Director of athletics Steve Abbott and University of Maine President Paul Ferguson bought out the last year of Tim Whitehead’s contract on April 9, letting go of the coach who spearheaded the program for the last 12 years. To help find a replacement, Abbott set up a search committee comprised of seven members to help with the replacing of Whitehead.

UMaine Professor Emeritus George Jacobson — who teaches biology, ecology and climate change — will chair the committee.

“George Jacobson was very natural [decision] as a chair,” Abbott said. “In addition to being faculty emeritus, he was our faculty athletic representative with all the NCAA processes.”

Jacobson will be joined on the committee by the following UMaine affiliates: Nic Erhardt, assistant professor of management, faculty liaison to the men’s hockey team and member of the Athletic Advisory Board; UMaine hockey alumnus Peter Metcalf, who played for both Whitehead and former UMaine coach Shawn Walsh; Richard Powell, associate professor of political science; Jon Sorenson, a UMaine alumnus who co-chairs the Black Bears of Boston and is founder of the Boston Executive Club of the University of Maine; Cherie Damon, president of Friends of Maine Hockey; and Janine Tremble, a UMaine alumna and president elect of the Black Beard Board of Advisors.

Abbott said it was important to get members of the university, the community and the hockey program involved in this decision and he said he went “seven-for-seven when asking if they wanted to be involved. They all accepted.”

At this point, Abbott said the committee would have up to two months to help make a decision but hopes it doesn’t take the allotted time.

“We have to give them a deadline; but when I talked to all of them, I made it clear that we would like to act on this as quickly as possible,” Abbott said. “They’ll have their first meeting [this] week as a group and they’ve all been communicating to each other throughout this period in emails.”

Abbott said the formal advertisement has been posted, though it was more or less just a formality.

“This isn’t a position you have to advertise,” Abbott said. “Anyone who has interest in this job knows it’s available. We’ve heard from many potential candidates and candidates already, but it’s just part of university procedure that you have to formally post the job to and you have to formally apply.”

However, Abbott said anyone who had expressed interest in the position would have to formally apply for the job once the posting was made public. In the meantime, the search committee is scheduled to meet to discuss certain criteria for what they’re looking for in an applicant.

“The president and I will talk to them about the position — what we’re looking for,” Abbott said. “They will give us input about certain characteristics and fit with the university.

“They’ll agree on rating criteria for the potential coaches and then start reviewing applications,” Abbott added. “Then they’ll get together and start talking about what they think of different candidates. Once they go through that list of candidates it’s up to them to narrow it to a group of finalists, and those are the candidates that will receive additional scrutiny and be brought in for interviews.”

Abbott also said he thinks the ideal candidate will be one who’s in a stable situation but wants to move up in the ranks.

“I think the people that are going to be most interested in our job are people who are in stable situations that say this is a great opportunity,” Abbott said. “We may not have some of the same time pressure as other universities competing for a candidate; it’s whether we can lure a current person away from their current situation.”

Abbott said that around a dozen people have expressed interest in the position. While he said he couldn’t talk about the candidates during the hiring process, he said interest is brewing.

“A lot of them are people who aren’t necessarily in the market. It’s just this is an attractive opportunity to them,” he said.

While Abbott did admit to discussing Whitehead’s future with the former coach during the season, he said he wanted to make sure the proper diligence was in place to make this decision.

“We wanted to be thoughtful and fully prepared and to really review the situation,” Abbott said. “Tim had done a good job of building the integrity and reputation of the program and it wasn’t a decision we wanted to take lightly. Hockey holds a special place on this campus, and it came to a point where we couldn’t let this go any further.”

While Abbott expressed confidence in interim coach Bob Corkum, calling him a “strong candidate” for the job, whoever is hired as the permanent coach will be able to choose his staff.

“Typically, the new coach chooses his staff, and that will be the case here,” Abbott said.

What is the Blue Sky Project?

Depending on who you ask, you could get a variety of different answers. But regardless of how much you know about it, the Blue Sky Project has the ability to bring the University of Maine back on solid footing and help it gain national prominence; or, if implemented poorly, it could set the university back even further than it was before any sort of strategic mission was established.

“One of the things that really struck me at the University of Maine were these little pockets of excellence, whether alumni, students or faculty. But what wasn’t there was an organized focus that was really moving together,” said UMaine President Paul Ferguson. “I knew early on that we needed to get people together. We had to figure out how to get everyone on the same page.”

Ferguson’s arrival at UMaine marks the start of the Blue Sky Project: He was appointed by the board of trustees on March 14, 2011, and his Blue Sky Project was unveiled in July of 2012.

