So three University of Maine hockey players are suspected of criminal threatening and making racially motivated threats against a black football player.

Surprised? Not me.

The specifics should shock us. The language used on that taped message should make us feel ashamed, alarmed and angry.

But let’s not be surprised.

This is not, after all, an Ivory-pure UMaine hockey program. And while coach Shawn Walsh and the university have made the right decision by suspending the accused, it’s time to recognize that though the school wants to turn the page on its sordid past with the NCAA, those woes are indicative of the big problem.

Hockey players – unlike any other athletes at UMaine – attend the school primarily for one reason.

They want to go pro and cash in. That’s not why football players end up here. Or basketball. Or baseball.

The hockey program has long been cut enormous amounts of slack by the general public because, despite all its other sins, NCAA-related or otherwise, it provides a winner.

Bottom line for many: that’s all that counts. Tell them other things should matter as much, and these people will plug their ears, shake their heads, and turn as red as a child being told there is no Santa Claus.

This program, let us say, does not drip with integrity. Or honesty. Or class.

Most of all, class.

It wins. That’s all.

The NCAA scandal should have proven to us that from the top on down, there were people in the program who thought that was good enough.

It’s not.

Surround yourself with people who believe that’s true, and you’ve got a blueprint for abuses. Players who punch women. Players who racially taunt other students.

Some hockey players are undoubtedly fine young men, credits to their parents and their university. They shouldn’t be tarnished by the actions of their teammates.

But should we be surprised when a program that has a track record for abuses at least attracts – and perhaps spawns – players who treat other students with less than the dignity and respect you’d afford any barnyard animal?

Of course not.

Pull your heads out of the sand, Maine. Winning isn’t enough. Demand more from your State U.

-John Holyoke, BDN

In the Dec. 20-21 BDN, Shawn Walsh is quoted this way: “If they had told me that was not allowed at the University, then there’s no question he wouldn’t be allowed on the team.”

Well, that’s reassuring. Uncertainty about NCAA rules is no novelty for Walsh, so I’m glad that he realizes the necessity of actually and without question enrolling students at the University of Maine before handing them their skates. I’d hate to think that there was even the slightest smidgen of doubt in his mind about this admittedly complicated NCAA requirement.

Most University coverage in the media revolves around sports, and sometimes those governing the place seem dazzled by the publicity after a big win, but the school was founded for other purposes. Are taxpayers content that these same governors starve academic functions while pouring money into semipro sports teams?

This University of Maine alumnus would not be unhappy if in these financially difficult times, Maine (state motto: Dirigo) showed the way to other land-grant universities and dropped its intercollegiate teams altogether, just as the University of Chicago did with football many years ago. Presumably, this move would help clarify for Walsh the distinction between classroom and hockey rink.

– John Goldfine, Belfast