Bill writes:
>> in 1988, along with four Beanpots and several ECAC titles.
> ^^^^^^^
>During Flaman's tenure at Northeastern, the Huskies won one ECAC champion-
>ship, in 1982, and made one other appearance in the playoffs in 1981.
Bill is, of course, correct in noting this. The Huskies won the East
region of the ECAC (ECAC New England) in 1982 along with the ECAC
playoff title. Here's how Flaman's Huntington Hounds did under his
guidance:
Year W-L-T Pct. Rank Overall Playoff Finish
--------------------------------------------------------
1970-71 3-16-0 .158 16th 7-22-0 .241
1971-72 3-17-0 .150 16th 6-20-0 .231
1972-73 10-11-0 .476 10th 17-12-0 .586
1973-74 7-10-2 .421 12th 10-13-4 .444
1974-75 10-11-1 .477 9th 15-11-2 .571
1975-76 6-16-1 .283 14th 9-16-1 .365
1976-77 9-13-0 .409 13th 11-16-0 .407
1977-78 7-16-1 .313 15th 10-17-1 .375
1978-79 11-11-0 .500 9th 12-15-0 .444
ECAC split into three regions, NU in 6-team East
1979-80 5-16-0 .238 6th 7-20-0 .259
1980-81 12-9-0 .571 2nd 13-13-0 .500 7th ECACs
1981-82 14-6-1 .500 1st 25-11-2 .684 ECAC Champion, 3rd NCAAs
1982-83 9-11-1 .450 5th 13-14-1 .481
1983-84 10-10-1 .500 5th 16-12-1 .569
NU entered 7-team Hockey East w/interlocking schedule v. WCHA
1984-85 11-22-1 .338 6th 13-24-1 .355 6th
1985-86 18-14-2 .559 3rd 20-17-2 .538 5th
1986-87 11-18-3 .391 5th 13-21-3 .392 4th
1987-88 13-9-4 .577 2nd 20-13-4 .595 Hockey East Champion, 9th NCAAs
1988-89 13-11-2 .538 3rd 18-16-2 .528 4th
--------------------------------------------------------
582 games: 255-301-24 .460 31st on all-time list
In 1982 Flaman was selected as the Spencer Penrose Coach of the Year.
It was in 1980 that the Huskies began their rise from perennial
also-ran to legitimate national championship contenders under the
direction of Flaman and former Bruins' teammate (and current Huskie
head man) Don McKenney. Despite their 7-20 record, Northeastern
shocked the Boston hockey community by winning the Beanpot tournament.
Wayne Turner's overtime goal changed the face of Northeastern hockey
forever. 27 Beanpots had been played for the "championship of Boston"
with Boston College, Boston University, and Harvard all winning
their share of titles - and the Huskies were completely shut out. In
fact, Northeastern SID Jack Grinold was jokingly called "6:15 Grinold"
because his team inevitably wound up in the consolation game. And,
something which many people do not know is that the Northeastern alumni
were pressuring the school to withdraw from the Beanpot because of the
team's apparent inability to compete with the other three teams. The
University of New Hampshire was being considered as a replacement for
the Huskies as Charlie Holt's Wildcats were one of the top teams in
the ECAC at the time.
But Turner's goal changed all that. The lure of the Beanpot just
cannot be measured. Now, some of the local stars who had wanted to go
to BC or BU wanted to go to Northeastern and hear 15,000 people cheer
as they stepped on the ice. The old Boston Arena was purchased from
the city and refurbished into Matthews Arena, my favorite place to
watch a hockey game.
The Huskies roared out to a 12-0 start in 1980-81 and earned a spread
in Sports Illustrated, a copy of which graced the walls of the Northeastern
locker room for a while. They finished, however, by losing their last
12 and were knocked out of the ECACs in the first round. It set them
up for 1982, though, and Northeastern steamrolled its way to its first
and only ECAC championship and an NCAA berth, falling in the semifinals
to eventual national champion North Dakota.
After being shut out for nearly three decades, Flaman would direct the
Hounds to four Beanpots in the 1980s (1980, 1984, 1985, 1988) - more
than BU...more than BC...more than Harvard. One of the most memorable
moments in Beanpot history came with the Huskies' 1984 win, after which
the team carried the trophy over to where Flaman's son sat in his
wheelchair; they held the trophy high while his son clenched his fist.
