Ely Ben-Naim writes:
>In reply to mike's comments i'd like to point out why
>i view maine and BU's success as compareble since HE was established.
>they both won as many championships (3), bu made the trip to the final
>4 something like 4 times and minae perhaps once more, bu apeared
>in the champ game twice and maine once. The only category that maine
>has advatage in the NCAA turney is winning it once (that is very
>important, i admit). Maine vs BU record is almost tied maybe maine
>won two more.
Well, first of all, it's all relative based on what one considers to
define success.
Getting that out of the way :-), I think I would have to disagree...
IMO, Maine has had more success than BU since HE was formed. Although
you have demonstrated a few things that show the teams to be even,
there are other factors that weigh heavily in Maine's favor.
For example, years of BU having great success: 1986, 1991-94. Maine:
1987-93. Maine spans a longer period of time and would have more NC$$
tourney appearances (7 to 6), more HE regular season titles (5 to 1),
etc.
BU was quite average at best from 1987-89 and had to pull a miraculous
upset of MSU in 1990 to get to the Final Four. After that season,
they established dominance to the extent Maine that already had for
the 3 seasons prior to that. Many people forget how ordinary BU was
for the several seasons prior to 1990 or so, even less than ordinary.
However, give it several more years, and I think BU might be able to
legitimately claim to have had about as much success as Maine since
1984.
Here are the teams' annual records for the last 10 years, forfeits
aside. It seems that you can give an edge to Maine in 6 of those
years and to BU in 3, with one (1991) being a wash. Maine's overall
record since 1984 is also better than BU's, and BU had a huge two year
head start.
Maine BU
1984-85 12-29-1 24-14-4
1985-86 11-28-1 25-14-4
1986-87 24-16-2 19-15-3
1987-88 34-8-2 14-17-3
1988-89 31-4-0 14-20-1
1989-90 33-11-2 25-17-2
1990-91 32-9-2 28-11-2
1991-92 31-4-2 22-9-4
1992-93 42-1-2 29-9-2
1993-94 17-15-4 32-8-1
1994-95 12-0-5 9-3-3
OVERALL 279-125-23 241-137-29
(.680) (.628)
Head to head, I only have on hand results since 1986, but Maine has a
huge 23-9-4 advantage. Since 1986-87, there has only been one season
in which BU won the series - last year. It was even twice, and Maine
won the series 6 times. Maine won 11 straight from 1986 until 1989.
I'm expecting that BU won the season series in 84-85 and 85-86, but
that would still leave Maine with a good advantage in the overall
set since HE was formed.
Also, on the rivalry...I have had many BU fans tell me they don't
perceive much of a rivalry with Maine. Not anywhere near the rivalry
with BC, anyway. They think that because both teams are good, it
makes for exciting hockey, but the years that Maine, BU & BC were all
good (1990-92 or so), there was no comparing a BU-Maine game with a
BU-BC game in the eyes of most BU fans. That was the impression I got
watching those games as an outside observer, too. Even today, BU
people say they still prefer beating a weaker BC team to beating a
better Maine team. :-)
I haven't looked into this yet, but off the top of my head, I would
guess that a Maine-BC comparison would appear to be closer than a
Maine-BU comparison. By how much, I'm not sure.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93