On Frozen Blog

Indelible images from a hockey event in my hometown that stole my heart:

• Approximately four seconds after Boston University scored its second goal of the championship game’s final minute to get it all even at 3, unimaginably, I made a point of looking up at section 423, crammed full of BU undergrads. I was transfixed on their elation — the scene up there resembled a 300-person orgy.

• It seemed as if everyone seated in the lower bowl had a bird’s-eye view of Colby Cohen’s overtime shot that deflected off of Miami’s Kevin Roeder, from its firing to its deflection to its torturously slow fluttering above the maze of players in front of the net — everyone saw it except he who most needed to: goaltender Cody Reichard.

• In the immediacy of defeat Reichard was a portrait of inconsolable agony. His Miami teammates enveloped him at the onset of the BU celebration at the other end of the ice, forming a protective cocoon around their goalie that seemed to last for minutes. Every Miami teammate and coach it seemed made an effort to console him. It was only as the players from both teams formed the iconic post-game handshake line at center ice that Reichard emerged from his fallen-to-the-ice-in-failure posture. Of course, no freshman netminder that puts his underdog team into OT against the top-ranked team in the nation in the NCAA title game can be said to have failed. 

• In ‘Mystery, Alaska,’ when the Mystery team is absorbing harrowing defeat with the game-ending horn still ringing in their ears, the home community initiates a boisterous round of cheering and applause, one which signaled acknowledgment of victory irrespective of the scoreboard’s verdict. I thought of this last night as I watched adjoining lower bowl sections of Miami supporters acknowledge the wholly unexpected gallantry of the Redhawks — a team more than a few college hockey observers felt shouldn’t even have made it to the postseason round of 16. Just before exiting the ice Miami’s players assembled near these support sections and began tapping their sticks on the ice, and the unity of school and athlete in that moment was marvelous and moving.    

• Was it the greatest hockey game ever played in Washington, D.C.? Perhaps. Without question BU’s final-minute heroics represented the greatest comeback in NCAA hockey title game history.

• Never before had I walked into Verizon Center for a hockey game and felt as chilled-to-the-bone as I did around 6:15 Saturday night. Saturday was appreciably colder than Thursday in the building — and Thursday was cold! This Frozen Four was an event alleged to have delivered $10-million-plus to the local economy. Apparently, Verizon Center management think that’s cause enough to make the building cold enough for quality hockey. But now we know: a sold out building in spring in no excuse for sh*tty ice, ever. An ice sheet of at least moderate quality here can be achieved. Let us monitor closely what conditions are afforded the Capitals beginning later this week.

• On my Metro train near 11:00 last night I sat close to three middle-aged men from Minnesota, all in Golden Gophers’ regalia. Just as our doors closed a very young man, perhaps 25, scurried in and plopped down next to us. He was wearing a black Fighting Sioux sweater. The Minnesotans immediately and silently sized him up with icy suspicion. The moment was actually palpably tense. I broke the awkwardness with an attempt at humor: “I’m here to keep the peace between the four of you,” I said with a smile. Small smiles suddenly formed at each of the Minnesotans’ mouths, and then one of them looked at his younger rival and said, “Shouldn’t you be pitching sandbags back home?”