“Many people have suggested that it is my baby,” Ferguson said with a laugh. “Any new president that comes into the institution needs to take a hard look at where everything is. The actual strategic plan for the university [before Blue Sky] was over in 2011. It became a very good opportunity to say, ‘Do we need a new one, and how do we do it?’ A lot of people felt strongly that it was time for a new plan, but no one really wanted to do a new plan.

“I think as a new president you’re looking for any opportunity to bring the constituencies together,” Ferguson continued. “It evolved to a process that we wanted to have a strategic plan, but we wanted it to be different. We got together a strong planning team from across the campus, and from them evolved what is the Blue Sky Plan.”

The Blue Sky Project is a multifaceted five-year plan, with overarching goals of increasing enrollment to 15,000 by 2017, restructuring operating efficiencies as well as marketing and communications, refreshing the UMaine brand and improving camaraderie, increasing fellowships, assistantships and internships to increase networking opportunities, and restoring and enhancing UMaine’s physical representation by addressing cosmetic and maintenance needs across the campus.

“The most important difference is, [the Blue Sky Project] is a consensus-based plan that has the input of all constituencies,” Ferguson said. “This really dug into the university psyche.”

Blue Sky implementation

With so much promise and hope in the Blue Sky Project, there’s a sort of “sitting on needles” feeling as the implementation slowly gains speed.

“It’s that anticipation of this could really be a game changer,” said Brianna Hughes, a Ph.D. student of food sciences at UMaine. “I think things that come out of this Blue Sky Plan can achieve that in a way that can’t be achieved at the state, but I don’t think the culture [here] has accepted this yet. People are waiting and seeing.”

It’s that culture of acceptance that Hughes, the graduate representative to the Blue Sky Project and the board of trustees, sees as the plan’s biggest challenge in changing the overall feeling of UMaine.

“I talk to people all the time, and they don’t know what the Blue Sky Project is,” Hughes said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of people using the [UMaine] website and seeing this information. We need to get the students excited about this.

“It’s hard too, because some of it is in the planning stage, so it’s not like we can unveil something and get everyone excited,” she added.

Ferguson sees this dilemma and is stressing patience to help the process along.

“I think the challenge for any successful project like this is to manage expectations,” he said. “There’s no pushback, but there’s always impatience. You have to finish the first year to figure out where you’re going for the second year.”

But the overriding sentiment is that the majority of the student population knows of the Blue Sky Project, but they don’t exactly know what it is, or what it does.

“That is something that has been a huge problem for me, representing the graduate student body, is we’re predominantly masters students, who are here for two years,” Hughes said. “We’re not typically getting involved in things like this.”

To help counter that, a web page under Ferguson’s section of the UMaine website has beendedicated to tracking the various developments in the five pathways.

“This is probably the other aspect that is unique to the plan: Anyone can go to the pathway they’re interested in and see where those particular initiatives are,” Ferguson said. “We really are committed to our constituencies to show the progress.”

Yet almost one year into the project, students, alumni, business owners and other prominent people around the state still have little understanding of the mission.

“There are a lot of people in the state who aren’t aware of everything we have here,” Hughes said. “That’s a marketing issue we’re trying to address.”

Rebranding UMaine

One of the first things done in fall of 2012 was to realign UMaine’s marketing and communications department to better represent the entire university. On Nov. 7, constituents from all parts of UMaine converged to Wells Conference Center and discussed the revamping of UMaine’s brand. The summit helped to realign all of UMaine’s various departments and organizations under one umbrella logo and to provide a platform for how Ferguson would like to carry out the Blue Sky Project.

“If there was one No. 1 thing we heard in developing this plan was that marketing and communications was a huge issue,” Ferguson said. “People felt we weren’t organized to market the university well, that we weren’t doing our jobs. That’s why the communicators’ summit was right out of the chute.

“It was the first foray into how the Blue Sky Project would be implemented,” he continued. “We’d be doing this together. This was the first time people felt a part of the university and felt like they were serving the university.”

This rebranding of marketing the university has helped increase the number of out-of-state applicants for the first time in a number of years — yet still below comparable state universities.

“When I came, 18 percent of the student body was out of state. That’s way too low to be competitive,” Ferguson said. “We’re up to 20 percent now, which allows us to be more financially sustainable.”

Increased marketing doesn’t just help with an increase in enrollment. Hughes sees a scenario where a more marketable UMaine means more internship and assistantship opportunities.

“I think UMaine, historically, has never tapped into the alumni potential that’s out there,” Hughes said. “We have very poor records. I anticipate a lot of the fundraising coming through alumni and business relationships.”

However, the largest benefit from increased marketing would be an increase in enrollment, which is one of the top components of the Blue Sky Project: to bring UMaine’s undergraduate enrollment up to 15,000 by 2017. To help combat the challenge, the university added a new position: vice president for enrollment management.

