UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

[amkirby10]

Who gives a rats *** about the band

Listening to the band is one of my favorite parts of a game, personally.

[Yuppie Scum]

UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Sigh. And to make the evening even more pleasant the Merrimack band was the next section over. They have to be the most horrifyingly bad band that has ever been in that arena. (Including elementary school bands). Good gravy. How hard is it to hit the base drum in unison during a piece of music? It was like sitting next to someone who was scraping their nails on the chalkboard all night. [emoji33]

Well it looked sparsely attended, why didn’t you just move seats if you were so butthurt?

The MC band has shown flashes of brilliance.

[boblav1]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

well boys. do you want it? Well...?

It seems like we've been asking that question all season long.

Hopefully a better crowd turns out tonight. Only 2,849 showed up last night, the smallest crowd at the Tsongas in a while and the lowest of the 3 HE playoff games. Many of the season ticket holders around me were not at the game last night. I wonder if they passed on buying the playoff tickets this season.

[riverchief1]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

It seems like we've been asking that question all season long.

Hopefully a better crowd turns out tonight. Only 2,849 showed up last night, the smallest crowd at the Tsongas in a while and the lowest of the 3 HE playoff games. Many of the season ticket holders around me were not at the game last night. I wonder if they passed on buying the playoff tickets this season.

Weather may have had something to do with it as the doom and gloom tv weatherpeople played it up (except for the coast where it was hit hard). Expecting more to show up tonight. Then again, a lot of people are fed up with the inconsistent nature of this team all season and figure maybe they'd pass on the tix? Who knows? I know there's a lot of frustration in the fanbase with this team.

[Middle Street]

It seems like we've been asking that question all season long.

Hopefully a better crowd turns out tonight. Only 2,849 showed up last night, the smallest crowd at the Tsongas in a while and the lowest of the 3 HE playoff games. Many of the season ticket holders around me were not at the game last night. I wonder if they passed on buying the playoff tickets this season.

It was nice having the students at a playoff game for once. They were loud and engaged the entire game.

[ScottK]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

It seems like we've been asking that question all season long.

Hopefully a better crowd turns out tonight. Only 2,849 showed up last night, the smallest crowd at the Tsongas in a while and the lowest of the 3 HE playoff games. Many of the season ticket holders around me were not at the game last night. I wonder if they passed on buying the playoff tickets this season.

The attendance for the Bentley game was only 2,862. The last crowd at Tsongas that was smaller was the 2,414 for Quarterfinal Game 3 against Notre Dame in 2015.

[Turk_Sanderson]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Hey at least the basketball team came to play today

Up 11 in Baltimore at the half

I have no interest in sinking more money to the hockey team if the kids can check out so shall I....

This team was far from a what I expected a Bazin team to be not sure what happened but it's on him to fix it....

[RHawkobserver]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Last Sat night at the Tsongas, I thought there was a glimmer of hope as the Hawks had some bite to their game, played with some physicality and actually forechecked with a purpose, won some battles and created some offensive zone time and scoring chances that equated to 5 goals. Last night was reminiscent of the Fri game in Merrimack and the 5 losses at the end of the season. We go back to only forechecking one man, sitting back in the neutral zone on our heels waiting for the Merrimack attack to come and repeatedly turn the puck over in critical situations and areas on the ice. The result was creating zero offensive zone time that produced 7, 8, and 6 shots in the last 2periods and OT and only a handful of grade A scoring chances.It becomes very difficult to play with any pace and put together any momentum gaining shifts where you wear down your opponent when this is the game plan. Again we saw a mis-mash of new lines that produced no consistency and no chemistry. I keep hearing the caching staff talk about the strengths of this team and I don't see it nor do I see a game plan that plays to these strengths. What makes matters worse is that these players have no compete and many are just going through the motions at this stage of the season. We can see this very clearly in the fact that the coaching staff are still having to move players in and out of the line-up. A lack of talent, a lack of compete and a game plan that does not match the strength and weaknesses of your team results in your season ending very early. Last night was a bad hockey game played by 2 bad teams. Hopefully tonight we see a different outcome and a chance to extend the season.

[Patman]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Basketball is playing well and scoring on their chances though they’re taking a lot of fouls. Hopefully they’ll stay out of trouble. UMBC appears to be far more athletic

[Turk_Sanderson]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Basketball is playing well and scoring on their chances though they’re taking a lot of fouls. Hopefully they’ll stay out of trouble. UMBC appears to be far more athletic

Refs are calling way to tight of a game for a playoff game

If they can keep the 3 ball going and make UMBC run they might be able to pull this off

[riverchief1]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

It was nice having the students at a playoff game for once. They were loud and engaged the entire game.

Agreed. Let's hope even more of them show up tonight.

[Patman]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Ugh...

Basketball team lost discipline after UMBC game out firing. I’m not sure there’s much else to say other than that. They started panicking up 7 and it was down hill from there.

