Thought I would share my experience at the regionals.  I should note that I
am a BU fan, and went with my brother (BU 74) and his son (BU 2006?).  I
also brought a friend that had never seen college hockey before (he lives
in NYC).  I think his reaction to the weekend will sum up why college
hockey is so great.  Also, I read Mike Machnik's post and couldn't agree
more with what he had to say.  And oh yeah, I was pissed when watching
Primestar and during the Cornell-Miami game the screen went blank.
Yesterday I checked for the games and the same thing on both PASS and MSC.
 
Friday:
Unfortunately I missed the whole UNH-CC game because of delays at work.
The people sitting near me filled us in on the scores but I'll wait for
someone else to post any details about the game since I can't verify what
the people around me had to say.  Sounded like a good game though.  I was
disappointed UNH lost though.
 
I spent the whole drive out to Worcester giving my friend a primer on
college hockey and particularly the teams involved.  So when UVM-DU was
about to start, he was expecting thousands of screaming Vermonters.  While
the game was close most of the way, I didn't find it all that well played.
It seemed like both teams passing was way off.  There was some good
hitting, and the forwards on Denver really impressed.  Particulary
Laaksonen and Andersson (I think that was his name).  Time after time they
flew down the right wing boards one on one and then easily beat their man
to cut to the net for a good scoring chance.  I really enjoyed watching
those two play.  The only bad part was we were sitting two rows behind the
players benches and the damn trainer for UVM kept standing up every time
the DU forwards did this and it was tough to get a good view.  That guy was
not winning many friends in the seats.  The crowd (I would estimate around
8 or 9 thousand, I didn't hear an announcment) was pretty into it, and
obviously pro UVM, although the DU alumni had a pretty good showing.  Once
DU scored to go up in the third, the crowd fell silent.  The band stopped
playing.  It was so quiet you could hear the refs yelling on the ice, you
could hear the pucks hit the blades of the sticks on passes.  My friend was
a little disappointed in the UVM fans that I had built up so much.  At one
point he was the only one in the place standing up yelling go cats go.
When the score went to 5-3, you would have thought there was a fire in the
building because everyone was heading for the exits.  We stayed to the end
and after the handshakes as the players skated by we gave our thanks to the
departing UVM players.  They were obviously down, but they seemed to
appreciate the show of thanks from the crowd that remained.
 
On our way home I told my friend that it would be much different the next
day with the BU and Clarkson fans.  And while we had to dodge a steady
stream of vehicles with Vermont plates going up 495, I did run into some
UVM fans that I work with (our hq is in Burlington) that were coming back
the next day to root on Clarkson.  I also had to wonder what it would have
been like if Cornell was playing that game as I saw plenty of Cornell
sweatshirt wearing fans.
 
Saturday:
Again we were a little late and missed the first period of CC-Clarkson.  I
was not happy to see them down 4-0 as I wanted them to win (Eastern Bias
and all), and more importantly, I wanted a good game.  Well, had we not
seen the score we would have never known it was 4-0, because from the
second period on this was a very good game.  There was good action and
Clarkson to their credit did not quit.  I thought being down 4-1 going into
the third that they didn't have a chance.  When CC got the fifth goal, we
went for food thinking it was over.  Of course while on line (BTW I second
the notion that the food at the Centrum was really good, blows away the
Fleet), we missed two goals.  But we did return in time to see the last 10
minutes of a very exciting game.  There is nothing like the end of a one
goal game with the net empty and the fans going crazy, except what happened
in the nightcap.
 
For me the BU-DU game was the main event.  The crowd was around 9 thousand,
and it seemed like they were all BU, no surprise there.  BU came out
skating and hitting hard.  I think they were trying to put them away early
and make DUs legs start to wear out.  They did have the early edge in play,
but DU scored first on a BU defensive lapse.  They left the DU forward all
alone in front of the net and there was nothing Larocque could do.
 
They got the equalizer pretty quickly on the PP, and then I felt they
dominated.  They had a couple of golden opportunities that they just
couldn't finish.  Partly because of DUs goalie (who could not have been
more deserving of the MVP) and partly because they missed the net a lot
once they got him down and out.  I think they doubled up DU on shots in the
first.
 
The second period started out completely the opposite.  DU was all over BU
who had trouble getting the puck out of their end.  Towards the end of the
period BU picked it up and a very fast paced period ended with the score
still tied at 1.  The goalies were both playing well and it looked like it
was going to be really tough to score on either one of them.
 
