As some of you know, Shawn reads a lot of the postings on hockey-l and
really enjoys them. He has asked me to post the following.
Shawn writes:
I got enough of a "charge" out of recent postings so I thought I
would finally respond.
 
First of all, John H. posted last week Stan Fischler's column in
the Hockey News. I have appreciated John's recent postings - especially
his visit to Merrimack and I thought to myself, "isn't this what the
Hockey list is all about?"
 
Then I read John H.'s posting about a writer who I have never talked
to who wrote, "sources close to Shawn Walsh...". First of all, I can't
imagine who those sources are since I don't know Stan Fischler other
than watching him on TV! Secondly, how in God's name can I "guarantee
a national championship". We are a team under .500 and believe me,
scrambling to make the tournament! I like our recent play having
three ties on the road against two teams rated among the top seven
in the country but PLEASE!. My exact "proposal" to Paul and the twins
was that they have done an awful lot for the University of Maine in
terms of the prestige that they brought this program by their helping
us win a National Championship and maybe more importantly, their
appearance and influence on the national Olympic Teams. I felt it was
only fair that we offer them the option of returning to Maine. This
option is allowable under NCAA rules and clearly, I think the University
of Maine owes it to our guys to allow them to come back and join their
peers if they's like. But to guarantee a national championship and try to
use that to coerce the players to return - come on John! You're smarter
than that, and after reading your intelligent postings of the past
couple of years I was a little bit disappointed in the fact that you
believed some writer verbatim - especially a writer that doesn't know
a hoot about college hockey!
 
Now to the infamous BU incident... The whole situation ended one
of the greatest regular season games I've ever coached in and I'm
disappointed that the scrambled scenario with four seconds to go
detracted from probably the greatest single game many people have
witnessed.
 
It all started with about fifteen second to go when I noticed BU was
coming up ice with an obvious 3 on 2. Cal Ingraham was slated to
replace Wayne Conlan who went on the ice with 1:40 to go and
amazingly, stayed on the ice for over 1:15 at that juncture of
the game (after 64 minutes!). Wayne was leaving the defensive zone
trailing the BU winger and he motioned to the bench to get replaced.
Cal jumped over the boards and gained about 25 feet in the change
and immediately clamped on the BU winger. This is an occurrence that
happens many times during the course of a season by almost every
team, but because of the intensity of the moment and the 0-0 tie,
it was pretty obvious to everyone including myself that Cal had
jumped the gun. The referee immediately raised his hands and the
puck ended up in our zone, and finally when we touched the puck
there was only four second to go. On the bench at that moment,
we were a little bit steamed because BU had an extra player on the
ice and got caught in the middle of a change when the puck was send
right at their bench and the extra player who was leaving the ice
got hit with the puck about two minutes before the "Cal" play, but
there was no whistle. In retrospect, Cal's situation had more of a direct
bearing on a scoring possible opportunity, and I can see the reasoning
for the call by the official and in essence, it was a good call.
 
Now to the "incident". With four seconds to go, I immediately sent
out Pat Tardiff and Make Latendresse to take the draw, since Pat
had won most of his face-offs that night. We sent out two defensemen with
him. At that point I realized that the referee was going to place the
puck to our goaltender's right and we needed a right hand center.
(I didn't want a left hand center to draw the puck back into our
goalie just in case BU had put out a player who might be a left hand
shot and shoot the puck at the net.) It was pretty hectic on our bench
and I debated calling time out and even asked Greg Cronin, our
Assistant, if I should call time out. He immediately glanced across
the ice at BU's bench and they were in more chaos then we were.
Players were skating towards their bench and looking at Jack for
direction, and they were fairly confused as to what they wanted to do
(which I might add, I'm sure our guys would've been just the same
given the situation). Since BU had already called a time out, I didn't
want to  give them time to get organized so I sent Cal out, not even
realizing that I didn't tell him to replace a player.
 
The referees blew their whistle and yelled at BU to get five players
on the ice, and linesmen, almost in a hurried fashion, dropped the
puck before anybody know what was happening. I didn't even realize
we had five players on the ice until Latendresse came sprinting to our
bench after the buzzer sounded. It was pretty chaotic on both
benches and obviously, with the officials and everybody else
associated with the game (in fact, on the NESN broadcast, the announcers
didn't even notice it). I chuckled about it after because some people
were calling it "a brilliant move" by me - believe me, I'm not smart
enough to have figured it out! In fact, I told the players in the locker
room after the game that I hadn't even realized we had the five guys
on the ice!
 