“‘Enrollment management’ were dirty words”

On July 1, 2012, Jimmy Jung was named UMaine’s vice president for enrollment management — a new position set to tackle the double-edged sword of decreasing in-state applicants and competition for other out-of-state students.

“UMaine realized they needed a position like this to look at things from an analytical point of view and really get a plan in place and basically be more competitive in this market,” Jung said. “We’re not going to out-of-state students simply for the revenue. There is a decline in students in Maine. We need to fill that gap.”

Ferguson said that the addition of a enrollment management position was a necessity, indicating how the landscape of higher education has changed during his career.

“When I was starting my academic career, the concept of enrollment management was non-existent. Now, having a VP for enrollment management is a must,” Ferguson said. “The enrollment management function is to have a sophisticated recruitment strategy and then a sophisticated retention strategy for advising and the process of retaining our students.”

Jung was the assistant vice president for enrollment management at the College at Brockport before coming to UMaine. He worked in a similar capacity at Fordham University. Upon taking the job here, Jung asked various colleagues about UMaine. From their response, he sensed the university had a problem.

“I’d ask and they’d say, ‘Oh, they’re like the baby brother of the land grants. You don’t hear about them that much,’” Jung said. “Just from that, I got the sense that, ‘Hey, it could be a lot more.’

“One of the major reasons I came here was because of this challenge,” Jung added. “If you think about public institutions, 10 years ago ‘enrollment management’ were dirty words.”

To start, Jung focused on the students right in UMaine’s backyard, targeting those in state.

“The fact is, there is no better time for a Maine student to go to one of its state public universities, but I don’t think we ever had that conversation on how to make it more appealing to come to UMaine,” Jung said. “Value is the combination of cost plus academic excellence and [UMaine] has that, but I don’t think UMaine has ever said that to Maine or to the rest of New England. That was one of the big missions I had this year.”

Secondly, Jung wanted to target surrounding states that didn’t have as much of a decline in incoming college students as Maine did.

“Maine is 43rd in demographics, New Hampshire is 44th, Rhode Island is 45th and Vermont is dead last,” Jung said. “We broke 8,000 applicants last year, which is a measure of interest. UNH had 17,000, URI had 19,000 and Vermont had 24,000, just for some perspective.

“We didn’t communicate with the students in New England that well,” he added. “We weren’t really following up — there was no strategy.”

While it’s still early, there has been a slight movement of the applicant needle in UMaine’s favor.

“Our first big push out was we increased our out-of-state applicants by 1,200,” Jung said. “We’ll be over 9,000 applicants for the first time and that 1,000-applicant growth is rare for so early.”

To help focus where UMaine should recruit, Jung built statistical analysis programs to show where perspective UMaine students usually come from.

“[The characteristics of UMaine students are] they have taken some [Advanced Placement] level classes; their high school is usually in the suburbs; there’s some diversity, but not much; and the size of the school is medium to large [500 to 800 students],” Jung said.

In the first year, Jung said they focused on mainly three states — California, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

“You take a look at where they are coming from, in terms of enrollment, when we weren’t advertising to anyone,” Jung said. “So we looked at Pennsylvania and Maryland: two places where we have a high yield of students, but we’ve never marketed to that area.”

Jung said a large number of applicants come in from California, but the commitment from those students is slightly less than the rest of out of staters.

“If we admit 10 students from California, only about one shows up,” Jung said. “In-state enrollment is about four of every 10 students enroll, while out of state it’s a little under two of every 10 students. The yield is 17 percent.”

These few ideas of rebranding UMaine, marketing to alumni and surrounding businesses and expanding undergraduate recruitment are just three components the Blue Sky Project hopes to rectify.

“UMaine had never had a clear message,” Ferguson said. “We’ve seen a new aligning and new identity in terms of the university.”

While the city of Boston is locked down as countless authorities pursue Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, one of two living suspects from Monday’s bombings of the Boston Marathon, a University of Maine undergraduate student witnessed the ordeal first hand, locked down in a hotel in Cambridge.

Fourth-year psychology student and Vice President of Student Organizations Sarah Porter was just a couple blocks away from the early morning shootout that took the life of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was wanted by authorities in connection with the bombing at the finish line of the marathon. The bombing claimed the lives of three, injured over 170 and maimed a number of runners and spectators. Tsarnaev is currently on the run from authorities.

“I was at a bar with friends and my parents were coming to meet up with me so we could head back [to our hotel] when the actual shooting happened,” Porter said over the phone Friday afternoon. “It was mayhem, cab drivers were frantic.

“I was on the street, a couple of blocks away at the time and a cab pulled over and said to get in for safety,” she continued. “We’re just a couple blocks from where the shoot out happened. We’re right near [Massachusetts Institute of Technology].