DU got on the board first in the third to take the lead on a really nice
pass from the boards down low, across the slot to a wide open player that
beat his man.  Another defensive lapse I thought, but also a nice job of
moving without the puck, and a perfect pass.  More evidence of DUs skilled
forwards.   BU again scored fairly quickly to tie it up on O'Connell's
second goal.  I couldn't tell from my seats but it looked like his shot hit
a stick and instead of being low as the goalie expected, it floated over
his shoulder.  Either way, it was all tied up and time was getting short.
I thought the next goal would win.  The action was great and when BU was
called for a penalty with under 5 to go I was really worried.  DUs PP had
done nothing all night, but that wouldn't last forever, I was just hoping
it would hold off one more time.  Well, even better, Shawn Bates (who was
nothing short of fantastic all night) made a great play to anticipate a
pass along the blue line, and then showed some serious speed to go in alone
(I think for his third breakaway of the night - the first two drawing
penalties) and I think he beat Mullin 5 hole from about 10 feet out.  3
minutes left, up 3-2 and I thought it was over if they could just kill the
last 1 minute of the PP.  I also thought that this would be their third 3-2
win in a row.  After killing the penalty I felt pretty good, but with the
goalie pulled Denver tied it up.  Then they almost scored again in the
final seconds.
 
I knew one of the four games would go to OT, but I didn't want it to be
this one.  My friend at this point was totally hooked on college hockey and
couldn't understand why it isn't bigger than it is.
 
DU came out and was all over BU.  I think there were a few reasons for
this.  First, I think they wanted to get it over with as fast as possible
as they had to know a long OT would work against them.  Also, I think BUs
inexperience (they played their freshmen a lot, even in OT) was starting to
show.  I felt that up until Parker called time that they were playing not
to lose and because of that they were making a lot of mistakes.  Larocque
had to come up big on a 2-1 and made a nice glove save to keep the game
going.  The time out seemed to do it for BU because after that they began
to play to win.  Then the ref got involved and really made things
interesting.  I am not criticising him at all.  I felt that if BU lost, it
was because they didn't capitalize on their chances, not because of the
refs.  First he called matching penalties that were deserved I thought.
That made it 4 on 4.  Then, Bates was hauled down on another breakaway
after splitting the D for the umpteenth time.  He had no choice but to call
this one.  It was actually developing into a 2 on 0 as the other forward, I
forgot who, had gotten past the D as well, and picked up the puck after
Bates was hauled down, but he couldn't get a good shot off.  Now 4-3 he
made another call as the puck was in the DU corner, Bates (who else) tried
to beat his man to the puck and he grabbed the D's shoulder in an effort to
get past him.  The ref called him for holding.  I would like to see this
one on tv because I had a bad view of it.  At the time I of course felt it
was a lousy call, but I would be curious to hear what anyone on tv thought.
I got the feeling that it was the ref trying to even it up so the PP
wouldn't end a great game.  So now we were at 3 on 3.  Drury was out there
with I think Coleman and Kelleher.  Probably the best threesome BU could
put out there.  Coleman made a nice play to keep the puck in, and get the
shot on net.  Somehow, Drury was all alone in front and had all day to pull
the puck to his forehand and beat the goalie.  How he could be so alone is
beyond me.  The place went nuts and the players were piling on Drury in the
corner.  Sticks and gloves were flying everywhere.  It was great.  I felt
bad for the DU team that they had to stand there for a long time waiting to
shake hands.  Parker and Gwozdecky seemed to genuinely appreciate each
other's teams efforts when they met to shake hands.  It was cool to see
that from so close (we were maybe 10 feet away) and to see how much most of
the coaches truly respect each other.  After the teams shook hands and the
BU players saluted the crowd, they began to annound the all tourney team,
all the players waited around.  Of the skaters mentioned Bates and
O'Connell got huge ovations obviously, but when they mentioned Mullins name
the crowd really let him know that we thought he deserved it.  Same thing
when they gave him MVP.
 
I know this has been really long, but on the ride home my friend was
telling me how great he thought it was, and he was particularly impressed
with the way the teams and the fans appreciated great play by opposing
players.  He was amazed that so many fans waited around after all the games
to applaud the players, for both teams.  I told him that was what it was
all about.  It is great to root for your own team, but you can always
appreciate greatness.
 
So, congratulations to the final four teams, and to all the teams in the
tourney.  And of course, GO BU!
 
Dave
 
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