The return of some of the members of Maine’s first hockey team to Alfond Arena last week brought back sweet memories.

This is the group that set the tone for the program. Their connection with the fans created a fervent base that continues to support the team to this day.

It was especially appropriate that Jack Semler, Maine’s first hockey coach, made a rare appearance at the university. If there is one person who has not received his due for the initiation of hockey at Maine, it is Jack.

I’m sure that is fine with him.

He came to the program late in the recruiting process for the first team and went out and found the likes of Gary Conn, Joe Crespi, Bill Demianiuk, and the rest of a crew that Maine fans would fall in love with.

Jack is a man of great depth and character. He is every ounce a competitor, combined with a humility and inner strength to be found in few people.

He created the Maine program with a competitiveness that mirrored his own constitution, but it was never win at all costs.

He treasured and respected opponents. In helping set up the first Friends of Maine Hockey he wanted the opposing team to be invited to post game receptions. He valued sportsmanship.

He hated recruiting. If you were coming to Maine to play it was because you believed in the program, wanted to add to its stature and needed no selling job to have those attributes instilled.

I have long believed that if anything drove Jack from the college game when he left Maine, it was recruiting because it certainly wasn’t his lack of love for the game or coaching.

I broadcast those games in Jack’s time at Maine. I loved every minute of it, and spending time with him was a big part of that joy.

I learned a lot about hockey, coaching and character from him over those after-game beverages at St. Lawrence, RPI, etc.

To this day, my respect for Jack Semler only grows.

One comes to understand the pressures coaches are under from all sides to build a winner. When it is character that matters more to a coach, as it did to Jack, the pressures can be many.

He never shrank from his beliefs, and make no mistake, losing was never acceptable.

He knew what his players could only learn later: that for most, their hockey careers would end at Maine and what they took with them from his program for the later years would be his measure of success.

Good for Maine for remembering the beginnings and the people who made it happen.

Maine hockey has a history, rich and successful, and those who were the first Black Bear hockey team are the foundation upon which the program grows.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net