First-year Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf (center) poses with the 2021 Hockey East champion UMass. (Thom Kendall)
Watching Greg Carvel and his players celebrate UMass’s first Hockey East tournament championship on Saturday night, I thought of a conversation with associate head coach Ben Barr in March 2017.
It was near the end of Carvel’s first season in Amherst. When I say the Minutemen were bad that year, I’m being charitable. They lost their last 17 games, finishing with a record of 5-29-2.
But on that night at Providence College’s Schneider Arena, as Barr and I chatted during the pregame warmup, he exuded a quiet confidence and determination that UMass would be on the way up in short order.
