Whoopee end season on mixed note April 3, 2002

By Phillip Ramati
Telegraph Staff Writer

Late swoon dooms team's playoff hopes

There are two ways you can look at the Macon Whoopee's just-completed season.

The glass-is-half-empty type will look at a team that contended for most of the season before going on a 13-game winless slide to finish below .500 and out of the playoffs.

The glass-is-half-full type will look at a team that wasn't put together until very late under a rookie head coach and contended for most of the season in the ECHL's toughest division before losing its best offensive player to a call-up.

Both views have their own merits.

Certainly, there was a lot of disappointment in the Whoopee locker room when the team that was in first or second place in the Southeast Division much of the year lost center Mike Green, who was called up to Cincinnati in the AHL, just before the trading deadline. Despite a flurry of moves by coach Gord Dineen to try to compensate for the loss of Green's firepower (62 points in 54 games), the Whoopee faded down the stretch, ultimately setting a franchise record for futility from the team's days in Tallahassee.

"Looking at it as a rookie head coach and the first year as an East Coast franchise, it's hard to put into words," Dineen said. "I always have higher expectations than people would assume; my hopes are higher than people would expect. Not making the playoffs was very disappointing. I definitely felt we should have made the playoffs. I guess from that standpoint, we underachieved. But I think we definitely opened some people's eyes around the league this year."

Even some of the players had ambivalent feelings about how the Whoopee's season went.

"When I first got here, it was a bunch of guys who never played together," said defenseman Rick Emmett. "If you had told me we would have finished .500 at the beginning of the season, I would have taken it. We overachieved a little bit and caught a lot of people off guard. The way we finished was obviously disappointing."

Thanks to an uncertain summer where the team didn't even officially enter the ECHL until June and the relatively late hiring of Dineen, the team wasn't put together until late, when many experienced veterans and promising young players were already committed to other organizations. The Whoopee didn't even have a goaltender on the ice during the first day of training camp.

"Hopefully, if I have the opportunity to do it here next year, I'll have longer to evaluate guys," Dineen said. "The late start was not as much a factor as in years' past because there was more talent filtering down from the American League. But from a rookie perspective, getting the young players, it was a big difference."

The young players that Dineen did get managed to make an impact, none more so than Green. Chris Madden was the team's lone all-star and arguably the Whoopee's MVP for his play in goal all season long.

"Watching Mike Green progress and carry this team on his back, then go to the next level, that was good," said Whoopee defenseman Milt Mastad. "There were a lot of factors that hurt us at the end, but losing him was huge. You can make an argument he was our MVP. Obviously, Chris Madden was also valuable. You'd have to give it to both of them."

Other young players, such as defensemen Michel Periard and Doug Schueller, also showed improvement.

"It was a great experience," Periard said. "This was my first year in the East Coast League, and I learned a lot more under Gord than I did last year (in the UHL). He showed me how to play at this level and what it takes to go to the next level."

The rest of the Whoopee also gave most of the credit to Dineen, not only for the job he did as a coach, but also for the atmosphere he built in the locker room.

"I think he did a tremendous job," Mastad said. "Certainly, our downturn in no way reflects the job he did as coach. He was more than fair with us; he's a classy individual that brought us together."

Added Emmett: "We had to make moves. Gord did a heck of a job all year getting the most out of this team that he could have. We had a great group of guys here. No one thought we'd do anything. There was no bickering, nothing. Thanks to Gord, it was a fun experience."

Perhaps what made the Whoopee unique this season, as Emmett pointed out, was that there were no real standouts. No one finished among the league leaders in any offensive categories or in goaltending. The Whoopee was near the bottom of the league in both power plays and penalty killing. Still, the team was competitive most of the season.

Dineen learned a lot during his first season and hopes to put the lessons to good use next year.

"Depth is something you need to be successful," he said. "With all of the call-ups and injuries, you need depth. When your top players move on, other guys need to rise up. We didn't have as much depth as other teams."

Dineen also said that he may alter his personality next season.

"I'm somewhat laid back away from the rink," he said. "On the ice, I was always intense as a player. (In the future), I'd think I'd be more intense as far as making guys more accountable."

Ultimately, what may have been most successful about the Whoopee was the bond the players formed.

"It's very rare to find this many guys you get along with," Mastad said. "When we had to make trades, it'd be tough because those guys getting traded were friends. But then, the guys we'd bring in we'd become friends almost immediately."

Said Dineen, "I'm very proud of the character in that (locker) room. One thing I liked from the start was the caring the guys had in the dressing room, the way they'd play for each other. Character goes a long way in being successful."

Home