Sunday afternoon the Maine Mariners alumni returned to help one of their
own. Travis Roy worked as a Mariners stickboy for eight years when
he was growing up, and it didn't take much prodding to get them to
travel back to Maine for his sake. And the Bruins' organization, led
by "Number 4", seems to have adopted Travis.
5,000 people attended the game, which raised well over $50,000
for the Travis Roy fund. Travis' father, Lee, was made a Mariner
(he had been operations manager of the Civic Center) and received
a tremendous hand when he was introduced. The cheering grew
when he motioned towards his wife, Brenda, and his daughter, Tobi,
sitting in the stands. During the game Lee scored a goal and the
building erupted again. The goal broke a 3-3 tie, but its real
importance was expressed by Lee after the game:
"It was bittersweet, scoring like that, knowing he'll never do it
again. Heck, I'll never do it again."
Lee was wearing Travis' #24, not his own #14 from his days
at the University of Vermont. "I would've felt much better
wearing my own #14...wearing Travis' number I felt like a poor
imposter."
Mariner coach Tom McVie was also the coach for most of the
seasons Travis worked for the team. He was the coach who
decorated the ice with water bottles, sticks, trash cans
and anything else on the bench that wasn't nailed down one winter
night. It was Travis who
got the task of cleaning up the mess before the game could
resume, receiving a standing ovation for his work.
After the game McVie said, "Once you're in the family,
you never leave. I came from the other Portland to be here
and I would've hitchhiked if I'd had to. Why? Because I love
hockey and I love Travis."
********************************************************************
article written by John Forsyth, quotes and quoted material
from Steve Solloway, staff writer for the Portland Press Herald.
********************************************************************
For those who have mailed me asking for the USA Today article,
I'll post it here the next chance I get; I don't have it with me
today.
I was listening to the Maine-Northeastern game on the radio
yesterday (any chance you'll be un-retiring Joe? ;->)when
the following scenario came to me (it was never mentioned by
the radio team of Dan Harrigan and Matt Burke {I could swear
his name was Bourque when I was there, but I guess he changed it})
*Pardon the sarcasm.* Back to my point:
Maine and Lowell are tied going into the final game on Saturday
night, and the second seed in hockey east gets decided by...
a shootout!
I can already hear the complaints coming from the losing team's
campus.
One final note on the Maine Playoffs:
NYA won 6-0 (35 saves on 41 shots for J.D. Haderis of Thornton,
10 saves on 10 shots by A.C. Colello of NYA).
Waterville defeated Biddeford 5-4 in 2 OT.
St. Dominic's destroyed Edward Little 11-2.
Lewiston beat Cony 6-1.
State Semi-Finals are Wednesday in Lewiston, NYA-Waterville
starts at 6:15, Lewiston-St. Dom's at 8:30.
Details on my web page: http://maine.maine.edu:80/~jforsy41/
I went 4-0 picking the first round, Vegas here I come ;->
John Forsyth
"Using Walsh as a reference is like having Nixon on your resume."
-anonymous worker at LL Bean
"So? Pat Buchanan is the GOP front-runner." -Me.
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