Excuse Tim Whitehead’s Maine-sized smile. The Black Bears head coach is having as much fun this season as he’s ever had, and he’s got his team back on the perch of national relevancy.
After two trying years in Orono, Whitehead has Maine in contention for a home-ice Hockey East playoff spot, as well as a berth in the NCAA tournament. From an outside perspective, it’s been a wildly unexpected turnaround. After all, the Black Bears were picked to finish eighth in the Hockey East preseason coaches’ poll, and it wasn’t an entirely unfair projection, either, considering Maine’s 26-40-7 record over the last two seasons.
But Maine is 14-11-3 this season, including an 11-8-2 mark in Hockey East. The Black Bears have 24 points entering this weekend’s home series against UMass Lowell. They’re in third place behind New Hampshire (13-5-3, 29 points) and Boston College (12-7-2, 26 points), and the Black Bears have a slim edge on Boston University, UMass, Northeastern, Lowell and Vermont, who are all within five points.
“I know one thing for sure. I really like this team,” said Whitehead, who is in his ninth season on the Maine bench. “Our coaching staff really enjoys working with these guys. It’s really a great group of players. We had a couple down years, which may not seem that long to people outside the program. But for us, two years seems like 200 years. We’re really pleased to say we have that feeling back of the right culture, the right attitude, the right work ethic, and we’re very pleased and excited about the rest of the season and certainly the years to come.”
Prior to Maine’s two-year postseason disappearing act, Whitehead had the Black Bears in three of four Frozen Fours. Then, they were hit with a rash of graduating seniors and the stinging early departure of Teddy Purcell, who would be a senior this season if he stayed on campus.
Despite another youthful roster, Maine is back in the national landscape, and it’s got another Hobey Baker candidate in Gustav Nyquist, who is tied for the Hockey East lead with 42 points (14 goals, 28 assists). Nyquist traces this season’s success back to last year’s first-round playoff series against the Terriers, who advanced in three games.
“We played them really good, lost a 2-1 game,” Nyquist told Inside College Hockey in December. “I think that’s really when we felt we could do something special with this team.”
Whitehead saw the players take that momentum and turn it into a great offseason. They worked out with the right mindset, and Whitehead saw the attitude he’s grown to expect from the Maine hockey player.
“We had a pretty good hunch we would take a step this year,” Whitehead said. “It still remains to be seen how far we can get this year, but we think it is realistic at this point in the year to shoot for home ice in Hockey East and also an NCAA tournament berth. That’s what we’re pushing for. We think we’ve got as good of a shot as anybody.”
While the pair of losing seasons presented a unique challenge for Whitehead, this bounce-back campaign has created some different obstacles, too. Whitehead led Maine to six NCAA tournaments in his first six seasons in Orono, so he was also working with a roster of players who knew exactly how to win. If they were in third place in February during those seasons, they’d be working toward climbing up the standings during the final few weekends of the regular season. For those teams, the postseason was an afterthought – it was guaranteed.
Now, Whitehead and his players are dealing with the same set of expectations in Orono, but the coach is working with a roster that hasn’t accomplished anything in March or April. In that sense, these final three regular-season weekends might be exponentially more difficult as they deal with the unknown. Because of that, Whitehead is drawing back to his experiences as the head coach at Lowell, where NCAA berths and postseason success were anything but a given.
“This is different from where we were at as recently as ’07, and I think that was [Maine's] ninth consecutive NCAA tournament,” Whitehead said. “We were expecting to win. We went through a process there where we were hoping to win. And we’re at the point now where we know we can win, but we’re not quite at the point where we’re expecting to win. We still have to earn more confidence, so I think that’s an ongoing process for us. I’m certainly very comfortable in this situation with a younger team. We’ve been in that situation before. I think the difference this year from previous years up here at Maine is most of the team has not been to the NCAA tournament. They’re just a little green in that area, and that’s fine. We’re gaining great experience right now.
“But these guys know they’ve prepared. They’ve worked very hard. Yes, we do have to remind them to focus on the task at hand, and that’s one practice at a time, one game at a time. If you do that, they won’t be as concerned with the end result, how many games we can win down the stretch and whether we make the tournament or not. Of course, that’s in the back of their mind, and that’s fine.”
Since taking over for Shawn Walsh in 2001, Whitehead has driven one of the most successful programs in the country, and these challenges are what make him tick. He is 194-120-36 (.606) as the coach in Orono, which trails UNH coach Dick Umile (209-98-41, .659), BC coach Jerry York (212-104-36, .653) and BU coach Jack Parker (198-110-43, .625) in that span.
Obviously, the last two years were an aberration to Whitehead’s stellar record, and he spent many sleepless nights trying to overcome the losses. It’s finally happened this season, and with their nine leading scorers and starting goalie all eligible to return next season, the Black Bears won’t be falling into another slump anytime soon. That’s got Whitehead beaming with pride yet again.
“Like most coaches, I hate losing,” Whitehead said. “The last two years were very tough and very challenging, but every year is challenging, and every year brings different challenges. This year happens to be a lot of fun. I really enjoy working with these guys. Our captains have been great. It’s a very tight-knit group of players and coaches, and I’m really enjoying working with these guys. There’s so much to look forward to with this team – not just this year, but next year as well. I think all of the players sense that, and they’re excited about the progress we’ve made. They know it’s real progress. It’s not an accident.”
