Greg Berge writes:
>Mike writes:
>
>"allow me to support my contention by comparing 1987 and 1994."
>
>We can't.
>
>The 87 group has had 7 additional years of pro hockey to build both
>their skills and their reputations.  There is no basis for comparing the
>two groups, unless you mean that you are somehow mentally deleting
>any post-87 impressions you have built around the early group.  I know
>I can't do this.
 
I think it is certainly very possible to do this, especially if you
spend about 90% of your hockey time following the college game as I
probably do. :-)  While some of the players I mentioned have gone on to
success after college, many more have not - and for some of the 30-odd
players I mentioned, I couldn't even tell you what they did after
college.  I.e., Gagne, Kidd, Messier, Benning, Shea?  But these were
among the top players that year.
 
I would add these points:
 
* 1995 is not the first time I have said these things about 1987...the
first time was certainly 1988, when I realized that the Olympic year
and pro defections had taken a severe toll among the talent in the
game.  Ever since then, I have mentally compared each year to 1987,
and none have come close to matching up, even post-1988.
 
* Many of the average or weaker teams from 1987 who retained most of
their personnel into the next season suddenly became among the top
teams in the country that year.  Northeastern was 6-16-3 at Beanpot
87.  In 1988, they finished second in HE and won the tourney
championship over a Maine team that likewise kept many of its players
and would go 34-8-2.  It's not unusual to see some teams improve
during an Olympic year, but it is unusual for teams to skyrocket to
the top - as some teams did with the previous season's tough
competition no longer around.
 
The 87 BC team, for example, is the one I still think stands as the
best HE team ever.  And that's based strictly on having seen them play
a number of times.  But I also realize that many people may have no
choice but to factor in what those players have done in the NHL since
then, if they didn't see BC in 87.  And in that regard, they do have
an impressive list of players - but it's not the fact that those
players went on to NHL success that made BC such a great team.  Most
of Maine's players from 1993 won't go on to NHL success, but in ten
years, we won't have any problem remembering them as one of the best
teams we ever saw.
 
>Joe Nieuwendyk is an excellent example.  A this point in 1988, he was
>considered a very good college player who had blown away the league
>playing for an ECAC (one strike), Ivy League (two strikes) team.  Then
>he goes out and becomes the second player in history to score 50+ goals
>in his first two years in the NHL.  Hell, maybe Craig Conroy will do that
>in two years...
 
The problem here is that if I say, okay, come back to me in five years
after you see how 94's best fare after college, at that time you can
say that 87 still had seven extra years.  It's a catch-22.  That's why
I am ignoring the players' NHL success and just remembering back to
what happened that year.  Most of those players are ones I never
followed in the NHL, anyways.
 
>Anyway, you're comparing grapes and bottled wine, Mike.  And it
>sounds more than a little bit like the local Boston hockey literati grousing
>"aah, there aren't ten guys in the NHL today who coulda played with the
>original six teams".
 
Well, I can't do much about that, although I'm grumbling at the
comparison. :-)  In general, I enjoy today's game for what it is,
although I think 1987 was the pinnacle of talent and great teams to
this point.  But I would still ask anyone who disagrees, to find a
tape of BC-Minnesota or North Dakota-Harvard from 1987, and then see
whether there is a difference.  I know I think there is.
 
The ironic thing is that the Boston media seem to have gone gung-ho on
college hockey in recent years, like wondering if Maine '93 was the
best team ever or if Harvard '89 was one of the best...to ignore the
1987 teams is, to me, demonstrative of pure ignorance of the greatest
single season the game has known.
 
Another ironic thing is that I really hate hearing or reading "when
*I* was a boy" stories, too. :-)  (although the history is great to
learn.)  And I do think the talent in pro hockey today far outshines
the Original Six.  I just see a difference in college.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93