ORONO – The hockey players were devastated but composed at Alfond Arena Thursday afternoon. They vowed to play as well as they can.

University of Maine hockey coach Shawn Walsh has been suspended without pay for a year, and the Black Bears will not compete in next spring’s NCAA tournament because of numerous NCAA rules violations, it was announced Thursday.

Most of the 40 or so infractions uncovered during the university’s 18-month examination of its athletic program involved hockey.

Assistant coach Greg Cronin, 32, suspended from recruiting off-campus for a month, will be the interim head coach. The other assistant, recruiting coordinator Grant Standbrook, will help him. Standbrook is prohibited from recruiting off-campus for six months.

“This rips the heart out of you,” said sophomore left winger Scott Parmentier. “I don’t believe it. We could have won a national championship this year.”

“It sucks,” said sophomore right wing Shawn Wansborough. “Our goal was to go to the NCAA tournament and win it. Now we can’t do that. I feel really bad for the seniors because they won’t have another chance to win a national title. Some of them were around when Maine won it in [1993] but they weren’t a big part of it.

“Not having Shawn Walsh around will be weird. For a lot of us, he was the reason we came here,” added Wansborough.

Play for the ratings

“We’ll want to win the Hockey East title and play for the ratings,” said Wansborough. “If we can be rated No. 1, whoever wins the national title will know they didn’t have to beat us to win it. They might feel they aren’t true champions.”

“We can still be a great team,” added junior center Tim Lovell, who has helped guide the Bears to an 8-0-1 mark in their last nine games.

Lovell called the sanctions “stiff” and said Walsh wound up absorbing too much blame.

“It isn’t just one person’s fault,” he said.

Butch and Nancy Furrough of Hampden have also been punished by the university for NCAA violations centering on a rental property and utility fees owed them by a former Maine player.

Butch was initially banned from associating with the program for three years but has been given a lifetime ban for refusing to answer more questions by the investigators from the NCAA and the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck and King after having been interviewed by them three times.

Nancy was banned for two years for failing to initially cooperate with the investigators although she eventually did.

They said Thursday the timing of Walsh’s suspension was poor but they knew Walsh was going to take a heavy hit because of the way the investigators dealt with people they interviewed.

“They went after Shawn tooth and nail,” said Furrough. “They were incredibly aggressive. I feel bad for Shawn. He’s a great coach. I always thought there was more to this than just Shawn Walsh. And I thought they could have waited until next year to start the suspension.”

Hockey East Commissioner Bob DeGregorio said the league will wait until the NCAA rules on Maine’s self-report to decide on Maine’s status for the Hockey East tournament next March.

He speculated, however, that the Bears would be allowed to play in the tournament based on the league’s decision to allow UMass-Lowell to do so after the NCAA placed that program on a two-year probation in 1992. Lowell was banned from the NCAA tournament the first year but played in the Hockey East tourney.

“I would be surprised if the athletic directors treated Maine any differently than UMass-Lowell,” said DeGregorio.

“We want to support the University of Maine every way we can to help them get through this,” said DeGregorio. “They are obviously a valuable member of Hockey East.”

The players said they owe it to Walsh and the Maine tradition to have a strong season.

“We’ll play for pride. There’s a lot of pride in this locker room,” said Wansborough. “When you put on this shirt, you feel it.”

Confidence in coaches

“Fans across the league are going to expect us to fall apart,” said Parmentier. “But we can still go out and prove we’re the best team in the country.”

The players said they will miss Walsh but they have confidence in Cronin and Standbrook.

“We all respect Coach Cronin and Coach Standbrook. We won’t have a problem playing for them,” said Wansborough.

Cronin has worn this hat before. He and Scott Owens coached Colorado College to a 3-4 start while head coach Brad Buetow was serving a 60-day suspension in 1992.

Standbrook and Cronin led the Bears when Hutchinson suspended Walsh for five games in December 1993. The team went 1-4.

“Shawn is the best coach in college hockey, and you don’t replace somebody like that,” said Cronin, a Colby College graduate. “But one of the life lessons I’ve learned from Shawn is whatever happens, you have to be able to interpret it in a positive way.”

Cronin said he intends to run the program just like Walsh and he has been told by Tyler another assistant coach will be hired.

“The players have a lot of respect for Shawn and they won’t let him down,” predicted Cronin.

Standbrook said he expects Cronin to do “a great job,” and he is taking his recruiting suspension in stride.

“This will be good for me. This will give me a chance to actually be here for consecutive days, and it will give me the opportunity to teach,” said Standbrook.

Former Hockey East Assistant Commissioner Nonni Daly of Old Town, past president of the Friends of Maine Hockey, was angered by some of the allegations made in the investigation. Several were found to be erroneous.

“There were a lot of people with their own vendettas [against the hockey program],” said Daly.

“I’m glad it’s over,” said longtime booster Jack Hart of Bangor. “Two years from now, it’ll just be a memory. Hopefully, the fans won’t jump off the bus.”