Just a few questions and comments on the situation up in dear ol' Maine:
 
1) What's going on in terms of the other athletic teams at Orono whose
students have been declared ineligible?  Has the indoor track team forfeited
all its meets?  Have their athletes been banned from regionals or nationals?
Have any of the other teams been treated in the same fashion as the hockey
team, or are only Division I champion teams subject to being banned from
post-season action by their league?
 
2) Maine doesn't belong in the NCAA tournament.  Yup, die-hard supporter that
I am, I just can't accept that the Black Bears have played well enough this
season to merit a place in the tourney.  This has nothing to do with
eligibility;  IMO, at-large bids depend mostly upon games just previous to
selection.  Those who say that the selectors look at the whole season may be
right, but they also look at how well a particular team is doing just prior
to the tournament.  Team X may be second in the toughest league around
(insert your favorite league here), but if they've been losing to the weaker
Ivies and the military academies of late, no ones going to give them a spot
unless they get an automatic bid by winning the league tournament.  Let's
face it, Maine just hasn't been playing to their potential of late.  Sure,
they showed what they could do with that 0-0 game against BU, but they also
lost to UNH this past weekend (a team that has been up and down all season)
and had a difficult time pulling out a win against hapless BC.  Even with the
Ferraros back and Tardif eligible again, Maine simply isn't playing well
enough at present.
 
3) Why the hell did the Ferraros play this past weekend's two games?  Why did
they give up a whole year of eligibility (there's that word again!) just to
play two games?  Kariya did the smart thing by waiting to see what Maine's
future would be;  if they do get a bid (yeah, right!) then he could still
come back, but if they don't he's still go that extra year to fall back on.
(Not that any of those three will necessarily use all four years of
eligibility, of course.)
 
4) My advice to HE:  reverse your decision and let Maine play in the
tournament.  Sanctions against clubs have been levied in the past and has it
stopped the same thing from occurring again?  Certainly not.  One need only
look at Mike Machnik's examples of posting of precedents to see that
violations have happened in the past and to figure out that they'll happen in
the future.  All the current situation does is piss of a lot of Maine fans to
no real end.  They're not going to win the HE tourney anyway -- :'( -- so why
not avoid a lawsuit that just might cost you oodles of money?  If they do end
up defending their HE tourney title, well, let the NCAA deal with them;  if
they decide not to recognize your champions' right to a spot in the national
tournament, then YOU can file the lawsuit.  (God, it's almost comic!) As
former league assistant commissioner Nonni Daly said, "You've go 30 kids
who... were penalized heavily for something they didn't do." Give the Maine
team a break;  all it can do is help.
 
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|   \   /   |
 |   \ /   |   Jason A. Pierce                      Black Bear Fan in Exile
 |M A I N E|   University of Maine, '93
 |B L A C K|   University of St Andrews, '94          [log in to unmask]
 |B E A R S|            (hopefully!)
 |  \   /  |
 |  |\ /|  |              M - A - I - N - E  Go... BLUE!!!
 |  | v |  |
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