Some of you know I am at times critical of Bob Ryan, but I thought this was a very fine column. As some have wondered what the Beanpot was about, and since I consider Bob's column from yesterday to be a good introduction to it, I offer the column here for your edification. It also serves as sort of the first tolling of the death knell for the Garden. I am sure there will be many more of these over the next few months. Taken from the Boston Globe, Tuesday, February 7, 1995 A SPECIAL TOURNAMENT, FIRST TO LAST by Bob Ryan Gulp. We have now officially turned over the hourglass on the Boston Garden. We have had the first real Last. When linesman John Jones dropped the puck at approximately 6:05 last evening to start the Boston University-Northeastern game, the final Beanpot Hockey Tournament in the Garden had begun. We are talking about a serious athletic milestone. Boston Garden means the Bruins, the Celtics, ice shows, the circus, wrestling, boxing, schoolboy hockey, postseason college hockey and, yes, the Beanpot. The Beanpot is, in fact, no worse than third in the Garden pecking order, following the Bruins and Celtics. When this tournament reaches its conclusion next Monday night, a vibrant part of the building's history will be concluded. If an edifice can be said to have reached a stage of mortality, then let the word go forth that the Boston Garden has now begun its legitimate Death Watch. "This really is The End," says Garden vice president and Beanpot tournament director Steve Nazro. "I have seriously thought about the ramifications for some time now. It's not really, by the way, sad. None of this is sad. It's just time." They've been playing Beanpot Hockey in the Boston Garden since 1954. In order to realize how the tournament has grown, consider the attendance at the first-round doubleheader that first season in the old barn on Causeway Street: 711. "Seven-eleven," laughs Nazro. "Isn't that something? If people were gamblers, they might have stopped, then and there." There was, of course, an asterisk attached to that figure. Boston had been hit by a serious snowstorm. Many other events had been canceled on that blustery evening, including a wrestling card at the Boston Arena. [now Northeastern's Matthews Arena. - mike] The tournament had been given birth the year before at the Arena. What was true then is equally true now. There was, and is, only one city in America that could stage a college hockey tournament featuring four big-time schools loacted within a 2-mile radius of each other. The mystery might be not that such a tournament exists, but, rather, that it took so long for the idea to be implemented. Walter Brown cooked up the idea for the "New England Invitational" tournament. It quickly became nicknamed the "Bean Pot" (yup, two words). The inaugural was played at the Arena for two reasons, the first being that the Garden was booked on the night they wanted the tournament to begin (Dick Buttons and the Ice Capades had dibs). The second was Brown's wish to highlight the Arena as a hockey venue. He was upset that the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs was subsidizing the NCAA hockey tournament. "The Arena would already be saved if the NCAA tournament were in Boston," he fumed. But that was it for the Arena and the Beanpot. It was moved to the Boston Garden in 1954, and it's been there ever since. The date of that first Garden Beanpot doubleheader was Jan. 11, 1954. "King of the Khyber Rifles" was at the Metropolitan. "Guys & Dolls" was at the Shubert. The Errol Garner Trio was playing at Storyville. Rogers Peets was pushing a sale on men's overcoats for $67.50, $77.50 and $87.50. You could buy a new Hillman Minx automobile at any one of a dozen area dealers for $1,699. And a headline in the Daily Globe read as follows: OPENS BUSY SPORTS WEEK AT GARDEN BEAN POT HOCKEY TOURNEY TONIGHT The Beanpot was not yet a civic institution. Readers were advised that "the biggest event of the week is the basket ball game between Holy Cross and Notre Dame at the Garden Friday night." Let history record that Jimmy Duffy of Boston College scored the first goal in the Beanpot's Garden history. The Eagles would go on to record an 8-5 vistory over Northeastern. The next night (another twist) BC knocked off Harvard to win the tournament. Duffy picked up 7 points in the two games, but teammate Bobby Babine beat him out for the MVP award. Who could have possibly foreseen what this tournament would become? Who could have known that, within a very short period of time, the alumni of the four schools would seize upon this two-night hockey summit as the flashpoint for their individual rivalries? Who could have imagined that a ticket to the Bean Pot, soon to be Beanpot, would become one of the great prestige symbols Boston had to offer? Who could have foreseen a circumstance in which the biggest storm of the century would not be enough to keep 12,000-plus loonies away from the Garden on the first Beanpot Monday of 1978? Yet all this came to pass. It has always been the quintessential *Boston* sporting event. Why, just this past weekend, a New York sports type, someone ranking in the upper 1 percentile of informed and sophisticated sports enthusiasts, when apprised that a man from Boston would be covering the Beanpot, inquired, "Beanpot? What's *that*?" "It always has been our little secret," agrees Nazro, "but that's changing." The Garden is a chic item in the eyes of the national sporting press in this final year of operation, and so, too, is the Beanpot. "People have called us up to come who have never been interested before," Nazro points out. Even happenin' ESPN2, a.k.a. "The Deuce", was on hand to broadcast last night's games. The truth is that in a week in which the Garden will be the site of three Bruins games and a Celtics game, the marquee event will nevertheless be the Beanpot. The eyes said there was nothing to distinguish last night's Beanpot scene from any other. As always, there were no more than a thousand people in the stands when the first game began. And, as always, the building was 90 percent full for the start of the second period. It never changes. One minute the place is near-empty, and the next minute you look up and the place is almost full. But the heart knew what the eye didn't. The heart knew that the Beanpot was beginning its final lap in the best hockey building America has ever known. The heart knew that the Beanpot and the Garden are an entry. The heart respectfully disagreed with Mr. Tournament Director. The heart knew it was looking at its first meaningful Garden Last. The heart was very sad indeed. END --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93