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Forget suspensions, injuries and three-game losing streaks. That was the easy part.
For the University of Maine men’s ice hockey team, the fun has only begun.
In less than three weeks, the Black Bears will travel south to kick off the second half of the season. And with it, an attempt at a record eighth consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.
“I am really excited for the second half,” said UMaine head coach Tim Whitehead. “I am excited about this team, I think its a very close knit team, a very tight team. I think they have stuck together admirably through a lot of adversity recently.”
That adversit, which Whitehead speaks of finally looks like it has subsided. On Monday, interim athletic director Blake James handed down the last of his suspensions to junior Mike Hamilton for a brawl that occurred last month at Washburn Place apartments. Along with delivering Hamilton a four-game suspension, James reinstated Wes Clark after a month away from the team. Both players were suspended from the team indefinitely on Nov. 16 and summoned to Penobscot County Superior Court in Bangor, when the pair entered a UMaine baseball player’s apartment and proceeded to grapple with the man.
“Overall, we’ve learned a lot about our team in the fall semester, both on and off the ice,” said Whitehead.
Brent Shepheard, Rob Bellamy, Bret Tyler and Travis Wight also entered the apartment and recieved criminal trespassing charges.
Hamilton and Clark have since been sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Along the way, Whitehead learned a lot about his team and its character.
“They really have stuck by each other,” said Whitehead. “I really like this team.”
The Black Bears will need that unity to survive the second half of a season that includes series against Providence, Boston College, Vermont and New Hampshire.
“I think the second half is going to be a great challenge for us and I mean that in a good way,’” said Whitehead. “It’s going to be a lot of fun, there’s a lot of potential there for us to do something special.”
The Black Bears will enter the second half with a record of 11-5-0 after going 8-1-0 in October. However, the focal point of the Black Bears’ last 20 matches will be their Hockey East record of 5-4-0. The Black Bears will need to improve that record if they wish to garner a home-ice advantage in the quarterfinals of the Hockey East playoffs. Right now, the Black Bears stand at fifth in the league and ranked ninth in both the USA Today-USA Hockey Magazine poll and USCHO-CSTV poll.
“I think we’re a much better team and a much more intelligent team than we were at the start of the season,” said Whitehead. “I think we know what type of game we have to play on the ice.”
One of the key factors for UMaine in the second half of the season will be what happens in the goalie season. So far this year, the Black Bears have switched between Ben Bishop and Matt Lundin in net. At times, though, Whitehead stuck with Bishop for consecutive contests.
This happened when Whitehead started Bishop for four straight regular season decisions against UMass-Lowell, UNH, Vermont and Providence. During this period, Bishop’s goal against average dropped from 1.49 to 2.17, while his record skidded from 5-1-0 to 6-4-0. Although still good enough for 11th in the country, the decrease in production is curious.
“I would like to go, as I wanted to do at the start of the year, but it just didn’t work out that way, with alternating goalies,” said Whitehead. “Especially since we have two game sets every weekend.”
“I am not going to 100 percent commit to that,” said Whitehead. “If it is not in the team’s best interest I won’t do that.”
Man of the moment, Lundin, who has collected two straight wins in the last two Black Bear efforts, will likely see his game total increase in the coming months. Lundin has registered a 1.96 goals average and a .957 save percentage for a 5-1-0 record. Lundin has also recorded two shutouts on the year.
“We always want to play the goalie that is going to help us win that particular game,” said Whitehead. “But we have to consider the best interest of the team in the long run.”
Whitehead believes that playing one-game sets so often eliminated the chance to start two goalies in a weekend.
“It put us in a difficult situation because when you get into those single game scenarios, it just changes the urgency of each game and just where the team was at,” said Whitehead. “We didn’t have the luxury of two back-to-back games where you could get into that groove. And that’s fine, part of it was based on how each goalie performed.”
The Black Bears will need both goalies at the top of their form, when they return from their current two week layoff at the Florida College Classic. UMaine will begin the tournament with a duel on Dec. 27 against Minnesota-Duluth in Estereo, FL.
Whitehead is excited about the chance to head south for a contest against the WCHA opponent.
“Certainly, when you face good competition like we are going to experience down there, in a very unique setting, it’s going to be a great experience for everybody,” said Whitehead.
The Black Bears will face Cornell or Northeastern the next night depending on if they win or lose.
“Anytime you can get on the road with your team together, just a team, I think it’s going to be a great experience,” said Whitehead.
Whitehead feels the break between Saturday’s 5-2 victory over Northeastern and the Dec. 28th match with Minnesota-Duluth will be good for his squad.
“The team needs a break now,” said Whitehead. “We need to recharge our batteries and do well academically over the next 10 days. We are a team that takes a lot of pride in our academic results.”
The time off may also assist the Black Bear offense in rediscovering themselves. Before Saturday’s pummeling of Northeastern, UMaine had failed to score more than two goals in six straight games. To continue to run up the score, the Black Bears will look to Billy Ryan, who has four goals and 12 assists. Hoping to aid Ryan will be Greg Moore, with a team-leading 10 goals and four assists, and Josh Soares, who has hauled in six goals and eight assists.
“We really feel we have good depth on our team,” said Whitehead. “Every player in our arsenal is a big plus for us. We’ve had lots of guys step up throughout the season and allow us to get off to a good start.”
UMaine will play the Bulldogs Dec. 28 at 7 p.m. in Estereo.
Bangor Daily News