The next night I was besieged with BU fans screaming at me the entire
night in the kind of heated passion that Tony, BU's '92'93 indicated in
his posting. I decided just to stay calm throughout the entire ordeal
and chalk it up to another "BU Maine rivalry" situation.
 
Having watched water bottles get thrown on the ice at Alfond Arena,
coaches go over the glass near the stands at Alfond, a fight between
intense players in Walter Brown Arena, and then this mix up on
players, I've kind of come to expect intense and strange happenings
around BU and Maine. Probably the strangest was not a fight (which
happens occasionally in college hockey), was not an extra player on the
ice (which happens occasionally in college hockey) but rather a
wonderfully played, wonderfully officiated, 0-0 tie that had NEVER
happened in over 1700 games of illustrious career of Boston University
hockey. A sidelight to this whole thing opened my eyes and I should
share it with the Hockey-L list. I spoke to one of the officials after
the game and he was deeply concerned about the problem after the game.
His comment to me was that, "the system broke down" and he really took
it personally in his disappointment at what happened. Being an intense
coach, as all of us are, I found myself amazed at the intensity with
which this referee took the mistake they had made personally. I
walked away with a lot more respect for a) that particular referee,
and b) referees in general.
 
I wanted to bring up the referees because I think when people like
Tony and John put their passion into postings, not only are they
potentially liable, but also they are carrying their school colors
just a little far in making an opinionated statements about individuals.
I looked right into the eyes of a referee who is a real caring individual,
who was crestfallen at what happened at the end of the game.
I felt compassion for that guy that I don't think I felt before. If
myself, as a coach who has been a head coach for ten years and an
assistant for seven and who deeply cares about the college game, can
sense that kind of feeling maybe some of our great fans on the
Hockey-L list need to start considering other thoughts when they
post opinionated statements like the two I have cited. I have read both
of these guys postings many times over the past years and I have been
impressed with their candidness and also their interest in college hockey.
Believe it or not, I'm not just a coach of college hockey, I'm a fan
of college hockey and I love the game.
When I see some of you and your postings I enjoy reading your thoughts,
but please be careful for your own good, what you say. When you put
your name on a posting, just like I have done with this posting, you
put something on paper that cannot be pulled back, so you need to be
careful about opinionated statements.
 
I can assure both of you that the University of Maine intensely
will attempt to have the best program we possibly can, I'm darn
proud of what we've accomplished over the past ten years, and I'm
proud of what this year's team has accomplished, especially
recently, given the adversity that we have faced. I made a mistake
in the Jeff Tory case and I paid the consequences for it. But I wasn't
nearly as "brilliant" as some people seem to think at BU last
Saturday. I only wish we could have scored a goal and won the darn game!
 
Finally, to Tony and John, I'll be at the Final Four in St. Paul
either coaching our team or serving as a clinician for the YES
Clinic for the NCAA. I'd love to sit down with both of you and talk
about college hockey. It's a great sport, and when you see the intensity
that we run into in almost every rink that we play in on the road,
you've got to appreciate the sold out crowds, the atmosphere, the great
chants and the excitement of it all.
 
Finally, since you are all great hockey fans, and you must be if you
continue to read a posting that is this long, here is a candid coach's
observation about college hockey.
 
1. We should put a shoot in. Imagine the electricity at BU on Saturday
if we had five-man shoot out after that 0-0 tie. Look at how many ties
there are now in college hockey. (Lowell has 7 already and we have 3
in our last 4 games!). In the shoot out, just give the team that wins
an extra point and the team that looses the shoot out the one point
they would have had so that nobody gets hurt.
 
2. Bring back 4x4 and 3x3 hockey. It's great for the fans! And it opens
up the ice because right now there is too much interference and the game
can be clogged up even without the red line.
 
3. Give the officials the discretion to call a game misconduct or simply
a five minute major penalty on checking from behind into the boards, and
slash or spearing, etc. Right now they can only call a game DQ on some
of these offenses and so what happens is the referees don't want
to hurt a player and cost him two games, so they just call it roughing,
boarding, etc. Let's not kid ourselves, if a guy committed a major foul
give him a major penalty and lets scrape the DQ's so the ref's aren't
afraid to call it.
 
4. All fans and many coaches, myself included, need to remember that the
referees are every bit as intense and caring about the game as coaches
and players are.