Friday night, 3/11/94, Boston University defeated Maine, 8-5 at BU.
 
 
In the first game of the 2-out-of-3 controversial first round series, BU
dominated for 55 minutes, leaving early and forgetting that Maine was still
playing.  A 7-2 lead was cut to 7-5 when Maine pulled backup goalie Marsh
for the extra skater with about a minute left.  BU then scored into the empty
net to ice the game.
 
Observations:
 
In the first, Maine did not come out with the emotion everyone expected.  It
appeared that Maine sort of sat back while BU took control.  In the second,
the Ferraros put on a clinique of conditioning.  Although not major factors in
the 5 on 5 situations, the Ferraro's were double shifting and trying to wear
out the short-handed BU defensemen. (in actuality, both BU and Maine are each
missing two quality defensemen)  With about five minutes left in the second,
BU seemed to lose its edge, allowing Maine to take it to them in the BU zone.
It was a scary stretch, but somehow, BU managed to survive.
 
In the third, BU appeared to put the game away.  The reffereeing, which had
been VERY good all night, shifted in what was being called and what let go
when BU *seemed* (from a BU fan's perspective) to suddenly be getting all the
border-line calls against them.  (This was ONLY in the last 5 minutes)
 
Maine, who's power-play was performing even better than BU's, scored three
goals in that 4 minute stretch, one of them on a 5-on-3 situation.
 
On Maine's behalf, they did not roll over and die when down 7-2 on the road.
Although they were not able to come back (not against Herlofsky), they showed
that they are not doormats.
 
 
Although it was a good game to watch, what was the most shocking about the
evening was that, #1, the crowds were both well under control and displayed
more class (both team's fans) than has ever been seen at a BU-Maine game in
many, many years and, #2, the play on the ice was relatively clean.  Although
I'm sure the fact that both team's power-plays were clicking had something to
do with this, it is also a tribute to the job the ref's did to keep what could
have been such a volotile situation under control.
 
 
Double kudo's to both the refs and the BU staff people who not only set up the
will-call situation in a logical fashion, but separated the BU and Maine fans
to the best of their ability and worked *very* hard at preventing problems in
the crowd rather than overreacting to them once they occured.  Both schools
being on Spring Break helped, but there was still plenty of possibility.
 
When one considers the immense potential for things to go very wrong (ticket
situation, fights on ice, problems in stands, etc), all involved did an
excellent job.
 
 
Game 2 of the series is Saturday at 7 PM
 
 
Tony  BU'92'93
Former Ogre