Hello All, I posted this piece last year around this time. I thought that I should post it again for as the names may change over time, the message itself is timeless. The story was written by Greg Reid and all credit goes to him. It was published in the Daily Maine Campus, the student newspaper of the University of Maine. I am not fully sure of the date, sometime in early April of 1989 though. I am looking foward to seeing all of you who will be in Providence. Good luck to everyone. Sarah Foster Conversation With A Special "Fan" The NCAA final four is more of a fan all star weekend than a championship tournament. While Seattle melted under the lights of network television and felt the weight of basketball's million dollar profits, the Twin Cities welcomed 15,000 fans with the hospitality born of 4 a.m. rides to practice and the excitement of your first pair of double runners. Michigan State, Minnesota, Maine, and Harvard were the only teams in the tournament, but hockey fans from all over the country came to St.Paul: Bee Gees from Bowling Green were cheering for the Spartans, No-Daks from North Dakota were singing drinking songs with the Gophers, and Badgers were dancing with Bannanas the Bear. This was the weekend Harvard claimed its first national championship in any sport and Lane McDonald was name the Hobey Baker Award winner as this year's top player in the game. The Hobey Baker is a strange award. It recognizes the best individual player in a game that can't be played individually. Baker was Princeton's two sport legend who supposedly epitomized the ideals of college sports: scholarship, athletic excellence, class in victory, and class in defeat. Hobart Amory Hare Baker set university records in football and hockey, flew as a fighter in the Great War, and died testing aircraft in 1918. His legend was his character, not his records. But this award typically goes to the player with the best statistics and the most effective public relations campaign. I stood next to a rather odd-looking guy amid 200 or so people at the Bear's pregame send-off at the Holiday Inn-Town Square. He looked strangely out of place, this pale, thin man in his black sweater with a burned orange "P" on his chest. He nodded to me and smiled, turning his eyes to the center of the room. Six red and white costumed Badger fans were leading the Maine fans in anti-Minnesota cheers. The guy laughed to himself. "This is what it is all about," he said, running his hand through his short blond hair. "Are you a Maine Alum?" I asked trying to place the guy's face. He couldn't have been much more than 26 or 27 but his gray eyes has the look of having seen a lot in so few years. "No," he said shaking his head, slowly. "Princeton." To most of the people in the room, Princeton meant nothing more than an 8-2 Maine victory in December and a non-scholarship basketball team coming within a point of sending Georgetown to the biggest upset in its history. But this was St.Paul. Princeton was Baker's school, St. Paul was the home of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the university's most famous dropout, and the capital of The Land of 10,000 Outdoor Hockey Rinks come October. Somehow, this guy fit in. For a moment, the guy looked a 100 years old. Then he smiled. "Do you think Maine will win it all?" I asked. "That doesn't really matter, does it?" he said. "As long as these people are here, that's the point." He sounded like he went to academic-before-athletics Princeton. Ivy-on-the-walls Princeton. "They made the semis last year," I said. "They say they want to go a step further this year." He laughed at Bananas, who swiveled his hips at an older couple. "Only the champion remembers the champion, the game winning play," he said. Was this guy a graduate philosophy major? "The final four is like any other holiday, really. Do you remember what you got for Christmas last year or do you just remember Christmas?" I raised an eyebrow. Scores told the story. Goals and assists and championshops and trophies were what hockey meant. Isn't that what everybody came to Minnesota for this weekend? Not exactly. An iron miner named Goofus from upper-Michigan has cheered for his State Spartans faithfully since he dropped outin 1968. Wisconsin graduate and Hartford Whaler's scout Dave McNab plans his calendar - work and social - around these games. And every April Boston University's Elliot Dribben takes time off from his job at John Handcock in Boston and brings his battle with Cerebal Palsy to the festivities, whether they're in St.Paul, Providence, R.I., or Detriot. Scores? Stats? Who cares if that helmet was a little to big or a little to small. It was the last thing Santa ever left under the tree. "This is a holiday by itself," the guy said. "A lot of emotion. A lot of memories." I looked around the room as people started to cheer. The Bears were coming out of the elevators. The guy wished me well and I felt his hand clap on my shoulder. Or I thought I did. "I missed your name," I said as he faded into the crowd. His mouth moved. "Hobey," I thought he said. "Hobey Baker."