>
> Maine is the NCAA tournament?  It ain't gonna happen.
>
> Thanks to all of those forfeits, Maine has six wins this season.  Six.
> No team with six wins makes the tournament, unless they win an automatic
> bid.  Since Maine is out of the Hockey East tourney, a automatic bid in
> impossible too.  Unless Hutchinson & Co. can use their attorneys to get
> back in the Hockey East tournament, it's see ya in November, and just be
> glad our season ended with a win.  (How many teams can saw that?)
>
> Oh yeah, to all fellow Maine hockey fans...while you're griping about
> Hockey East's decision, why don't you show some support for our basketball
> team?  They're exciting, they're problem-free, and they're WINNING.
>
> +====================================================================+
>     |\  Jim Baines  [log in to unmask]   a.k.a. "Sportscaster"
>     |/  UMaine '89     HOME OF COLLEGE HOCKEY'S NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!
>   \ |\  "Fill the steins to Dear Old Maine, SHOUT 'til the rafters ring,"
>    \|/        --The Maine Stein Song
>
 
Well, I wish very dearly that I could agree with you.  I want to and I think
what you say is right, but, from what I am being told (PLEASE, somebody tell
me I'm wrong!), Maine's forfeits count as wins (or ties, if that's what they
were) by the NCAA selection committee.
 
Much sh*t has hit industrial-sized fans this year in Maine.
 
I personally feel that (as if my opinion matters) Maine was out of control, but
they are handling it and trying to correct the many transgressions.
 
I *personally* feel that until Maine gets their house back in order, they
should not be allowed into any tournaments.
 
HOWEVER, I feel that since there is no precident to kick an NCAA-eligible team
out of the HE tourney, that Maine should not have been kicked out.  (Precidents
and rules are what matter, not my own personal feelings.)
 
 
The frightening thing in all this is NOT that the Ivies are probably laughing
at Hockey East now ("Yeah, you guys thought you could do it better... hawr, ha,
haaa... 10 years and look where you are now!" <snicker>), but that the NCAA
apparently does NOT take into account forfeits it makes team take!!!
 
*note:  I am NOT saying anyone on this list from the Ivies has ever been
publicly critical.  I am supposing that there must be some older Ivy-League
administrators who got noses thumbed at them who have got to be laughing now*
 
 
There are some rules that I can not understand until I have them explained to
me.  THIS ONE, however, I can not see anything good coming from... EVER!!!
 
 
As I asked in an earlier post, what, except personal integrity, is to prevent a
UMass/Amherst from bringing in Ray Bourque and Cam Neely for the regular season
next year and qualifying for the NCAA's???  They would be banned from Hockey
East playoffs (since there would now be a precident), but as long as they
did not play them in the NCAA tourney, they're OK.
 
 
 
WHY?
 
 
 
 
 
One personal, unsupported by any facts, and purely speculative view from one
individual sitting at a computer is that if the NCAA had rules that would make
Maine be considered a team with only 3 wins (keeping them from the NCAA unless
they won the HE tourney AND even then, forcing them to be seeded #6 in the East
(travelling out west to MSU for the 1st round), the Hockey East AD's would not
have felt so strongly that they had to "send Maine a message."  It might not
have made everyone support keeping Maine in, but if only two of the pro-ban
AD's had switched...
 
*note - The quote, "send Maine a message" was made by the acting commissioner
in today's Boston Globe.*
 
 
 
I am not trying to Maine bash (I hope this did not come across that way).  In
reality, I am saying that Maine should not have been banned from the tourney
(I am not sure, however, that it is good for hockey (a sport I have loved since
I was 2) that Maine is trying to get an injunction, a-la-Plymouth, MA High
School last year) but it is horrifying that the forfeits will not count as
forfeits in the eyes of the NCAA.
 
 
What message does THIS send to programs (any, not just Maine)???
 
Who knows... maybe when the old Maine AD (since removed) decided not to inform
Walsh that Tardiff was ineligible, he knew the rules better than any of us. :-(
 
 
One very sad individual...
Growing more pessimistic and cynical by the day...
 
Tony  BU'92'93
Former Ogre