Porter said the cabs pulled over just minutes after the shooting. She didn’t realize it was gunshots at the time, and everyone in the area was confused. She said the area she was in was busy.

Porter traveled to Boston to see her parents and brother, who attended a Fleetwood Mac concert Thursday night. She said her family booked the trip a while ago and knew there’d be an up in security, but that didn’t deter her plans.

“We knew it was going to be a little different with heavier security,” Porter said. “But we didn’t think anything out of the ordinary would happen while we were here.”

Porter and her family are staying at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, overlooking the Galleria Mall, which Porter called “a ghost town.”

“We’re right next to the Galleria Mall and this area is always crazy traffic and busy, busy,” she said. “We just can’t get over that there is no one outside.”

In a text message a little before 2 p.m., Porter said the hotel told them they could leave soon if they wanted to.

“We called down from our hotel and they said no one had left,” she said. “They were just real busy downstairs. No one knows what to do.”

Porter said she and her family were getting ready to leave and do some sightseeing, but with the developing situation in the city, they decided to see how things work out.

“We were getting ready to leave right now and head to a nearby town, but we haven’t tried to leave yet,” she said. “It’s literally a ghost town. I don’t know — it’s pretty surreal.”

Porter and her family left the hotel in their car at around a 2:45 p.m. but they are remaining in Boston for the night.

“We just wanted to get out of the area for a while,” Porter said.

Late Thursday night, the Tsarnaev brothers are believed to have been behind the fatal shooting of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier.

According to authorities, the two then hijacked a vehicle at gunpoint, telling the driver they were responsible for the marathon bombing. Police caught up with the brothers and fatally shot Tamerlan Tsarnaev as he got out of the car. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fled from the scene in the car.

This morning, Connecticut state police issued an alert saying the suspect may be driving a 1999 green Honda Civic with Massachusetts plates 116 GC7.

Derrick Rossignol contributed to this story.

Former University of Maine men’s hockey coach Tim Whitehead said the amount of support that has come his way is a silver lining to the entire ordeal, just one day after being fired.

“The barrage of [support] from former players and friends and family has been great, as unfortunate as [the event] is,” Whitehead said. “My phone ran out of battery, I was getting so many texts and emails and calls. It’s been a variety of emotions, but the overriding factors are that I feel very fortunate for having this opportunity and very grateful.”

Whitehead was fired Tuesday, after 12 years with the program. His first six years were successful, but his teams couldn’t manage a .500 record during his last six years and featured only two national tournament appearances. While he said he was disappointed, he also said he wasn’t surprised by the university’s decision.

Whitehead said his main objective during this sudden time off is to be around his family more than he’d been able to as head coach of a Division I program.

“I’m going to let things digest a bit, from a professional standpoint,” he said. “But for now, I’m just going to be a full-time dad and look forward to time with my family and do some of the things I haven’t been able to do over the last 20 years.

“I’m not going out to buy a sports car or anything,” Whitehead continued with a laugh. “I’m really not going to change that much, and I’m definitely going to coach again. I look forward to finding another challenge. That’s what I love to do, but right now that’s on the backburner.”

Whitehead isn’t sure how much time he will take off, but he admitted that he could see himself coaching again, sooner rather than later.

“I’m not the type to sit around and do nothing,” Whitehead said. “I enjoy the competition and love staying active. It will be difficult for me to stay away from the game for very long.”

Whitehead wouldn’t get into specifics about his last conversation in front of his team on Tuesday when he informed them of his departure, but he reassured them all that they are at the right place.

“I wanted them to make sure they knew how proud I was of them and how excited I am for their future,” he said. “I let them know that we recruited them for a reason and that they belong here. I will be staying in touch with them and let them know this wouldn’t be the last time we speak or see each other.”

Saturday may have been too cold for baseball and softball, but The University of Maine Club Rugby team hosted matches with Bowdoin College and the University of Maine at Farmington on Morse Field at Alfond Stadium that afternoon.

The teams played in a round-robin format: UMaine and UMF playing in game one, UMF and Bowdoin playing in game two, and UMaine and Bowdoin playing in game three. UMaine took both of their games, with the second one called at halftime.

At the start of game one, the temperature was a meager 36 degrees with a wind chill of 26, according to the National Weather Service, but UMaine was ready to go, scoring their first try within 5 minutes of the start of their first match. After making the conversion kick, the Black Bears were up 7-0.

Even with the cold temperatures, the team was expected to keep up the effort.

“The only game plan we have is to go 100 percent,” said UMaine Club Rugby player Stanley Profit. “The team expects you to go hard all the time.”

