When it’s empty, the University of Maine hockey locker room is more a sanctuary devoted to the past than the present.

Pictures and plaques of past dynasties serve as reminders of the All-Americans, Olympians and pro players who went to Maine.

But alongside Sports Illustrated articles and framed photos of the Paul Kariyas, the Scott Pellerins, the Jim Montgomerys are college-kid type collages of Maine’s celebrated stars with many of its lesser-known players. Because the dynasty is also a family.

Nobody knew that better than Greg Cronin when he went from assistant coach to interim head coach of the Maine hockey team on Dec. 24, 1995.

Cronin put aside his position as assistant coach 11 months ago and took over when the university suspended head coach Shawn Walsh for a year because of his involvement in several NCAA violations. Immediately, Cronin’s role as coach became more demanding and his role as confidant became more crucial.

Cronin shares with the team the kind of understanding one would expect from someone who was its assistant coach for two years. He lifts weights with the players, does dry-land training with them, and talks to them about their problems.

Cronin is also an intense coach who explodes in meetings and between periods. In fits of disgust, his outrage has drowned out TV interviews, led him to break sticks, caused him to break his hand.

Now, as his time as head coach comes to an end, the 32-year-old Cronin thinks the exhausting, exhilarating experience of leading a top Division I hockey program for 11 months has changed him.

The truth is the sanction-plagued year of unending adversity, controversy, and work have allowed Cronin to be more himself. Because those are conditions under which he was raised.

Growing up hard

Cronin grew up in South Boston, where he learned to fight. He saw his brother, Donny, stabbed at Arlington High School and fought his parents when they put the boys in a safer prep school in Cambridge.

“I did my thesis at Colby on the evolution of Irish immigration. That was the personification of my upbringing,” Cronin said. “We were dirt poor. My mother was first generation, my father was second.”

Cronin followed Donny to Colby to play hockey. As a financial aid recipient, he spent summers working in his cousin’s construction business to help pay for his education. When Cronin graduated in 1986, his cousin went into the seminary and Cronin took over the business. He was making $1,000 a week, but grew depressed.

“I wanted to be more productive,” Cronin said. “People see me and think I’m cold, stone-faced. I wanted to work with people.”

Cronin had never traveled beyond New England except to hockey games in Canada. He had never been on a plane. Ten years ago at this time, he went and bought a ticket to New Zealand.

Leaving behind the construction business, he arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, and wandered for five weeks. But Cronin became homesick. Finally, he stopped at a phone booth, called his father and said he was ready to go home.

His father told him he could crumble and quit, he could meander along, or he could embrace the challenge.

Cronin decided to learn from the experience. He found his way around New Zealand after that. He bought a car at an auction, worked on a sheep farm for 10 weeks, and took whatever work came his way. His father’s simple message had been a defining moment in his life.

However, the moment from Cronin’s past that best mirrors his trials as Maine’s head coach was not during his time in New Zealand, but at the end of his odyssey.

“I nearly died. That’s something not a lot of people know,” he said.

When Cronin returned to America, he met a friend in Oregon and the two traveled home together. To save money, they drove a car for a woman in San Francisco to Cambridge, Mass.

They were heading through Yellowstone Park when they stopped to camp, and the cold April night forced them into the station wagon. Cronin tried to heat up a can of soup with a portable stove, not realizing the gas in it was leaking.

“I said, `Hey Ernie, do you smell something?’ ” Cronin recalled. “Not two seconds later, there was this explosion and a blue flame filled the car.”

Both escaped through side doors. They moved away and watched the car blow up. Later, they were picked up by an elderly couple and dropped at a bus terminal. From there Cronin called home again.

“I was expecting sympathy,” Cronin said. “I will never forget. I told my father `This thing leaked and I blew up a car.’ `Where are you?’ he said. I said, `I’m in West Yellowstone Park and I need 120 bucks for a bus back to Boston.’ And he says, `How stupid are you?’ Like I knew the canister would leak and blow up the car.”

A delicate balance

Without a doubt, Cronin developed his street-tough attitude from a childhood in South Boston. He gained a love of problem solving from his travels in New Zealand, and he inherited his blunt, harsh manner from his father.

But nothing prepared Cronin for the challenge of leading Maine through a season of controversy.

