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    University of Maine Ice Hockey
    University of Maine Ice Hockey
    University of Maine Ice Hockey
    Ebook214 pages38 minutes

    University of Maine Ice Hockey

    By Bob Briggs

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    About this ebook

    Maine s long winters would seem the ideal place for hockey to develop, but blistering winter conditions, frigid temperatures, and windchill made the sport unpleasant and even dangerous. The problem was not solved until 1976, when Harold Alfond donated a large sum of money for the establishment of a suitable facility for indoor hockey. University of Maine Ice Hockey tells the story of how a small school from Maine with a student body of under 12,000 rose to be one of the top-tier hockey programs in the nation, one of the great success stories in modern collegiate sports.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJan 9, 2008
    ISBN9781439635773
    University of Maine Ice Hockey
    Author

    Bob Briggs

    Bob Briggs is a free lance writer born and raised in Maine. He is the author of books about his hometown of Hallowell, Maine and the University of Maine at Orno where he graduated with a BA in history. Mr. Briggs was for 10 years a religion writer for the Kennebec Journal. He has worked as a correspondent for the Capitol Weekly and other Maine newspapers.

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      Book preview

      University of Maine Ice Hockey - Bob Briggs

      rcbriggs.1@netzero.net.

      INTRODUCTION

      The passage of time has blurred the precise motions but not the imagery. Paul Kariya passes the puck to line mate Jim Montgomery, who beats the opposing goalkeeper. Coming in the last period of the last game of the 1993 college hockey season, it was the shot of hope.

      The University of Maine now trailed Lake Superior State by one goal, 4-3. Sitting in the press box at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, I looked at my colleague from the Portland Press Herald. Can Maine come back? Mike Lowe shook his head. He didn’t think so.

      The story of a state’s love affair with its university hockey team didn’t begin that April evening in the game for the NCAA Division I national championship. But what happened in that final 20 minutes helps explain the state of Maine’s fascination and its fanaticism, if you will, with the coaches and the players who are Maine hockey.

      Kariya had the puck again. He was just a freshman but had gifts that belied his youth. The day before he was presented with college hockey’s most important individual prize, the Hobey Baker Memorial Award. Montgomery, the senior captain, was also a finalist, and both had entered the hotel ballroom together with their coach Shawn Walsh for the presentation. Many in the crowd of hundreds of Maine hockey fans stood on chairs. The cheering became a roar.

      Kariya stepped to the microphone. He stepped back. For one of the few times, his unshakable poise was shaken. The crowd went crazy.

      On the ice, Montgomery looked to Kariya. With Cal Ingraham, they had played together for just one season but had developed that sense of anticipation of what the other would do. Montgomery took the pass and scored again. Now the score was tied at 4-4. My colleague looked at me.

      Maine is going to win, he said.

      The success of Maine hockey didn’t happen overnight. A brash, young coach named Shawn Walsh arrived in 1984, building on what Jack Semler had started with the first Maine team in 1977. Walsh beat the drums and sounded the trumpets even when Maine lost and the Black Bears did. Walsh wasn’t shy, and he was stubbornly optimistic. He was laying the groundwork, he insisted. Watch and see. Mainers did just that.

      Once more, Kariya took control of the puck. Minutes had fallen off the scoreboard clock, but there was still time. Days earlier, Walsh had courted the Wisconsin crowd. With their team eliminated in the NCAA regional tournament, he asked them to adopt the Black Bears. As Maine rallied, the Wisconsin Badger fans could not remain quiet. The noise got louder until it was bedlam as Montgomery took another shot.

      He scored.

      The faces have changed. College teams always renew themselves every few years as players graduate or turn professional. Cancer took Shawn Walsh, but not before his fight to beat the disease won new respect for a coach who had no peer.

      The hockey program itself was shaken by the failure to heed NCAA rules. Its integrity and credibility was tested. Walsh was suspended by the university for a year, and there were cries that he be fired. He returned from his suspension a chastened and changed man, and led Maine to another national championship in 1999.

      The words of Bob Briggs and the many photographs do their part to keep the story of Maine Black Bears hockey fresh. So do you, the reader, every time you turn the page and remember.

      —Steve Solloway, Portland Press Herald writer

      1

      BEGINNINGS

      THE 1906 UNIVERSITY OF MAINE MEN’S ICE HOCKEY TEAM. From left to right are (first row) R. Lambe (acting captain) and E. Lambe; (second row) ? Milliken, ? Miner, and ? Hosmer; (third row) ? Chase and ? Bagg. The team played an eclectic schedule against in-state college rivals Bates and Bowdoin, local high school teams, fraternities, and touring professionals. University of Maine (UMaine) was the first Maine college to recognize hockey as an organized team sport.

      THE LAMBE BROTHERS. The Lambe brothers were the first of many brother tandems to play hockey at UMaine. Multisport athletes Emerson Peavey Lambe (left), and brother Reginald Robert Lambe (below) hailed from Calais, Maine, and studied engineering. Despite efforts to establish hockey as a varsity sport to join baseball and football, the team quickly lost its varsity status and support of the athletic association. An editorial appearing in the Maine Campus, however, said that a hockey program would show the people outside our own state that Maine is not behind in any branch of college activities. If our athletes are to keep pace with our growth, a hockey team must come sooner or later, and the earlier the foundation is laid the better for us in the future.

      MAINE TO MEET ARCHRIVAL BOWDOIN. An advertisement in the Maine Campus entices students to attend the game against Bowdoin. The game was held at Bowdoin on a portion of the football field that had been flooded for the occasion. Home games at Maine were played on the Stillwater River in front of the campus. Games were contingent, however, on there being sufficient ice.

      FIRST INTERCOLLEGIATE GAME FOR MAINE HOCKEY. A reporter for the Maine Campus traveled to Brunswick to capture the historic

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