It wasn’t supposed to be this way. A 4-1 loss to UMass-Lowell dropped the Huskies into last place in Hockey East and out of the playoffs. We made the trip to the Tsongas Arena knowing Northeastern only needed a tie to make the post season.

Would we beat UNH? Probably not, but at least we would be in the Hockey East playoffs. A complete implosion by the Huskies on Saturday night eliminated the need to worry about the Wildcats.

It was the way Northeastern lost that drove me off the deep end. After grabbing a 1-0 lead early in the game and carrying play for part of the second period, I was making plans to get tickets for the New Hampshire match-up.

A late second period goal tied the game for the River Hawks and Northeastern was done. Poor fundamentals sealed NU’s fate. I never played at the Division 1 level, but I do know that poor passes in front of the net and rocket passes off the boards that deflect to the blue line to wide open River Hawks can be lethal. They were.

Bruce Crowder is a great guy. I remember the thrill when he was hired by NU after he lead UMass-Lowell to the frozen four. NU was finally going to have the coach to take the program to the top. It was going to be great beating up on Boston College and Boston University.

I met Coach Crowder in the Varsity room after a game early in his NU tenure. He was extremely gracious, ignoring some of my uniformed opinions and offered his insights on the proud NU hockey tradition. Coach Crowder was a total class act and I was completely convinced things were looking up.

And they were for a while. A few major battles have been won, including the upset of perennial powerhouse Wisconsin, led at the time by future NHL all star Danny Heatly. We even beat Boston University at our place for the first time in a long time.

I only made two games this year. The first was a thorough destruction of NU by Boston University. It was not pretty and I did not want to go back and see any more. So I missed my usual treks to Uno’s for dinner and the UNH, Boston College, Providence matches I looked forward to.

I was shocked when The News online edition reported fans were cheering, “Bruce Must Go.” I thought they must be wrong. After Saturday’s loss, I can begin to see what they were thinking.

Does Coach Crowder need to go? No. But we as the NU hockey community need more from the team and we need to do more. We are coming out in record numbers, even after ridiculous season ticket price increases several years ago.

The NU sports administration must now understand we need more grassroots support, not higher ticket prices squeezing families out of Matthews. Don’t they see all the “available” seating at the games? Let’s fill those seats with local youth hockey teams. Let’s do away with the goofy in between puck shooting on empty nets and have some youth hockey teams play a quick match and build some interest in our program.

I have talked with other alumni, and they lament NU’s recruitment of junior hockey players at the expense of local talent that fills the ranks at BC and BU. The alumni claim the high school kids stay for the four years, help build the program and are part of the recruitment process.

I know Coach Crowder isn’t happy with this year’s results, and neither are NU hockey fans. Can NU find a better coach to lead the program? I don’t think so but major changes need to be made.

– Greg Porell is a graduate

of the class of 1985.