Alright. Time to get out of Lesser Arbutus, I need a beer

[Chiefof78]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

First time posting.....biding my time and biting my tongue before...lol. Approximate 8 year season ticket holder and this was my first time passing on the playoff round tickets. I just had no hope that this team could rebound and win a series after all the ups and downs this year. I listened to Bob and crew doing the broadcast and as soon as Merrimack scored with a little over 4 minutes remaining......i knew the outcome, as we do not have any semblance of consistent offense. After last year my lament was where is the scoring going to come from? While everyone can rightfully place blame on the players for lack of effort, i do think we need to point some blame to the coaching staff as well. Grit, determination and over-achieving can only last so many years. While I applaud the academic accomplishments of the student athletes, all of those characteristics can only take you so far for so long. The fraternity of coaches in Hockey East for the most point, sorry Dick Umile, pay attention and learn. The other teams in the league have stepped up their games. Look at the recruiting prowess of Providence, from a talent and academic perspective. I'm not sure why that can't be the same for UML. And now Massachusetts-Amherst (had to say it that way) and Maine are picking up their recruiting or re-energizing their programs while our recruiting has been sub-par given all the successess of the last few years. For me its the lack of talent through sub par recruiting that has us on the trajectory we are on......back to the old days of a 20 win seasons every 3 or 4 years and an occassional HE or NCAA appearance. If I look at our ratio of USHL recruits to other league recruits our talent level has suffered as the number of USHL players falls. Some prime examples are the lack of scoring form this team, which is painfully on display during power plays. Last nights back to back power plays were pitiful. I am not an X's and O's guy.......but for me its a simple fact that low goal scorers and lower skilled players equal poor power play production. Gone are those years when we had 10+ ten goal scorers and to me it falls on the coaching staff for either not coaching to the extract the most from the players and poor recruiting.

One last observation deals with the coach himself. I always watch the highlights, even when I attend the games, and always listen to the post game press conferences. When asked what the other team has changed that lead to their success, as in last night's overtime loss, the stock answer from Norm is that he needs to review the film. What about in game adjustments. Maybe I am taking comments out of context.....but should not we know what the other team is doing that is causing us to be outplayed and communicate that to the team in ways to counter their momentum? I don't know. Maybe I am just bummed out after all the sucesses of the past years. But every facet of this team has me kind of bummed out this year, coaching included. Still semi optomistic about the program in general, but i think we need to up our talent level to counter every other teams moves before we become the UML of the past

[riverchief1]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

First time posting.....biding my time and biting my tongue before...lol. Approximate 8 year season ticket holder and this was my first time passing on the playoff round tickets. I just had no hope that this team could rebound and win a series after all the ups and downs this year. I listened to Bob and crew doing the broadcast and as soon as Merrimack scored with a little over 4 minutes remaining......i knew the outcome, as we do not have any semblance of consistent offense. After last year my lament was where is the scoring going to come from? While everyone can rightfully place blame on the players for lack of effort, i do think we need to point some blame to the coaching staff as well. Grit, determination and over-achieving can only last so many years. While I applaud the academic accomplishments of the student athletes, all of those characteristics can only take you so far for so long. The fraternity of coaches in Hockey East for the most point, sorry Dick Umile, pay attention and learn. The other teams in the league have stepped up their games. Look at the recruiting prowess of Providence, from a talent and academic perspective. I'm not sure why that can't be the same for UML. And now Massachusetts-Amherst (had to say it that way) and Maine are picking up their recruiting or re-energizing their programs while our recruiting has been sub-par given all the successess of the last few years. For me its the lack of talent through sub par recruiting that has us on the trajectory we are on......back to the old days of a 20 win seasons every 3 or 4 years and an occassional HE or NCAA appearance. If I look at our ratio of USHL recruits to other league recruits our talent level has suffered as the number of USHL players falls. Some prime examples are the lack of scoring form this team, which is painfully on display during power plays. Last nights back to back power plays were pitiful. I am not an X's and O's guy.......but for me its a simple fact that low goal scorers and lower skilled players equal poor power play production. Gone are those years when we had 10+ ten goal scorers and to me it falls on the coaching staff for either not coaching to the extract the most from the players and poor recruiting.

One last observation deals with the coach himself. I always watch the highlights, even when I attend the games, and always listen to the post game press conferences. When asked what the other team has changed that lead to their success, as in last night's overtime loss, the stock answer from Norm is that he needs to review the film. What about in game adjustments. Maybe I am taking comments out of context.....but should not we know what the other team is doing that is causing us to be outplayed and communicate that to the team in ways to counter their momentum? I don't know. Maybe I am just bummed out after all the sucesses of the past years. But every facet of this team has me kind of bummed out this year, coaching included. Still semi optomistic about the program in general, but i think we need to up our talent level to counter every other teams moves before we become the UML of the past

Great first post and welcome! While this isn't the 5 win season and we all may just have very high expectations given the past 6 seasons (and rightfully so), couldn't agree more with this. I've been beyond puzzled the last few years why Lowell's success hasn't translated into more top recruits while lesser programs have gotten them. We'll never be up there with BC and BU but we should be in the trenches with everyone else. There is definitely a talent issue on this team and the diamonds-in-the-rough/hidden gems players are really far and few between and Lowell's done well with those the past several seasons, not so much this year. Perhaps they're trying too hard to find those sort of players, skipping over already developed and talented ones who might actually come here? Or is it the system Norm plays that only those sort of players are what he's looking for? Who knows. But there's no reason why Lowell should look the way they did against Merrimack last night.

Only three USHL players coming in next year out of 10 FYI.

[Patman]

Re: UMass Lowell 17/18 Season Thread: 21 Year Old Freshman Eating BU's Lunch

Great first post and welcome! While this isn't the 5 win season and we all may just have very high expectations given the past 6 seasons (and rightfully so), couldn't agree more with this. I've been beyond puzzled the last few years why Lowell's success hasn't translated into more top recruits while lesser programs have gotten them. We'll never be up there with BC and BU but we should be in the trenches with everyone else. There is definitely a talent issue on this team and the diamonds-in-the-rough/hidden gems players are really far and few between and Lowell's done well with those the past several seasons, not so much this year. Perhaps they're trying too hard to find those sort of players, skipping over already developed and talented ones who might actually come here? Or is it the system Norm plays that only those sort of players are what he's looking for? Who knows. But there's no reason why Lowell should look the way they did against Merrimack last night.

Only three USHL players coming in next year out of 10 FYI.

i somewhat disagree with his assessment but I have a hard time believing he can't get better quality pluggers if he's only going after pluggers. Quality should have improved at some level.