When Maine announced its self-imposed sanctions for NCAA violations last December, Cronin worried the public scorn and penalties would destroy the team’s confidence. He wanted to be both friend and enforcer.

“My first responsibility was salvageability, crisis management, emotional massaging,” Cronin said. “If you massage too much, they feel sorry for themselves. You don’t want to compromise yourself as a coach.”

After Cronin took over, Maine played seven exhibition games in Canada and he sought advice from Mickey Goulet, his Colby coach and the first head coach under whom he had worked. Goulet had gone on to coach at the University of Ottawa.

“I told him he had a tough road ahead,” Goulet said. “It wasn’t an easy situation with all the negatives surrounding the program. Greg realized he was walking into a hornets’ nest. Worry doesn’t serve a purpose. He just looked for solutions.”

Having served as interim head coach at Colorado College, Cronin had experience running a program. As a graduate assistant and assistant coach at Maine, he had insight into the pressure at Maine.

Cronin felt the best way to compensate for the negativity and criticism surrounding the program was to overcompensate, to be patient and forgiving when the players were depressed, and to be angry and vehement when they were lazy.

“At first we were shocked there was no postseason,” sophomore Steve Kariya said. “We were a good team and had a chance to win the NCAA tournament. Obviously, there was frustration. But coach Cronin put it right up front.”

Cronin faced his first challenge when Maine went on its road trip through Canada and he detected a sense of futility among the players. He took a rare tact and allowed the team to clown around and let down.

“They needed to be allowed to goof around. Shawn doesn’t let them make noise on the bus. He doesn’t like it,” Cronin said. “I don’t either. But I let them blow off steam.”

The truth is Cronin allowed the lapse of decorum to safeguard himself. He said he feared pandemonium, rebellion, a small mutiny. What worked in his favor was the team respected his blunt manner.

“Cro recruits guys into his mentality,” senior Trevor Roenick said. “He’s more one of the players. He clowns around with us, but guys give him full respect. I expected he’d come in and lead on a personable level.”

Cronin’s leadership came mixed with a commanding, aggressive presence. In the thick of the season, his demanding style encouraged the team with dramatic emphasis.

When Clarkson University broke Maine’s 11-game unbeaten streak, Cronin responded by breaking Scott Parmentier’s favorite stick.

Before the third period, Cronin attempted to rally the team in an emotional speech. He grabbed Parmentier’s stick, not knowing it was the one the left winger had used for four years.

“I grabbed his stick and said `You’re not using this,’ and snapped it,” Cronin said. “Then when he went back he had two breakaways. But he wasn’t playing [hard]. I said to the players, `What’s with him?’ They said, `Cro, you broke his favorite stick.’ ”

Oddly, Parmentier remembered thinking he should put his stick against the wall, then decided to keep it with him. But he said the incident wasn’t a big deal.

“It was just a stick I liked. It didn’t bother me. That’s the way he motivates the team. One-on-one it’s different,” Parmentier said, then grinned. “I just used it as an excuse for why I missed the breakaway.”

Cronin had more success with his demonstrative tirades in the Bears’ Hockey East semifinal game against UMass-Lowell. Maine was losing 2-1 after two periods and injured forward Tim Lovell and assistant coach Grant Standbrook were with Cronin on the bench. All three were upset.

“Timmy said, `We’re not competing,’ and Grant said `Timmy is right,’ ” Cronin said.

Before the third period, Cronin started by calmly making adjustments. Then he began to erupt. He tried to lift a barrel filled with water but it only splashed in his face. Looking for another form of expression, he smacked his hand on the table. He smashed it down again and again. When the team left the locker room, Cronin’s hand was broken in three places.

The Bears – unaware of Cronin’s pain – went out and scored four unanswered third-period goals to rally to a 5-2 victory.

Reminded of the episode, Kariya laughed.

“I didn’t even know he broke his hand until the day after,” Kariya said. “He is so tough. That shows how much he cares about the team. He is passionate. He cares so much for each player to have success.”

Cardinal said Cronin’s dramatic speech was not as out of control as it sounds in the retelling. Standbrook agreed.

“When Greg broke his hand, he handled it the way he saw fit for the circumstances,” the comparatively soft-spoken Standbrook said. “He’s intuitive enough, articulate enough, and intelligent enough to express what has to be said with clarity. Greg is impulsive and explosive, but he takes a very good read of the circumstances.”

