Hockey puts UMaine excellence in spotlight

I read with great interest the Saturday Bangor Daily News story about the benefits of a successful sports program, like our terrific Black Bear hockey team, to a university. We all take great pride in these young men and their outstanding accomplishments.

It occurs to me that it is useful to look at this success in a broader context. The hockey team shows the UMaine community and the people of Maine that our university can compete, successfully, with the very best.

This is also true in the academic realm. We take great pride in the fact that a great many of our faculty members are national and international leaders in their academic disciplines – in fields like climate change, forest bioproducts, eastern philosophy and religion, finance, composites engineering and early and adolescent literacy.

One of the real benefits of the hockey team’s success is that it helps focus attention on the widespread excellence that exists at UMaine.

John Mahon

University of Maine interim provost

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