If you haven’t purchased your Hockey East 25th Anniversary DVD and you’re not an alumnus or fan of Boston University, Boston College, Maine, or New Hampshire, save your money.
If you were totally unfamiliar with Hockey East and watched the DVD, you’d swear Providence dropped out of the league after the first winter and it’s been a four-team league ever since. The 66-minute main portion of the DVD is devoted almost exclusively to BU, BC, UNH, and Maine.
It’s almost as if the league’s other six teams — Providence, UMass Lowell, UMass Amherst, Northeastern, Vermont, and Merrimack — don’t even exist. I didn’t time it, but I’d be surprised if the scenes involving those six teams didn’t average less than two minutes apiece.
The tipoff should be a glance at the back of the DVD cover. There are four still photos of ... yep, you guessed it, BU, BC, UNH, and Maine.
Even when UMass Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald, assistant coach Shawn McEachern, and former assistant coach Kenny Rausch appear on camera sitting in front of a River Hawks sweater, they never talk about UML. Only about their days at BU.
Several minutes of the video are devoted to former BU forward Travis Roy, who gets far, far more time on air than he got during his tragic 11-second college career.
There are some featurettes included on the disc, including one about Merrimack goalie Joe Exter’s near-fatal on-ice collision with BC’s Patrick Eaves, and one about the UMass Lowell hockey team’s work in the community. But there’s no framework for the UML segment, leaving it hanging there like a dangling participle.
The DVD will be a terrific recruiting tool for BU, BC, UNH, and Maine ... at the expense of the other six teams.
UMass Lowell has videotaped every one of its games for the last several years and should have decent access to earlier video. MacDonald and his staff should create their own highlight video and make it available to potential recruits, because all the 25th Anniversary video will do is make league’s four powerhouses even stronger and the other six teams weaker.
