At 10:02 PM 12/15/95, David M. Josselyn wrote:
>On Fri, 15 Dec 1995, Barkan, Jon wrote:
>> In response to Dave and Mike's little note battle about Merrimack, I hate to
>> take sides, but I have to in this case.
Not a battle! Just a friendly conversation. :-)
>MC competing w/ Celtics and Bruins? Not 26 miles from Boston they don't.
>Nobody sits at home and says, gee, Warriors or Bruins tonight....
I believe that tv plays a part here. Some people probably do decide to
stay home and watch the Bruins on tv from their cozy, warm living room
rather than freeze in the Volpe.
>Ron a great coach? Based on what? Based on his record leading a Division
>2 team that kids fought each other to play for?
But before he came along, they never had the kind of dominance in DivII
that they had in the late 80s, nor were they able to give a consistently
good showing against DivI teams. If his teams had the same kind of record
that Bruce Parker and Thom Lawler's teams had, it wouldn't have been enough
for them to seriously have a shot at being invited to join HE. And Parker
and Lawler had good teams.
>Volpe an obstacle? No argument there. Would Ron fare much better with a
>new building? I doubt it.
This seems contradictory to me. Volpe is an obstacle for him, yet even
with a DivI rink, he wouldn't fare much better?
The rink has a definite effect on potential recruits - local players who
grow up playing high school and Hockey Night in Boston there and know what
the rink is like, and Canadians who go on a recruiting trip to Merrimack
one week and Northeastern, UNH, or one of the ECAC schools the next. I
don't know any program that hasn't fared better when they've suddenly been
able to start getting better players.
Volpe is also only one piece of the puzzle as you know. Merrimack has
trouble attracting even regular students because of the lack of other
on-campus facilities. The campus is dead on the weekends because the kids
leave - there's nothing to do. Potential recruits look at this and then
they see what UNH has, or the Boston schools, or any of the ECAC schools.
I'm glad the school will be building not only a new rink but also a new
student center. It will give the students a reason to stay on campus, and
the added facilities will make the school more attractive to recruits.
>> But the bottom line is if you give Ron Anderson a new facility, I guarentee
>> he'd be as successful as the rest of the eastern coaches, if not better.
>
>Well, if the rink gets built, we'll see. Maybe he'll be coaching MC then,
>maybe not. I've seen too many highly-touted, talented players come in and
>play like crap for Anderson and go on to improve.
Who were these players? Every year there are highly touted players - often
highly touted by people who haven't seen them yet and are hoping they'll be
the ones to suddenly become stars. It's not as if they are able to get
many players who other programs really wanted and then those players
disappoint.
I've also seen many players come in as freshmen and look like they didn't
belong in DivI. By the time they were juniors and seniors, they had become
integral parts of a team that was at least competitive in DivI.
The one truly highly touted player I remember was Emmanuel Fernandez, whose
story has been told here many times before (goalie from Quebec, signed with
Merrimack in 1992(?), drafted first by Laval of the QMJHL and given a car
to stay up north, took Laval to the Memorial Cup final and Team Canada Jr
to the gold, now starring in the IHL). There's nothing that could have
been done about that.
>Look at Mark Cornforth,
>playing now for the Boston Bruins. He's played better since leaving MC
>then he ever did there, save perhaps the first half of his freshman season.
I don't agree. Cornforth didn't finish fourth in team scoring last year
(as a D who missed 7 games) and sixth in scoring as a sophomore by
underachieving. He developed into one of the better two-way Ds in the
league - his defensive play really improved over his career. Heck, he was
almost frightening defensively as a rookie. He became so important that he
was the one guy you wanted out there in the final minutes of a close game
whether they were ahead or behind.
It was his defense that got him a shot with the Bruins. If he hadn't
improved in that area, he probably wouldn't even be in the AHL.
>> As
>> much as it hurts me to say this, he took an average indepedent team into
>> Matthews Arena a few years ago in an NCAA tournament and beat Northeastern
>> before losing to eventual champion Lake Superior State. Did you think that
>> was luck? I sure as hell don't!
>
>Luck? In a manner of speaking, yes.
Just out of curiosity: did you feel this way back in 1988? This is the
first time I have heard anyone say this about that season. I would say
that I did think it was luck after MC beat NU...I didn't a week later when
they beat LSSU in the first game of the next series. In fact, I distinctly
remember feeling "vindicated" that "first Merrimack had done it to us, now
they did it to Lake Superior."
>1988 Warriors key player #1: Jim Hrivnak. He expected to go pro and was
>told very late in the recruiting season he should play another year where
>he was. He decided to go college instead, and MC was one of the few
>schools left with scholarships to offer.
Although not the only DivI school, and there was at least one conference
school that wanted him.
Hrivnak certainly was a key, because he gave them DivI quality goaltending.
Yet, he also allowed 8 goals in five periods against Northeastern...and he
didn't score any of the seven goals Merrimack racked up in 26 minutes to
come back and win.
>Key player #2: Jim Vesey.
95 points in one year was impressive, even if much of it was against
DivII-III teams. But if I recall, he was quiet against Northeastern. It
was the other players who did most of the scoring in that series.
>Key player #3: Rich Pion.
>
>Other players on that team were in similar situations: Mike Boyce, Chris
>Kiene, etc.
I certainly agree on these key players. But there were not just one or
two, and including Ziliotto below, you've mentioned six. Luck might have
been involved if there was one key player who was dominating against NU and
everyone else was along for the ride.
And, however he landed all of those players, the fact remains that he still
got them. Sometimes you get lucky and nab one or even two overlooked
players who turn out to be very good. Never more than a handful.
>A triumph of coaching? MC had already beaten NU in OT earlier in 1988.
>All ANderson's cards were on the table.