After the second kickoff, UMaine had no trouble marching the ball down the field again. They did not let the ball cross over to their side of the field before they scored their second try of the game. Another conversion kick after the try gave the Black Bears a 14-0 lead over the Beavers.

UMaine scored another try and failed on the conversion attempt to make the score 20-0 before the Beavers got their first chance at a score.

UMF’s first good possession of the match sent them to the try-zone line as they tried to get some momentum on their side before UMaine stopped them and kept the shut out going.

UMaine advanced the ball to midfield before the Beavers made a second strong push for the try zone. This time, UMF successfully made it in for their first and only score of the game. After the conversion kick, the score stood at 20-7.

The Black Bears put another score past the Beavers right before half time to make the score 27-7.

In the second half, the Black Bears took control, but UMF still had some fight left in them. Just as UMaine kept the Beavers out of the try zone before they successfully scored, UMF held off UMaine twice in a row on the try-zone line before the Black Bears breached the Beavers defenses and scored their fifth try of the day. After another good conversion kick, UMaine took a 34-7 lead.

It was all Black Bears after this point, as the Beavers looked to be winded and their tackling quality diminished. UMF had to use a couple of UMaine players in order to field a full team.

UMaine scored another try and conversion kick to put the score at 41-7.

Profit provided the last two scores for the Black Bears, breaking tackles and creating long open runs to the try zone. Profit’s scores along with the team’s successful conversion kicks led the Black Bears to a 55-7 win.

“I think they did very well,” Profit said. “They definitely tried hard. They were low on numbers. We had to give up some of our guys, but regardless, if they had a few better passes they could have got some tries. We were the better team overall.”

“We played well, I think,” Club Rugby Vice President Taylor Valente said. “We have a lot of new kids so we tried to get people experience. Overall, we did well. There are a few things we can work on. It is the spring season, so this is when we want to work on stuff.

“The wind affects kicking a little bit, and you have to be careful with your passes and make sure you get it [to the player you are passing to],” Valente continued. “We were going against the win in the first half, so our kicks weren’t as good as in the second half when we were going against the wind.”

UMaine handled Bowdoin 49-0 in the shortened third game.

The Club Rugby team plays at Morse Field again next Saturday at 5 p.m. in the second annual UMaine Club Rugby Alumni Match.

How much attention do you pay to the mug when you grab for your morning cup of coffee? Probably not much, especially if it’s in the morning, before you’re able to get said cup of coffee.

But what if each time you went for the mug you were reminded of helping the environment,helping enthusiastic children learn or even just helping out a giving college student.

If you purchase a mug made by the members of University of Maine art professor Connie Albertson’s AED 474 class, you will be reminded that you are assisting an effort, titled Art and Empathy. The class is required for art education students. For the class, students pick a non-profit organization and see what they can do with their artwork to help it out.

“It provides a community service experience for the students so that their hands on projects may not occur in a formal institute of learning,” Albertson said. “They have to work with the community — the idea is that you collaborate with the community and find out what their needs are and how art can be relevant.

“There’s always a service-learning project involved in this course,” Albertson continued. “This year I decided what the students needed to know was how to conduct a service-learning project, more than just going out and just teaching art. This course has been mostly dedicated to actually learning the process.”

After talking over a number of local non-profit organizations, the class decided on Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, which works to preserve 2,400 acres of wetlands throughout Maine while also providing research, outreach and education to surrounding communities.

“I think, when we chose Hirundo as our organization, the spotlight ended up being on the empathy toward environmental sustainability,” said Nicole McGwigan, a third-year art education student. “That’s the type of thing Hirundo stands for, but they haven’t had that sort of exposure.”

“The part that we’re most interested in is how Hirundo works with the surrounding schools and [that they] have different educational programs,” said Elizabeth Miller, a senior art education student. “We’re focusing on what they need for documenting [wildlife]. Our goal is to help them with their programs that help educate kids.”

To do that, Miller, McGwigan, Albertson, and art education students Hannah Berta and Abby LeBlanc are selling ceramic mugs for $10. They hope to sell hundreds in April to raise money for Hirundo.

“It’s putting a lot of meaning into the form and function of a mug,” Miller said. “This project is an example to work in this medium in a different way. It’s one of the main things we’ve focused on and learned about in art education is that we needed to go in with our arms up and fight for this cause. We’ve been learning all these ways to make meaning out of art, make it useful — more than just something aesthetically pleasing to put on a wall.”

The money raised will go to help Hirundo with tracking and recording wildlife, and it should allow the organization to provide more resources for the children when they visit.

“Specifically, they wanted three trail cameras to set up in specific locations, where they know there’s a high traffic of animals, and a digital projector and digital camera they could give to kids to go out and capture what they see,” LeBlanc said.

