College Sports

Nostalgia comes flooding back with return of Maine men’s hockey to NCAA tournament

The Black Bears, a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, travel to Allentown, Pa. to face Penn State in the regional semifinals Friday.

By Chad Finn

March 28, 2025

5 minutes to read

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ORONO, Maine — The American version of “The Office,” which celebrated the 20th anniversary of its debut on NBC this week, is locked in a permanent dead-heat with “Cheers” as my favorite television show of all time. You know, in case you happened to be wondering.

Like many things, if not most, in entertainment and life, it was better in its early years than latter. But the most affecting line among hundreds of gems in the show’s nine-year run was delivered in the final episode, by Ed Helms as the otherwise annoying Andy Bernard.

“I wish there was a way,” he said, “to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

That line pops to mind often, and only partially because it has a second life as a common meme. It’s become a cliché because it is true. But I’ve come to realize that there is an addendum to that sentiment.

When you’re older, and something comes around again that unexpectedly carries you back to those good old days, it’s especially satisfying because you have the wisdom and awareness to appreciate it as it plays out.

I’ve been caught up in a certain spin-o-rama of nostalgia and appreciation since the University of Maine men’s team won its first Hockey East Tournament title since 2004 with a 5-2 victory over UConn last Friday at TD Garden.

The Black Bears, a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, travel to Allentown, Pa. to face Penn State in the regional semifinals Friday. A win would be Maine’s first tournament victory since 2007.

Rooting interests have to be tucked away in this gig, of course, but exceptions are made for the ol’ alma mater. We all have our places of the heart. The University of Maine, and its hockey program, are among mine.

I may have mentioned this before, back when Jim Montgomery, currently the thriving coach of the St. Louis Blues, landed the Bruins job in June 2022. And I won’t reiterate it in deep detail since so many reading this root for Terriers and Eagles and Huskies and happily get their head stuck in the Beanpot every year.

I’ll just say that the biggest break early in my career was getting to cover Montgomery, future Hockey Hall of Famer Paul Kariya (the Cooper Flagg of college hockey), brash and brazen coach Shawn Walsh, and the 42-1-2 Black Bears as an alleged student during the program’s first National Championship-winning season in 1992-93. (Maine won a second title in 1998-99.)

Those days, 32 years and countless miles in the rear-view mirror, remain vivid. Watching the Black Bears’ rejuvenation under fourth-year coach Ben Barr — and seeing the massive migration of Maine fans to the Garden last weekend — was so reminiscent of my days covering the program.

Maine’s return to prominence — which includes an ongoing $45 million renovation at its home rink, Alfond Arena — after a mostly lean decade-and-a-half is one of rare circumstances these days that doesn’t make me feel like I was invented before the wheel.

There are few strands connecting the current Black Bears to the 1993 team — obviously none of the current players were alive then — but Barr, indirectly, is one. Montgomery was an assistant coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2006-07 when Barr began his coaching career at his alma mater as a volunteer assistant.

“He had to share an office with the volunteer assistant coach, me, and we ended up becoming really close,‘’ said Barr during a conversation after Montgomery got the Bruins job.

When Red Gendron, Barr’s predecessor as head coach, died suddenly in April 2021, Montgomery and former Maine goaltender Garth Snow were on the search committee for a new coach.

“I think he’d tell you that he was hard on me in that process, because people knew we were friends, and he didn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to help you now, I want that Barr to get this job,‘” he told me in 2022.

Barr’s demeanor is the opposite of what Shawn Walsh’s was — the former is competitive but unassuming in a Brad Stevens kind of way, while Walsh, who died of complications from kidney cancer in 2001, might as well have been the inspiration for Danny Hurley.

Tradition can weigh heavy, especially when memories of the height of that tradition is all you’ve had for a while. Barr is too savvy to be making public comparisons to legendary Maine teams right now.

When he was asked Tuesday after practice at Alfond whether he has discussed Maine’s hockey tradition with the team, he deked past the question, saying, “It matters to this state. It’s a special place to be, a special place to coach and play.”

But he has used it as a tool during the season, and it’s a tool he knew he knew how to wield when he took over the program four years ago, even while winning seven games in his first season.

Earlier this year, Barr had members of the ‘99 championship team address the current players. These Black Bears see themselves as grinders, with just one NHL draft pick on the roster, UMass transfer Taylor Makar, a seventh-rounder by the Avalanche in 2021.

 “The ‘99 guys said that the ‘93 team was full of first-round draft picks and NHL kind of players,‘’ said Harrison Scott, a transfer from Bentley and assistant captain. “Their team had more of an underdog mentality. They didn’t have the quote-unquote fancy guys or the guys who had the big titles around their names. They had a bunch of blue-collar guys that just went out and earned it. And that’s what we’re all about.”

Larry Mahoney, who has been the Bangor Daily News’s Maine hockey beat reporter since the program’s inception, said when Barr took the job he recognized the tradition, even if it may have seemed dormant to some.

“Even when they stunk, they’d get 3,500 to 4,000 at Alfond,‘’ said Mahoney. “Ben recognized that if they had a lively crowd when they weren’t good, that old energy, that energetic crowd on game night, and the incredible atmosphere, would come back when they were. So he was able to say in recruiting, ‘Look, this is what they’re getting now. Just imagine what it will be like when you help us build a winner again.‘’

Maine players and coaches aren’t about to gripe, but Black Bears fans aren’t thrilled with having to play Penn State in their home state. For sure, they will remedy that by traveling well and en masse, just as they did in commandeering the Garden last week.

That is what it’s like now that Barr has built that winner again, and it’s how it used to be, too. Maybe these Black Bears will advance to the Frozen Four and create some new memories there. Maybe this year’s road ends in Allentown.

But the restored atmosphere, vibe, and passion around Maine hockey sure does make these brand-new good times feel like the old ones. An entire state savors being in them again.

Chad Finn

Sports columnist

Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.