Goulet, who has known Cronin since he entered coaching, described him as a lamb hidden inside a lion.

“As a player he was very intense,” Goulet said. “Coming from Arlington, he wanted to win so badly. I had to tone him down. But if you take the time to get to know him, you realize how much he cares about people.”

Getting through

Cronin said he uses dramatic, physical displays of anger because Maine players respond when he is more demonstrative. Junior defensemen Jeff Libby of Waterville said that’s true.

“The team started working harder toward the end of the year when Cronin had to erupt,” Libby said. “It’s too bad he has to shout and get physically and emotionally upset. We should love the game enough that he doesn’t have to. But we need it.”

Freshman Shawn Mansoff said he enjoys Cronin’s sound and fury. When Cronin gets upset, Mansoff wants to play harder.

Mansoff said when Cronin lost it after Maine’s 3-0 loss to defending national champion Michigan last month, Cronin’s anger was somewhat frightening, but motivating. The next day, Mansoff said the Bears were a better team in practice and a day after that they defeated Lake Superier State 7-4.

“Greg creates a great atmosphere. He’s intense, just the way he works hard,” Mansoff said. “He’s a coach you want to impress. You care what he thinks. You want to come through to make him happy.”

Surprisingly, after leading Maine to a 26-9-4 record and the Hockey East finals last season, and a 4-2-1 start this year, Cronin considers himself just one among the group.

“It’s our team,” Cronin emphasized. “It’s not my team. We shared in ownership. We’ve been through a heck of a lot together, a lot of controversy. They’ve been galvanized and polarized. We are much more of a tighter family.”

So then, it will be a relief to turn over the team to Walsh on Dec. 24? Is Cronin turning it over?

“Yeah. Of course I am turning it over,” Cronin said softly.

“I don’t worry about it,” he continued. “I’m more concerned we have success. I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t had a chance to.”

Cronin describes the past year as a frustrating, educating, unending episode of adversity. And through Maine’s year of trial and punishment Cronin said, ultimately, he has changed as a coach.

Cronin said he has become more objective and patient. He has learned the greatest challenge of a head coach is to stay energized and optimistic.

However, senior Reg Cardinal said the only difference in Cronin is he has more responsibility. Parmentier also said he was able to talk to Cronin far more when he was an assistant. But neither is surprised.

“He has been through a lot personally with the NCAA troubles,” Cardinal said. “We all believe in him as a coach and as his friend. He understands me as a person. I couldn’t compare him to anyone. No, he’s still the same guy.”

MAINE vs. NEW HAMPSHIRE

Time, site: Friday, Saturday; 7 p.m.; Whittemore Center; Durham, N.H.

Records: Maine 4-2-1 overall (0-1-1 Hockey East); UNH 5-2 (4-0)

Series: Maine leads 34-19-3

Key players: Maine – C Steve Kariya (5 goals, 3 assists), C Dan Shermerhorn (4 & 4), RW Cory Larose (1 & 6), RW Shawn Wansborough (1 & 5), LW Reg Cardinal (3 & 3), D Jeff Libby (0 & 4) G Alfie Michaud (4-2-1 record, 2.67 goals-against average, .876 save percentage); UNH – LW Tom Nolan (5 & 9), C Jason Krog (5 & 7), RW Eric Boguniecki (3 & 6), RW Eric Nickulas (6 & 2), C Mark Mowers (3 & 5), D Tim Murray (0 & 4), G Brian Larochelle (5-2, 3.29, .886)

Outlook: Maine is 7-1-2 against UNH in the last 10 meetings including a 4-0-2 mark a year ago. However, the Bears will be without LW Scott Parmentier (back), C Jason Vitorino (knee) and D Jason Mansoff (infected elbow) and RW Wansborough has been playing despite a virus that has sapped his strength and endurance. The UNH lines of Mowers between Boguniecki and Derek Bekar and Krog between Nolan and Nickulas are two of the most prolific lines in Hockey East. UNH is coming off 1-0 and 5-4 (OT) wins over UMass while Maine tied (2-2) and lost (4-3) at home to Northeastern. UNH swept the Huskies 7-3, 9-4 two weekends ago.

The Bears will have to weather UNH’s offensive flurries and pressure the Wildcat defense corps and goalie Larochelle. The defense and goaltending aren’t as strong as the forwards. Michaud must play better than he did last weekend. He will be much busier.