alot of speculation of what might happen, there are se
veral things that must be done in order for the entire program to start down th
e road of legitimacy.  First and foremost the root of the problems must be dug
up and dealt with accordingly. In this particular case this would mean the dism
issal of long time head coach Shawn Walsh. Walsh is responsible for a great dea
l of the violations that were discussed at the recent NCAA meeting this past Mo
nday. The problem here is that Walsh was given to much freedom by the Universit
y at at large.  However, instead of utilizing that seemingly unlimited freedom
into a positive aspec for the program and the University; he exploited it and
damaged a program and made a lot of people suffer. I don't know if Shawn Walsh
just can't differentiate between right or wrong or if he consciously knows,yet
does the wrong things.              Either way, this is not a characterisitic y
ou want in your head coach. The saddest thing about the whole case is those who
 stand to suffer the most-i.e. the players, or current players. The current pla
yers for the Maine Black Bears are the ones who have, and could likely still be
 punished for  these ugly incidents. Despite the fact that they had little or n
othing to do with the violations. However, somebody has to pay. You can discipl
ine a coach only so much, but even then he can just pack his bags and find
something, anything-somewhere else-even at some other level. It is truly a trag
edy that has taken place here. A tragedy that formed when somewhere along the l
ines the issue of control became exploited and abused. There was a bad relation
ship with the hockey program and the University at large.  And even now as they
 both look for ways to join hands fown the road of self correction, we wait. We
 wait for the final verdict.
 
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