When Boston College and Boston University squared off in the nightcap and premier matchup to kick off 65th annual Beanpot two Mondays ago with their triennial first-round pairing, here’s a sampling of the choice cuts running through my head as I plopped on my couch and fired up the laptop for some late-night viewing:
It’s February already? Weather’s cold, but my hatred for the Terriers is still red-hot.
BC beat BU the last three times they played in the first round. Gotta keep it going, boys!
Six of the last seven Beanpots have gone to the good guys. Failure is not an option.
If BC loses this one, it’ll just set them off enough to fuel the fire for trophy season.
If you notice, nowhere in those award-worthy inner thoughts was the mention of how great the game could be, because nine players participated in Team USA’s gold-medal victory at the World Junior Championship. Nowhere did it enter into my thoughts that I should care how many guys on each side or combined (20 if you’re counting at home: nine for the Eagles, 11 for the Terriers) have been drafted by NHL clubs.
College hockey fandom is a niche of a niche of a niche. At times, it is the ultimate in provincial, parochial thinking. Those of us involved as fans, alums and pundits are a small band of knowledgeable, dedicated, partisan souls.
But we always make sure to maintain proper perspective. It’s about the program, the history, the kids, the rivalries — and it has little to do with the next step on the ladder to success.
I have a special perspective on the matter. I am a graduate of Boston College (2000), and therefore completely in the tank for BC Eagles hockey. That means I’m also deeply against anything BU has to offer athletically and personally.
During my time at the Heights, head coach Jerry York took a second-division program in Hockey East and turned it into a national powerhouse in four years’ time. Between 1998 and 2000, BC made three national semifinals and lost twice in the title game, once in Boston proper.
That unexpected treat was made all the sweeter because the boys who made it happen were fellow students, and in many cases, classmates. I became one of the few and the proud as a Communications major (The Simpsons episode where the foreign kicker for Springfield U snaps his leg off when making the big boot to win Homecoming aired during my senior year), and sat for two years beside everyone else’s heroes.
Of course, I recognize thousands of fans who want to know more about college hockey don’t have the advantage of attending a renowned Division I college or university program. That doesn’t mean you automatically skip to the default and view it through the prism of a student-athlete’s worth to the pros.
With the increased attention and talent influx over the last 10 years, it has become too easy to see D-I players as commodities, nothing but pawns in the bigger game of making your favorite NHL team better at an unknown date.
That doesn’t seem to bother Doc Emrick, who has made it a point over years of NHL broadcasts to champion — sometimes ad nauseam with Pierre McGuire chiming in — which player skated for which program.
Emrick returned to Bowling Green this past weekend to call the second period of a Falcons home game against Mercyhurst. He is approaching things a bit more on the personal side, meeting with players and coaches from both teams in search of background that will provide the proper texture.
Doc Emrick, the NHL’s signature American play-by-play announcer, makes of a point of appreciating college hockey as a standalone entity, and not a mere professional feeder system. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
“That’s where I think a lot of what will remain with people,” Emrick said to USCHO last week. “Not the statistics, but what you learn about the individuals that are wearing the equipment and actually out there playing the game. Those are the things that I think are most meaningful.”
With all proper respect to my editor at this site and others on social media, it drives me up a wall, over the ceiling and down the wall on the other side when I see tweets that center on nothing but said D-I players and the NHL teams which drafted them as the lone selling point for interest. There’s only so much one can do in the space of 140 characters, but economy of space doesn’t have to mean economy of thought.
My advice is to dig deeper. Start small. Get to the heart of the matter – tap into the tales that brought players to the fore, and explore the people, places and things that drive long-standing, bitter rivalries.
BC-BU and other Boston permutations are just the tip of the iceberg. There are other great nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned with a little initiative in investigating RPI-Union and the contentious Mayor’s Cup. New Hampshire-Maine. Air Force-Colorado College and the Battle for Pike’s Peak. University of Denver and Colorado College for the Gold Pan. North Dakota-Minnesota.
In recent years, there’s the frontier war between Niagara and Canisius, and the budding feud between Yale and Quinnipiac dubbed the Battle for Whitney Avenue.
Beyond that, you’ll earn your stripes if you buy the ticket, take the ride and manage to survive an entire Princeton game at Hobey Baker Rink, without a doubt the coldest arena this side of the Mississippi River.
I submit to you, that Penn State’s proudest moment as a Division I school was not its No. 1 ranking several weeks ago, or Casey Bailey’s debut with the Ottawa Senators. It’s David Glen’s selfless donation of bone marrow to an anonymous recipient three years back or David Goodwin’s humanitarian efforts.
And while I believe human-interest tales are the lowest of the low-hanging fruit from a journalistic perspective once you cover the pros, it’s an essential component to understanding why these not-yet-ready-for-primetime-players do it for the love of the game while pursuing an education.
This past Monday night, I cranked up the laptop again and flipped through cable channels like a man possessed to watch the Beanpot final, won 6-3 by Harvard over BU. I wasn’t thinking “Flyers 2013 draftee and goaltending prospect Merrick Madsen could boost his profile with a championship,” although that’s what actually happened.
When the exuberant Crimson gathered at center ice to take the team photo, proudly displaying the Beanpot trophy in front, it was a reflection of pure sport, a collection of 19-to-23-year-olds sticking it in the faces of their city rivals for bragging rights and basking in a moment that lasts for a lifetime.
Harvard backers waited 24 years for that moment, and the payoff was glorious.
College hockey inhabits a place and time where the NHL has no place and whose time is an undetermined piece of the future. Learning to love the kids, and the schools, for who and what they are in the here and now is a beautiful thing.
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