Walsh was heart and soul of UM hockey

The last time I saw him was in New Jersey for the Stanley Cup finals this past June. He has been invited by the Devils and he let me know he would be there. He promised to come to the TV booth where I was broadcasting the game.

He did. With his brother Kevin beside him, we talked, laughed and got caught up. He had no doubts he would beat the cancer. That never changed.

This week we lost Shawn Walsh. A family has lost a husband and a father. A lot of people have lost a friend. It is also the end of an era for Maine hockey. We live in a moment where what’s important continues to be placed in sharp perspective.

We were in touch throughout his ordeal against the disease. As with everyone else he talked with, there was never a negative word, never a step back from the fight, never a nod to the seriousness of what he faced.

When he came to Maine, the battle was to keep the hockey program going. The move to Division I necessitated a change in how the program recruited and presented itself to the hockey world. Shawn relished the challenge.

We traveled together on the buses and planes as Maine became a hockey force. We journeyed west to take on the Western Collegiate Hockey Association teams in the Hockey East/WCHA combine that existed at the time.

There were welcoming lunches of 300 people or more at many of the schools. He spoke at each of them. They barely knew where Maine was, much less Orono.

That never fazed him. He stood proudly for the fledgling program that was taking on the hockey powerhouses and never gave an inch.

He took on those who said Maine could never match the programs of the Boston schools, much less the best of the other conferences. He preached the gospel of what Maine hockey was going to be.

He refused to believe that North Dakota or Northern Michigan or Boston College should have programs favored over Maine. He took the best of what he saw in those successful programs and incorporated them at Maine, and added so much more of his own.

He succeeded.

There came a time when we seriously disagreed over some matters regarding the Maine program. It was the time of the NCAA investigation. He said it hurt and he wished I felt other than I did. I told him it hurt a lot, and I wished I could feel otherwise. We went on.

As years passed, Shawn explored and expanded the deep soul of the Maine hockey family he represented. He reached out to those who had been involved before he arrived, the players in particular. Each year he wanted more of those players who had been with Jack Semler, Maine’s first coach, to come back to the summer alumni weekend. He grew to care about the whole body that is Maine hockey.

He grew as a person because of the hockey family of which he was such a central figure. We grew because of who he was and what he gave to Maine hockey.

We make our own monuments in this life. They are indelibly etched into the hearts and memories of those who knew us. They are the monuments that matter.

Over the days since his passing, those monuments have appeared on web sites, in newspapers and in personal notes to his family. They will multiply as we remember him this weekend in memorial services.

What matters is that his wife Lynne and his children know he was much loved and respected. That is permanent and that is good. In fact, that is all success can ever be. Shawn succeeded.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.