At 7:02 AM -0600 10/20/96, Arthur Berman wrote: > They also noted that BU only has 13 forwards and, I think 8 (might be 9) > defencemen in school so injuries will be a major problem for BU this year > if they occur. The announcers pointed out that in their opinion the > scholarship limits are helping the competition. That's a funny way of looking at it. Nothing prevents BU from carrying more players on its roster like most other teams do. Rather, Jack Parker has decided that he wants to stick with fewer players for several good reasons (i.e., it means more practice time and game time for the players who are on the roster). It is a risk that he takes if injuries do mount up, but that was a decision he made. And it has been this way for a while - for several years, Parker has been in a situation where if BU is hit hard with injuries, it will be a problem. I'm not criticizing that decision and you can't argue with success, yet the situation needs to be explained since BU radio seemed to give an incomplete view of it. It is also important to note that while many schools take advantage of the opportunity to split 18 scholarships 30 ways, BU does not and probably has four or five fewer players on scholarship than most others. On the one hand, this means that BU has fewer players available in case of injury. On the other, it means that they can make better offers to the players they want than those other programs who wish to carry more players, thus BU likely has a better chance of landing those players they do want. The limits can help BU if they can offer more good packages to recruits. It cuts both ways. To me, the big thing that has made BU a true national power, comparing the late 1980s to the present, is that BU has rounded out its roster with key third and fourth line players (and role players) who make the team deeper and stronger. I believe what has enabled BU to land these players has been, in part, Parker's decision to go with a leaner roster, concentrating the awarding of scholarships on those players. It has resulted in more success than Parker had ever achieved before and was a great move because of that. But, if the dice he has rolled come up short in any particular season and injuries are a problem, it's going to be tough to find people outside of BU who agree with blaming the limits on scholarships. It's just a chance you take. The pluses have more than outweighed the minuses. BTW, even if BU should sustain enough injuries that the daily lineup is seriously affected, Parker has in reserve the names of players who did not make the team but are still in school and playing on excellent intramural teams, and who are available at a moment's notice. They aren't All-Americas, but some of these may be comparable to the lower-ranked players on a typical DivI roster. As an example, over the summer we played at BU with a goalie from Minnesota who is apparently ranked fourth on BU's depth chart even though he does not appear on the roster and does not practice everyday. He will, however, fill in at practice if the situation demands it, and I expect that if BU's roster goalies were unable to play, he would get the call. This isn't unlike what happened with Maine's Greg Hirsch a couple of years ago. Hirsch was a third or fourth string goalie for his first couple of seasons, then he did not appear on the roster and wound up playing intramural instead. When Maine's goaltending corps was hit with injuries (I believe Maine may have only carried two goalies that year, Allison and Marsh), Hirsch was called up and actually appeared in a game. The message board operator put up the quip, "It must be the pretzels", when Hirsch made his appearance. :-) (referring to the commercial with Seinfeld's Jason Alexander where Alexander gets called out of the stands to play net.) --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] *HMM* 11/13/93 ***** Color Voice of Merrimack Hockey WCAP 980 AM ***** ***** Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at: ***** ***** http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html ***** >>> U.S. College Hockey Online http://www.uscollegehockey.com/ <<< HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.