Taken from the Boston Sunday Globe, Sunday, April 2, 1995.
 
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, BOSTON BACK IN WINNER'S CIRCLE
by Kevin Paul Dupont
 
PROVIDENCE - Not every floor has a trap door.  The pie at the buffet
table isn't always there to be tossed in your face.  That big oak tree
that shades your house and keeps it nice and cool in the summer doesn't
have to come crashing through the roof in the middle of a winter storm.
 
Good things can happen to a Boston team.  The city that hasn't had much
to celebrate since the Celtics won the NBA championship in 1986 now has
the Boston University hockey team to cheer all the way down Commonwealth
Avenue.  (Note: this column will not self-destruct upon your reading
the last paragraph.)
 
Boston is a winner.  It's OK.  You can close your eyes, click your ruby
slippers, and all the good of yesterday won't vanish before your eyes.
Boston is a winner.
 
Perhaps bigger news in the '90s: upon leaving the Civic Center last night,
no one had asked a state or federal agency to launch an investigation
and no one was looking to tell his/her side of the story to "Hard Copy"
for an extra $50.  No one asked the official scorer to come to the side
bar.
 
It was like the old days: one team won, one team lost, and no doubt a
few kegs got uncorked in dorms from Kenmore Square, right on up to West
Campus.
 
"This is the greatest team because it's happened right now," said BU
coach Jack Parker, following his Terriers' 6-2 rubout of the Maine Black
Bears in yesterday's NCAA final.  But don't tell that to Mike Eruzione
or Jack O'Callahan.  They played on some pretty good teams, too.
 
"This team is one in a great line.  And it's nice to be on that line."
 
Parker was one shivering alice of life in the minutes that followed his
second national championship (fourth overall for BU).  While he stood at
center ice and answered all the questions for ESPN, goaltender Derek
Herlofsky and partner-in-crime Rich Brennan conspired in giving Parker
an icy shower.  Over came the orange tub, hoisted high, and Parker was
as wet as if he'd been tossed into the Charles.
 
"I feel old," said the shaking Parker, his shirt and pants clinging to
his wiry body.  "But I felt old before this started."
 
Winning the NCAA hockey championship doesn't capture America's heart and
soul, or the TV lens, the way an NCAA basketball championship can.  The
US is built for roundball.  President Clinton didn't interrupt his
afternoon at Pennsylvania Avenue to call Jack Parker and his good ol' boys
from Route 128 to congratulate them.
 
But no one expects that, especially at BU, a campus of diverse interests
with hockey just a small part of a cosmopolitan landscape.  When the BU
hockey team packed its bags for the trip down here on Wednesday, there
was no band playing on Babcock Street, no booster club sending the boys
off with a fond farewell.
 
"Really, it was very quiet," said the Terriers' longtime sports information
director, Ed Carpenter.  "Just a bunch of college kids taking care of
business."
 
Maine actually has a more avid hockey following.  Understandable.  It's
watch hockey or get back to the lumberjack matchups.  Shawn Walsh's team
also came here hoping to take care of business.  After falling behind, 3-0,
the Black Bears closed within a goal on strikes by Tim Lovell and Trevor
Roenick.
 
But Maine showed the fatigue of Thursday's triple-overtime win over
Michigan.  Forty-eight hours didn't give the Black Bears enough time to
recover.  Tired legs and shortcomings on defense brought them up short.
 
"Short shifts," read the message board in the Maine locker room.  "Short
passes.  Stop and start."  In other words, economize, don't get into a
pass-and-shoot game with a BU team that had rattled off nine straight
wins.  Don't trade punches with a club that won the Beanpot and the
Hockey East title.  In the end, it was a breakdown, a pass picked off,
that buried the Bears.  Bruins prospect Shawn Bates broke over the line
on a two-on-one, dished right to Mike Sylvia, and BU had a 4-2 lead with
5:23 gone in the third.
 
"A killer," said Walsh.  "It was like someone had put a stake right
through our heart."
 
The BU dressing room was surprisingly low key.  Mike Grier (how come no
one calls him Big Country?) packed his red-and-white bag and slung it over
his shoulder on his way to catch the bus.  One by one, his teammates
dollowed, quietly, smiling on cue when asked how it felt to be the greatest
college hockey team in the USA.
 
"Feels great," said Grier.  "I don't think I can describe yet how it
feels, but it feels great."
 
"I'm tired," said Bates, slumping in a chair for a tv interview.  "This
is great.  This is everything we wanted."
 
Be careful today if you drive by the BU bridge.  Ease off the pedal some
if you pass the dorms around 700 Comm. Ave. or the cozy apartments along
Bay State Road.  The partying promised to be long and hard.  Red eyes and
slow steps will be the order of the day.
 
Boston has a champion this morning.  We know it often doesn't get better
than that.
 
END
 
note: Kevin Paul Dupont normally writes on pro hockey and the Boston
Bruins for the Boston Globe.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93