Walsh out, Gendron in for Maine on Friday

First-year University of Maine assistant hockey coach Red Gendron will be in the spotlight in Maine’s Friday night NCAA quarterfinal (best-of-three) series opener against the University of Minnesota.

Black Bears head coach Shawn Walsh will be serving his one-game suspension imposed by the NCAA last year after he criticized the officiating in his team’s NCAA first-round series with Wisconsin.

Walsh cannot have contact with his team one hour before Friday’s game until one hour after it and he can’t be located in seating or an area that isn’t available to the general public.

So Gendron and first-year graduate assistant Tim Whitehead will be behind the bench calling the shots and third-year assistant Grant Standbrook will be in the press box. Standbrook will be communicating with Whitehead on the headsets and Whitehead will be relaying the messages to Gendron.

“I’m just going to change the lines and coach the game as closely to Shawn’s way as possible,” said Gendron. “It will be up to the players to get the job done.”

Gendron and Whitehead teamed up on Oct. 27 to direct the Bears to a 6-3 win over Lake Superior State in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Walsh had returned home to be with his wife, Tracey, who was giving birth to their first child, Tyler. Standbrook was recruiting at the time. Maine had lost the first game of the series, 7-3, and Walsh left the following morning.

“That will help because this won’t be anything new,” said Gendron. “The players won’t feel totally uncomfortable since they’ve had me behind the bench before.”

Gendron added that he doesn’t anticipate any nervousness once the game starts because of his previous head coaching experience. He was the head coach for nine years at Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans, Vt., before coming to Maine.

Walsh said over the second half of the season, he has taken steps to prepare the team for Friday by quietly delegating more responsibility to the players. He said he would leave the locker room a few minutes early in order to let the players prepare themselves for the upcoming game.

And he has total confidence in his coaching staff.

“Red knows my style and the staff will be much more prepared than they were the last time (because they’ve had more time to prepare),” said Walsh. “The players win or lose games and I think our guys will play that much harder on Friday.”

“Coach Gendron and Coach Whitehead did a great job last time,” said Bear junior left winger and tri-captain Scott Pellerin. “We all know what we have to do. Having played as well as we did that night against Lake Superior will be a positive factor. And we’ve got a lot of leaders on our team. We’ll be well-prepared. This will be an extra challenge and we’ll have to rise to the occasion.”