Five scholarships!
 
Yes, I feel badly for the current Maine players who will have no title to play
for this year.  It will be interesting to see how many transfer.  And I'll
miss seeing Maine games on NESN and in person.
 
And yes, I hope that Maine gets to keep the championship.  To lose it over
the Dunham/USA Hockey screwup would almost be like rejecting Einstein's paper
on Relativity for poor penmanship.
 
But the thing my eye keeps coming back to is all the scholarships in 1997-8
and even two more the next year that Maine is forced to surrender.  So even
after another year of "being all dressed up, with no place to go" Maine will
still have the last roundhouse hook coming square at its jaw as the great
Maine recruiting machine will sit helplessly idling.
 
I'm sure Maine will eventually come all the way back under Shawn Walsh, but
until their first full recruiting class of 1999-2000 hits their junior year
(when many players really blossom) the Black Bears are likely to be shells
of their former selves.
 
BTW, it may be that Maine deserved such a harsh penalty.  I'm not privy to
all the infractions.  But this is a harsh blow indeed.
 
Dave Hendrickson
 
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