The pall that has hung over the University of Maine hockey t The pall that has hung over the University of Maine hockey team just won’t go away.

With months of research, interviews, reports, compliance, and self-imposed sanctions behind them and a new season ahead, the Black Bears still are not free of the disheartening drama the NCAA bureaucracy brings.

For the past week, UMaine freshmen Alfie Michaud, Robert Ek and Shawn Mansoff have been barred from practice until the NCAA Eligibility Clearinghouse approves their eligibility and allows them to practice with the team. Yet, all three sent in their high school transcripts to the clearinghouse a month ago.

On Monday, starting goalie Michaud was cleared by the clearinghouse, but Ek and Mansoff are still waiting. The frustration for all of them comes from knowing they missed UMaine’s first practice at Midnight Madness and the next practices when they believe they are eligible and admissible.

“We’re missing the conditioning the team is getting,” Mansoff said. “We skate on our own. We’ve been doing dry-land training on our own. It’s hard because the team is learning stuff we’re missing.”

All three players were recruited late in the summer and sent their high school transcripts and official documents of graduation to the clearinghouse at the beginning of September. The clearinghouse was an agency created by the NCAA two years ago to expedite the process of reviewing student athletes academic information to approve their eligibility.

Yet, since Sept. 30, when the 14 days of preseason ineligible players are allowed expired, the three players have not been allowed to join the team workouts or meetings until they are cleared.

“I check and talked to the compliance office every day, mostly I talk to Greg [Cronin],” Ek said. “It’s very strange for me.”

Maine interim head coach Cronin is exasperated by the confusion.

“The clearinghouse was created to increase the speed and efficiency of clearing potential student athletes. I think it’s a joke,” Cronin said. “It has had the information for over 30 days and there has been misinformation, misplaced mail and mis-evaluated information.”

UMaine assistant baseball coach Jay Kemble, who has been filling in for UMaine compliance director Tammy Light while she recovers from stomach surgery, has been the mediator between Cronin and the NCAA clearinghouse for the past week. Kemble was more forgiving of the NCAA.

“They have to deal with 80,000 freshmen,” Kemble said. “The clearinghouse is only two years old. You learn to expect delays. It still is getting the kinks out.”

Mansoff sent his official high school transcript to the clearinghouse a month ago and blamed himself for not sending it earlier. However, Mansoff added he has had to send the same information three times to the NCAA. And the constant misinformation Cronin has received from the NCAA regarding when the players will be eligible to practice has been a mean tease.

“Saturday we thought we might be able to play,” Mansoff said. “We knew when we came to the arena that we couldn’t. It was disappointing.”

NCAA officials could not be reached for comment.

Cronin said over the past month the clearinghouse has repeatedly made mistakes.

Once the agency called to say Ek didn’t have all of the 12 core courses required for admission. Last Thursday, the clearinghouse told Dino Mattessich that within 24 to 48 hours all three players would be cleared to play. Each time the clearinghouse was wrong.

“The players are the casualty of an agency that keeps rearing it’s ugly head,” Cronin said of the NCAA. “[Executive assistant to the president] Bob Whelan said if it goes much longer, the president’s office will try to move things along. It’s kind of embarrassing. We have a goalie on scholarship and a Swedish players paying his own way and they haven’t been allowed to be part of the team.”

UMaine’s hockey program has received verbal commitments from a pair of 21-year-old defensemen who will begin their careers following the first semester.

Adam Tate is a 5-foot-10, 182-pound offensive-minded blueliner from Kanata, Ontario, and Mike Garrow is a 6-foot-1, 196-pound stay-at-home type from Kenard, Ontario.

Tate has been admitted to school but must await final authorization from the NCAA Eligibility Clearinghouse. Garrow has been approved by the clearinghouse but must be accepted by UMaine.

“I can’t wait to get there,” said Tate, who had 44 points in 32 games for the University of Cape Breton and the East Hants Molson Penguins of the Maritime Junior A League last season.

Tate has visited Maine and said he was impressed with the school, the honesty of assistant Grant Standbrook and the players.

“The players I talked to had smiles on their faces so they must be having a good time. I want to get my education and play hockey,” Tate said.

Garrow, who was an all-star for Smith Falls in the Central Ontario Junior Hockey League, could not be reached for comment but his mother, Diane, verified that he is headed to Maine.

“Adam is a great skater whose best attribute is his speed,” said Archie Mulligan, his former Kanata Valley (Ontario) Laser coach. “He’s small for a defenseman but he doesn’t mind the physical going.”