I can attest that NU didn't take that game (3-2 win by MC at Christmas)
seriously at all. They had a habit of doing that against teams they
perceived as not being very good (nothing new as teams do that all the
time). I really believed at the time that MC's win was a fluke.
>I was at those games. MC was in a hole after five periods in the
>total-goals series.
However, by the end of the series, MC had outplayed NU in three of the six
periods - including the first two of the first game when they led (3-1?)
going into the third before losing. Being on the NU side, I thought the
first game was lost after the first two periods. It was pretty impressive
for Merrimack to win the first two periods just four days after NU had
beaten Maine on Monday to win HE.
>All-America goaltender Bruce Racine had a series of
>SERIOUS mental lapses. He gave up two long slap shot goals-- one from
>beyond the blueline by Mark Ziliotto (another Canadian player overlooked
>by Div 1 coaches-- this time, anecdotal evidence has it, because it was
>assumed he was already playing major junior) and MC crawled back over the
>final thirty minutes to win 10-8.
Well, they didn't quite get a fluke goal here and there and wind up with
seven in 26 minutes and a series win. I agree that Racine didn't play
well, but Merrimack also dominated 26 minutes in a way that I have seen few
teams dominate such a stretch in NCAA play.
>Is that great coaching? A nailbiting comeback playoff victory that
>happened seven years ago? Did he engineer that win? Or did his players,
>along with NU's falling asleep when they thought it was, to paraphrase
>Dan Roche on WCCM, "all over"?
I have heard secondhand (but a good source) that once NU was up 8-3 in the
series, a key to turning it around from the standpoint of Merrimack was
that they started to get angry. Angry that NU, as they would do back then,
was running the goalie and cheap shotting Merrimack. Anderson was supposed
to have told his team, "Whatever happens, we're not going to let them run
our goaltender." That's only one thing I have heard, but it is an example
of the type of leadership that a coach in that situation needs to show. He
was also supposed to have shadowed NU's better players like Kevin
Heffernan, who was shut down most of the series.
I have to believe that Anderson was successful at conveying to his team
that they had to "fight back" and refuse to back down from the abuse NU was
giving them. That's because that is the way MC played and it's why they
won - not because of Hrivnak or Vesey or Pion. I know the way NU played
during that season...almost an NHL style where they abused opponents and
antagonized them. I never saw anyone stand up to them the way Merrimack
did. And Merrimack had to change its style to do that. It is said by some
MC people that a key was a heavy, heavy hit that was laid on Heffernan and
resulted in him struggling back to the bench. They say that you could see
NU back down from that point.
Of course, I didn't remember these things at the time because I was in a
state of shock from what was happening.
>Great coaching is what Parker's teams do. They win regularly,
>methodically, mechanically. They don't let teams back into games, They
>don't let up. (Recent games vs. MC notwithstanding).
Interesting point. BU doesn't let teams into the game or back into the
game...except for Merrimack. January 13, 1995; February 24-25, 1995; March
12, 1995; December 8-9, 1995. All close games, one MC win, two others in
which BU seemed to have it in hand and MC fought back.
1988 or 1995, little has changed...Anderson's teams don't pack it in, even
when playing a HE champion like NU or BU and the odds are against them.
Opposing coaches say this, too.
Of course, they don't do this all of the time. Sometimes they come up with
a lackluster effort against a weaker team. It happens to everyone. But
one thing I can say after seven years of watching Merrimack for 35 games a
year is that I have rarely been disappointed in their effort.
Meanwhile, Parker's teams that win "regularly, methodically, mechanically,"
have also been among the most talented teams in the nation the last 4-5
years. It's a lot easier to play like that when you have the players they
have had. They sure weren't playing that way before Blaise MacDonald came
along five years ago.
It's also the way Anderson's teams played when they had a similar mismatch
of talent in their favor in the 80s.
>Ronnie has it tough recruiting. He scours Canada looking for those
>overlooked players to build another dream team. It's not going to happen.
>And even if it did-- is it a credit to him? Or just happenstance?
It's tougher to get those overlooked players when you have fewer
scholarships to offer and when there are more scholarships being offered
out there in DivI hockey. More teams are out there on the roads now than
in the 1980s. And people are more aware of who Merrimack is looking at now
than before. I agree that it's tougher and probably impossible now to
create a "dream team" entirely out of overlooked players. That's why it's
so important to be able to compete on an even level with other top DivI
schools for players. They have never been able to do that.
>I'm struck by the impression that Anderson will be the Moses of Merrimack
>hockey. He may have helped take the program to the Promised Land (after
>seven years wandering in the desert-- and counting) but he may not be
>allowed to cross over into it.
Nice analogy. :-) You may be right. I hope not, however, because I
continue to believe that not only can he do the job, but he deserves to
have a chance to do it (with a commitment and new facilities) because of
his dedication to the program and the fact that he took them where no one
else was able to, after years of being told that Merrimack could never go
DivI. Anything less than a fair chance would be almost criminal.
If he is given that chance and things still don't change, then I will be
disappointed, but I will admit my mistake. But I don't think that would
happen.
>P.S. Even so, I have a tape of that game vs. NU and the highlight tape
>that year.
I'll have to talk to John Savastano. At the risk of breaking my heart
again, I'd still like to see it. I'm still trying to find the box scores
(I have them buried somewhere) to put up on the web site. It's probably
among the more-discussed games here on HOCKEY-L.
>A mediocre team? I think not. That's my favorite hockey team
>ever. Give them a good rink, decent crowd support, a real coach, and a
>regular D1 schedule-- they would've been Hockey East champs at least once
>and had Lake Superior visiting Massachusetts to play THEM.
Except for the coaching question, I tend to agree with you. They were
good, but you cannot separate that from the person who built and coached
them.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] *HMM* 11/13/93
>> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System <<
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