The young man died of cancer not long afterward.
The team's successes and renewed financial commitments from alumni
and the administration allowed Flaman to attract better and better
players each year, and most of the school's best players were
recruited in the mid-80s - Rod Isbister, Stew Emerson, Jay Heinbuck,
Bruce Racine, Kevin Heffernan, Claude Lodin, Dave O'Brien, Harry
Mews, Dave Buda. The last six were members of what was probably
Flaman and Northeastern's greatest team ever, the 1988 squad that
won the Beanpot easily and came from behind to defeat #1 ranked
Maine for the Hockey East championship before getting upset in the
NCAA First Round by independent upstart Merrimack. The Huskies
led the two-game, total goals series 8-3 with six minutes left in
the second period of Game Two when Merrimack erupted for seven
unanswered goals to win the series. I still think that Northeastern
team could have won it all if they had taken Merrimack more
seriously.
Flaman announced his retirement in the middle of his 19th season,
in February 1989, and his Huskies could not gain him a third NCAA
berth though he was named the Hockey East Coach of the Year. The
Huskies fell to Maine, 3-2, in a Hockey East semifinal overtime game
that didn't end until after 1 am due to the double-ot game that
preceded it. After NU scored twice in the last seven minutes to
tie it, Luke Vitale got the game-winner to dash Flaman's hopes of
repeating as Hockey East champion. In Flaman's last game as coach,
with a trip to the NCAAs on the line, Providence eked out a 3-2 win.
The next day, the Friars, with a record identical to Northeastern's,
were awarded a bid and the Huskies were left at the altar.
> I'm
>certainly not trying to detract from Flaman's Hall-of-Fame credentials,
>since it's been obvious in several situations that the number of champion-
>ships won is not the only, or even best, criteria for judging a coach's
>ability.
Very true. Also, Flaman was not selected to the Hall of Fame because
of his college coaching record. He was selected because of his great
pro career. But most of us here, including myself, know him or of him
through the job he did at Northeastern. I don't think he was *entirely*
responsible for the Huskies' sudden rise to the top in the 80s, but he
persevered through extremely difficult times to bring Northeastern
hockey into "the modern age". He was the guy behind the bench and he
dedicated his time and effort at first to help his kids be the best they
could be and then to ice the best team he could for the university.
I will always remember two incidents involving Flaman. The first came when
I was a journalism major (briefly) and needed to do an interview story for a
newswriting class, and I decided to interview him. He put aside whatever
he was doing (as he always would when I came in to talk to him) and allowed
me to interview him for a while on a variety of subjects, some dealing with
his career as a player and some dealing with his coaching career and
methods. (I wish I hadn't erased the tape I used.) After we were finished
he asked me to get him a copy of the story; I got the story back with a B or
something like that, then gave it to him, and a couple of days later I was
walking by when he grabbed me and said, "A 'B'!? She should have given
you at least an 'A-' on that!"
Then, in 1988 when I was all set to take over as full-time manager of the
Huskies, I discovered that I was going to have to remain on co-op through
the
fall, so I couldn't take the job (it worked out better that way anyway).
I went to see him, and he said that I had to do what was best for me, and
he added, "When you graduate and get a good job, and you're all set, just
come see me and say hi or take me for dinner. That's all I want you to
do for me - be successful at whatever you do." I was pretty impressed at
his attitude and I remember this whenever I hear about college coaches
being only out for the money and the wins. Maybe years of coaching a
struggling team taught him that some things were more important. I know
not everyone was happy with his coaching (especially those players who
weren't playing), and I wouldn't put him in a class with a Bob Johnson or
a Bill Cleary, but I thought he did a remarkable job with what he had and
to the best of my knowledge, he never compromised his values to get a
player or win a game. I guess that's what this article is all about.
Congratulations, Fernie. You deserve it.
- mike
--
[log in to unmask] UUCP: {uw-beaver,mit-eddie,yale}!apollo!mike_m
NORTHEASTERN HUSKIES --> 1988 Beanpot & Hockey East Champions
MERRIMACK WARRIORS --> 1995 Hockey East Champions
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