The four students and Albertson plan to make hundreds of mugs — over 200 have already been made. Albertson chose ceramic as the medium, but the task seemed a little daunting to the students at the start, due to their limited experience working with the material.

“If I were to use the mug I made in Ceramics 1, nobody would buy it,” LeBlanc said.

The small group of art education students had chosen mugs long before this semester started, according to Miller. It was a spin-off of the “Empty Bowls” movement to remove world hunger.

“Learning [in art education] that art is more than just for arts sake, it’s part of our culture, part of our daily interactions with the people around us,” Berta said. “We wanted something that represented that.”

While each mug is eventually hand painted by one of the students, the mugs are a collaborative effort, with no student working solely on the same mug from start to finish. According to Albertson, it takes exactly 2 hours, 47 minutes to make a mug.

“We have a hydraulic extruder to wedge big pieces of clay together to make a cylinder,” Miller said of the process. “You have to kind of guide it out of the extruder.”

This guiding technique gives each mug a unique, individualized look.

“I like that personal quality,” Miller said. “They’re all a bit different.”

The majority of the mugs are decorated with themes of the Maine wilderness — except for a jaguar-spotted mug sticking out from the back — and range from tall to stout with a variety of different handles.

“We all had our own personal styles,” Berta said. “We were just trying to get inspired by the nature theme. We just wanted to do something to remind people why they bought the mug.”

The class set up a WordPress blog to promote the mugs, display the mug-making process and share share information about the overall cause of Art and Empathy and art education. To visit the blog, go to artempathy.wordpress.com.

“While the students are learning skills that might be very useful to them as teachers of art, they’re also coming across ways to make this successful, such as integrating technology,” Albertson said.

The goal of the project is to sell around 500 mugs, between tabling in the Union and seeing if any local businesses are interested in getting involved.

The first day of tabling is April 5. Check the Art and Empathy blog for the dates that follow.

The Bangor Daily News has announced a number of events and expos the newspaper will be sponsoring, developing and executing throughout 2013.

Twelve events across the state dot the calendar. Portland, Augusta and Bangor will host a variety of functions, which include everything from outdoor expos to comedy shows and man-cave showcases.

“It’s something we started formulating last year,” BDN event producer Pat Lemieux said. “We started to take existing events we were sponsors of, ones that we would show up and actually having an impact, and tried to do things that made other people at the event excited that we were there. We steamrolled off that and said, ‘Lets make it bigger, and do it ourselves.’ This is a chance to take what we were doing and make them bigger.”

“The original intent was to come up with four or five ideas,” Lemieux said. “Before you know it, you have a ton of ideas you really like and you try and fit them on a calendar.”

“This is brand new for the BDN,” BDN events coordinator Ellie Barker said. “We’ve never done something like this before. We are excited to bring high quality events to Maine.”

Barker mentioned that the BDN is working to become more than a publication, explaining the reasoning behind BDN’s venture into throwing events rather than just sponsoring and reporting on them.

“The BDN is not just a newspaper anymore,” Barker said. “Whenever we were thinking about what we are going to do next, we brainstormed and thought of events. The nice thing about the BDN is [the advantage we have as a media network]. The biggest cost to putting on events is getting the media. It makes a lot of sense because we can produce a high quality event at a lesser cost for everyone and bring it to Maine.”

When they were working out the logistics for the various events, Lemieux said Maine poses a couple of problems.

“Maine’s a tricky place because there are only so many large towns to do things in, and there are only so many venues,” he said. “And because we have such a wonderful winter here, there are only so many weekends you can do things. We’re always competing for people’s time.”

Below is a brief synopsis for each event, as well as its scheduled place and time.

BDN Maine Garden Show & Spring Fling

Break winter’s grip with a weekend garden party of music, food and fun

Bangor’s annual garden show now includes Maine restaurants, hotels, travel agencies, recreation, adventure and gadget companies.

The featured fun: food samples, live music, a beer garden, golf simulators and a gear fashion show.

April 5-7 at the Bangor Civic Center & Auditorium.

BDN Maine Outdoors Expo

A gear and travel extravaganza for the adventurer

Maine’s premier display of the newest in outdoor gear, outerwear and vacations. Attendees can learn more about Maine sports, from skiing and riding to hunting and fishing, from BMXing and hiking to camping and kayaking.

The weekend will feature gear demonstrations, appearances by renowned field personalities and a contest to win a dream trip.

May 4-5 at the Portland Expo.

BDN Maine Adventure Race

Think The Amazing Race meets Raiders of the Lost Ark

This combination urban foot race, geocaching event pits corporate-sponsored teams in competition with each other as they vie to be the first to complete the race, find the hidden treasures and win the $10,000 grand prize.

