I must be hardened. Or desensitized. Whatever the case may be, I did not expect the ending of the NCAA Men’s Hockey final between BU and Miami of Ohio. Have I seen too many uninspired NHL games to believe in miracles?

My family was gathered around a TV (having booked dinner at a restaurant where we could all gather around a TV and then also get that ‘Hey it’s Easter, let’s do something together’ vibe). My sister is a Sophomore at BU and she was sneaking peeks at the TV while graciously still engaging in conversation. “Oh, your kids put the dog in the chicken coop to search for Easter eggs? What happened?”

All in all, it was an uneventful game until Miami of Ohio started pressing hard, attaining a 3-1 margin of victory with goals at 7:30 and 4:08 left in regulation.

Yawn. Game over. Get a jump on traffic, says the seasoned hockey-game goer in me. My dad threw out the customary “Ain’t gonna happen.” My sister sighed, and the rest of us were preparing to depart: paying the bill and saying good-bye. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about all the games in this tournament that have been defined by the final seconds: UNH vs. North Dakota, Minn. Duluth vs. Princeton, Vermont vs. Air Force, BU vs. Vermont. Could something happen? The believer in me was awakening.

So what was 4 more minutes? We decided to watch the rest of the game - to the severe consternation of the table behind us.

And then it was, with 59.5 seconds to go, that Zack Cohen got one in for BU. 3-2, almost a minute left. Time to sit back down. Finally Nick Bonino slapped in the all-even goal with just 17.4 seconds on the clock. High fives all around. Good times and green grass forever…

Now, we were leaving the restaurant in earnest and rushing to our separate homes to watch the overtime. BU wins and once again Boston fans revel in their 5th NCAA championship in 14 years.

Flash to less than 24 hours later. I am watching my precious Flyers at the Wachovia Center. They have to win, or at least go into overtime, to get home ice advantage over the Penguins in the opening round of the playoffs. One point - all they need is one point. And they have the lead!

No dice.

And guess who scored the tying goal? Sean Avery. If that’s not a way to send your team into the post season on a sour note, I don’t know what is. (Though I have to admit, he is fun to hate watch and he does the job of agitator as no one else can).

Even Dancin’ Shawny couldn’t throw down with his usual fervor. Blech.

In the NHL, when there’s something on the line, I always feel that it’s the exception, not the rule, for the teams to leave everything they have on the ice. I do know that players were resting and they are fatigued after 81 games. But it runs both ways - the Rangers were in the same boat of course. Yet there was a difference - the Rangers had exactly zero hinging on the outcome of that game.

So we grind into the playoffs. Here’s to hoping for a little magic, NCAA style. And if you’re going to go down, at least go down swinging.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under Fantoo Blog Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.