I just subscribed to this group a couple of weeks ago, and I am impressed. With all of the back and forth about the BU-Maine rivalry, and Joubert's unfortunate quote in SI (yes, friends, as a twenty-five year BU fan, I winced at his comments, too - don't be too hard on yourself, Deron), remember that the BU-Maine rivalry is a relatively recent development. At the risk of sounding REALLY OLD, we were in serious rivalries with that other Commonwealth Avenue Hockey team (BC - for those of you who are not familiar with Boston), the somewhat red team across the river (Harvard) and the Big Red of Ithaca back before there was a Hockey East and Maine joined the Division I ranks. The Cornell-BU rivalry got particularly hot in the early seventies when BU was smacked around by the NC$$ because a young fellow named Decloe had played Junior hockey in Canada, which the NC$$ weenies thought was too "professional" to permit US college play. The following year, we had to forfeit about half a season, as I recall, because the NC$$ disqualified two players named Buckton and Marzo for similar reasons. Of course, we were all convinced that it was all Cornell's doing, which only fueled the rivalry. Now there's HE - and instead of Dryden there's Allison (a super goalie if ever I've seen one; wish he had a red and white outfit on) and the two strongest teams in the recent past, in a pretty strong league, are Maine and BU. Even without the personal stuff between Walsh and Parker (which, of course, the media weenies like to emphasize), this makes for great rivalries and great hockey. May it ever be so. Lots of teams have much to be proud of for this past year. The Black Bears are certainly one of them. I look forward to seeing the Terriers meet them again next year, at the Pound and in the Den. Awfully long for a first post. Hope my ancient ramblings haven't bored you all. Saul Morgenstern - BU '74 GO BU - Home of the Terriers