June 2 in the greater Portland area.

BDN Maine Best of Maine

The pinnacle of Maine success

Readers and viewers will vote for the best Maine restaurants, artists, musicians, actors, writers, DJs, wines and beers, recreation areas, green businesses and more.

The winners will be feted at an evening black-tie dinner.

June 26 at the Augusta Civic Center.

BDN Maine Miss Adventure

This event will feature what women want, from fashion and travel to food and beauty.

A display of style, taste and cravings for women of all ages and backgrounds.

The two-day expo will kick off with a Friday night performance by a noted female celebrity. A “man-cave spouse’s corner” will be included.

July 12-14 at the Portland Expo.

BDN Maine What’s Next Conference

The music and arts of the KahBang festival will combine with a film, music, gaming, business and social media technolgies conference.

The unique sensibility of the KahBang music, film and art festival is complemented by a tech-oriented conference that will meld the best in music performances with the latest high-tech toys.

August 8-11 in downtown Bangor and on the waterfront.

BDN Maine Snow Sports Spectacular

A ski, snowboard, gear and travel spectacular

The latest ski-mountain gear, demonstrations, travel and celebrities converge for the best winter sports convention in Maine.

A major snow-sports film will be debuted to kick off the event, and a lineup of Olympic athletes will keep the expo cooking through the weekend.

September 20-22 at the Portland Expo.

BDN Maine Man Expo

The ultimate man-cave experience

This expo will have every toy and experience a man could want: Snowmobiles, guns, gadgets, ATVs, a cigar lounge, Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and an appearance by a major celebrity will be on hand for this one-of-a-kind event.

Friday night kicks off with a stand-up comedy act, a swimsuit model meet-and-greet and a concert. Saturday and Sunday will offer additional chances to meet with celebrities.

And yes, a “spouse’s corner” for women is included.

September 27-29 at Bangor’s Cross Center.

BDN Maine Comedy Crawl

A pub crawl, where you get hammered on laughs

Fans of stand-up comedy buy an all-access pass and guffaw their way through the routines of some of New England’s hottest comics, who perform at bars, pubs and restaurants in Portland’s Old Port.

That night, everyone will head to Merrill Auditorium for even more laughs where a headlining stand-up comic spritzes one-liners.

October 5 in Portland.

BDN Maine Sports Showcase

A dream event for Maine sports fans

A day of athletes, memorabilia, gear and demonstrations, from basketball, hockey and NASCAR to baseball, football and golf.

November 16 in Bangor.

BDN Maine Food & Cooking Expo

Maine’s best chefs and restaurants will strut their stuff(ing)

The state’s restaurants, bars, chefs and micro-brews will be on display. There will also be cooking demonstrations, beer and wine tastings, and cook-offs.

December 6-8 in Portland, Bangor, or Augusta.

It was a bizarre ending, but the University of Maine men’s hockey team’s season ended in overtime at the Tsongas Center as the University of Massachusetts Lowell beat the Black Bears 2-1.

A goal 1:50 into overtime decided the game for the Riverhawks, as a breakaway was stopped by UMaine, but UMaine goalie Martin Ouellette was taken out by his own teammate Mark Nemec, leaving an open net for Derek Arnold to tap the puck into.

“It was a hard fought game,” UMaine coach Tim Whitehead said. “I’m real happy for [Lowell head coach] Norm [Bazin]. We’re proud of our guys. What’s important tonight is how far we’ve come along this year.”

Lowell advances to the Hockey East semifinal, while UMaine’s season comes to an end.

“I respect their team greatly,” Bazin said. “They should be commended for a great effort.”

It was a relatively low key first period between UMaine and UMass Lowell, as the Riverhawks outshot the Black Bears eight to five.

UMass Lowell had the best chance in the first period as UMaine senior forward Joey Diamond was called for a 5-minute major for charging the goalie. The Riverhawks had a chance to score with sophomore forward Scott Wilson had a breakaway on Ouellette, but the junior was able to deny Wilson his third goal in two games.

UMaine had its own power play with 2 minutes left in the period when Arnold was called for hitting from behind. The Black Bears weren’t able to capitalize on the man advantage.

The second period saw more action, both in between the whistles and extracurricular. The Black Bears jumped out to the first lead of the game after Lowell’s Riley Wetmore hit the penalty box, freshman Devin Shore was able to put the Black Bears ahead 1-0.

UMaine had another power play but wasn’t able to capitalize.

With less than 2 minutes remaining, a skirmish broke out in front of the net, which resulted in a 5-minute major for Diamond, as well as a game disqualification.

“I thought when Diamond left the game, their intensity went up two notches,” Bazin said. “They were out competing us for a good 10-minute spurt.”

