shari writes: > One question... is Walsh really a whiner/egomaniac/jerk? I suppose this isn't a particularly unfair question. As I was a student at Maine when Walsh first started, I thought I could offer some perspective on this question. It should come as no surprise that Shawn Walsh *lives* for hockey. He was by no means a superstar himself, so he seems to live vicariously through the successes of his teams. As a rule, his teams and his players tend to overachieve. This is to say that, given a certain group of kids, he will probably bring them further than most any coach in the country. He and his staff are very good at "balancing" the recruiting classes; the net effect being that you don't get "down" years, but it's also tough to get that really *big* year. The down side of this is that he is a very intense individual on the ice. If you've ever seen an interview with him, you will note that he is typically very calm once he gets off the ice (there are exceptions to this rule ;-). I, personally, believe there is nothing wrong with pulling the illegal stick call; I think it's just an example of squeezing every last advantage (like last line changes at the HE championship) and I do *not* believe in the accusation that they tamper with people's sticks. A story from school might help to shed some light on Shawn Walsh's involvement at Maine. When Eric Weinrich was looking around at colleges, he came for a visit at Maine. Before he arrived, Walsh went around to all the dorms, called meetings and asked people to make signs to hang up for the game Eric would be attending. Walsh knew that there were two big advantages to getting Eric; the first was that he was a great defenseman and the second was that he was home grown (Gardiner, ME) and that was very rare and very valuable from a PR standpoint. When the game started the arena was papered with signs like "We want you, Eric" and such. Can you imagine the effect this would have on a high schooler from Maine? At Maine, Shawn Walsh is a bit of a cult hero just for this reason. He does public service announcements and is a genuine celebrity. Every now and again he makes believe he's thinking about going somewhere else so he can get more money for the program. So, in short, I can see where it would be easy for people who mainly get to see his antics on the ice to think he is an egomaniac/jerk/whatever. But the fact is, now that they rearranged the baseball regions he seems to be our only hope of that elusive first national championship (I can't believe Harvard beat us to it in 1989...). I'm glad he's on our side. -dug