Boston University defeated Maine Saturday night, 4-3 to complete the sweep of the 1st round, Hockey East series, 2 games to 0 at BU. This game was closer to what everyone expected out of this series. Rather than give a play-by-play of what happened, since Neil Goldberg already tried to do this, I will instead give more analysis of the game and emotion. Maine came out with spunk in the first. The statement made in the crowd was, "THIS is the Maine team we expected to come down here." The game often turned into a horse race, with play flying up one end and back down the other. Backed by the goaltending of J.P. "Rocky" McKersie (the crowd was chanting "Rocky" when JP's name was anounced due to his pummeling of the Providence goaltender last week), BU appeared to have the edge in the 5-on-5 play, whether fast-paced or slow. The pattern was that BU would get a 2-goal lead, and then Maine would go on the power-play, then BU would eventually get it back to 2... and then another Maine power-play. In any other year, in any other series not so marred by intrigue, Maine's power-play would have been the story of the weekend. Back from the Olympics with some new tricks, Maine's Peter Ferraro showed BU how the Swede's do it, slicing BU's penalty kill to ribbons both nights. On the positive side for BU, (or down side for Maine) Maine's offense in the even-strength situations was non-existent for the fourth straight BU-Maine game. (I'm not sure how the one goal was scored in the second game last month for Maine, but that's, at MOST, one even-strength goal vs. BU in 4 games!) Also, when Peter Ferraro was not on the ice, Maine's power-play was impotent. Chris Ferraro was a non-factor all weekend, prompting many fans around me to speculate on his physical or mental health. Is it possible he is still sick? Either way, this was NOT the Chris Ferraro that we all remembered. At the end of the 2nd period, down by one goal on the road and 20 minutes away from elimination, Walsh had to do something to get his troops fired-up. In what *appeared* to be a motivational attempt (and a good one at that), Walsh began going into tirades on the Maine bench, hounding and screaming at the refs at the end of the period. He even went so far as to exit through the home entrance-way instead of the visitor doors, *apparently* following the refs. (Not being right there on the ice, I can not say for certain exactly what happened or why things were done, only what it looked like from the stands.) Maine also changed goalies and replaced Blair Marsh with Blair Allison. (Yes, Neil, that was Alison who came into the game in the 3rd, not Marsh.) In the third, the emotion was high. The crowds (larger than Friday night) were energized and the play was more physical. The tension was high, but not as high as it was going to get! One goal that stood out as an emotional lift came from senior 4th-liner Jon Jenkins, who scored BU's 4th goal on a feed from Jon Pratt while getting hauled down in front. For someone who's not a goal-scorer to get such an "effort-goal" was a big lift to the team and crowd. The climax to the weekend came when, up by only one goal, BU was called for a penalty with only about 2:50 left. After seeing how successful Maine's power- play had been all weekend, the Maine fans sensed a tieing goal while the BU fans began to ponder doom. With the Maine fans celebrating the penalty, after some tension-induced silence from the BU crowd, the puck was dropped and the power-play began... BU managed to get the puck out of the zone and down to the Maine end early, and the BU crowd started in. Within seconds, the entire crowd was on their feet cheering, "GO BU! GO BU!" while clapping and banging anything that would make noise. The BU team, already playing at a high level, picked the intensity up to a level they have not shown this year. A team that has been accused of lacking heart a few times this year displayed heart while simply out-hustling Maine's power-play unit (which was playing damn well even here). The crowd displayed a continuous wave of emotion as all sensed what was happening. The crowd had picked up the team, which had in turn picked up the crowd. With the power-play killed off, Maine pulled Alison for the extra attacker, but BU's defense smelled the kill. With the final seconds winding down, BU's goalie, J.P. McKersie, got control of the puck and cleared it down the ice, hard enough to get by the Maine men at the blue-line, but not hard enough to go all the way down for icing. The game was over. As the final seconds ticked off, the crowd began to celebrate. When the final buzzer sounded, the players exploded, rushing to their goaltender and piling up in a way usually reserved for championships. After the handshake, the crowd was still cheering and the players saluted them. With the section 6-7 and 8-10 crowd refusing to leave the rink while still screaming, the team came back out (they were 1/2 off) and gave a curtain call, banging on the glass and yelling themselves in emotion better than anything since the BU curtain-call after the upset sweep of Michigan in '91. It was truly a great night to be a BU hockey fan. Tony BU'92'93 Former Ogre PS - Although Neil Goldberg stated this weekend's games at the Garden to be using one schedule, what NESN says is that Lowell (#2) will play UNH (#3) at 5 PM and BU (#1) will play Northeastern (#4) at 8 PM. I will check tomorrow to see who is right, Neil or NESN and post it on the list, but any of you may want to check to see what the actual schedule is before you either buy tickets or miss the game you want to see.