To combat the loss of Diamond, Whitehead had to change up some of the lines of the fly.

“We doubled Beattie up in the second period then Merchant in the third,” Whitehead said. “Just juggled some lines. It was fine. We’ve been down that road before.”

The Riverhawks were able to even the score 4 minutes into the third period when freshman center Michael Fallon poked the puck past Ouellette.

The score remained the same throughout the third period despite power-play chances for both squads. UMaine’s Brice O’Connor was booked for interference with 15 minutes left while Lowell’s Joe Pendenza was called for hitting after the whistle midway through the period and junior defender Chad Ruhwedel was booked for tripping with 4 minutes remaining. All penalties were killed off as the game went to overtime.

Less than 2 minutes into the extra time, Ouellette was taken out of his crease by teammate Nemec, leaving the net open for Arnold to poke the puck in for the game winner.

“[Christian] Folin did a good job and got it on net and me and Fallon saw their was a break and joined the rush,” Arnold said of the goal. “The puck came up, Fallon got a hand on it and I spun around and the puck was right there in the crease.

“The refs made the right call and we were able to come out with the victory.”

“There’s nothing I could do to change it,” Whitehead said. “It’s one of those plays that what they usually call on the ice will stand.”

The Black Bears finished the game with six penalties for 26 penalty minutes compared to five penalties and 10 penalty minutes for the Riverhawks.

Despite an early lead, the University of Maine put itself behind the eight ball, falling to the University of Massachusetts in Game 1 of a Hockey East quarterfinal 4-1.

An early goal by UMaine sophomore Jake Rutt gave the Black Bears a lead at the first intermission, but a game-tying goal in the second followed by three third-period goals gave the Riverhawks the win. Sophomore forward Scott Wilson finished with two goals for the Riverhawks.

“It was a missed opportunity for us,” said UMaine head coach Tim Whitehead. “I liked our composure but in the second period we had a feeling they were going to get some calls. We had them killed off until the last one and that was a key play. ”

During the first period, each team’s defense held its ground early, with multiple scoring chances squandered for each team.

The Black Bears had an early power-play opportunity 6 minutes into the period when freshman defender Christian Folin tripped up UMaine’s Steve Swavely. The Black Bears looked disorganized during the man advantage and couldn’t come up with many chances.

Midway through the period, UMaine senior defender Mark Nemec had a terrific opportunity in front of the net, but the captain whiffed on the one-timer.

Twelve minutes into the first period, the Black Bears had another power-play chance and made good work this time. After freshman defender Ben Hutton rang the crossbar on the opening faceoff, Rutt gathered the puck near the blue line late in the power play and fired a shot toward Lowell goalie Connor Hellebuyck. Weaving through traffic, the puck beat Hellebuyck and put the Black Bears on the board.

“I think we had them on their heels in the first period,” said senior forward Kyle Beattie. “But we weren’t able to sustain pressure.”

The second period was mostly controlled by the Riverhawks, aided by three penalties by the Black Bears, including a game-tying power-play goal late in the period by Wilson.

Midway through the period, the Black Bears had another power-play opportunity when freshman forward Adam Chapie was booked for slashing. Unlike the first period, the Black Bears weren’t able to capitalize.

Instead, it was Lowell that had the upper hand in special teams, scoring after Beattie was booked for tripping. Wilson fired the shot from the right faceoff circle past junior Martin Ouellette. The goal was under review for a couple minutes before being upheld. Junior defender Chad Ruhwedel and junior forward Josh Holmstrom assisted on the goal.

Through two periods, the Riverhawks held a 22-16 shot advantage.

The Riverhawks continued their momentum from the second period, breaking the game open early in the third with two goals in quick succession. Two minutes into the third period, Wilson netted his second goal of the game off assists from Folin and freshman center Michael Fallon.

Just 20 seconds later, Lowell scored its third goal when junior center Joseph Pendenza put in the rebound off linemate’s A.J. White’s shot.

The Riverhawks expanded its lead to three after Beattie picked up his third penalty of the game, this time for hooking. Holmstrom gathered the puck from senior center Riley Wetmore and flicked it past Ouellette, giving Lowell a 4-1 lead.

A pretty power-play goal by freshman Devin Shore brought UMaine within two, but it was too little too late as Lowell closed out the 4-2 victory.

All six of UMaine’s penalties were doled out to seniors — three each for Beattie and senior forward Joey Diamond.

“Again penalties was the difference,  and when you’re looking at it, we’re talking about seniors — Beattie, Diamond — with stick penalties,” Whitehead said. “That swung the momentum of the game.

“We need to stay out of the box if we’re going to beat this team, because this team is good.”

Each team meets at the Tsongas Center Friday night at 7 p.m. UMaine must win to keep its season alive.