Rags to Riches

When I was but a lad of twelve my older and wiser brother introduced me to a wonderful midwinter extravaganza called the Beanpot.

It seems that Boston's four major college hockey teams got together on the first two Mondays in February for a bit of a glacial Garden party. It was the social event of the winter's sports season and not having established any only standing traditions in my first dozen years, I decided to embrace the Beanpot.

So at least once every February I'd hop on the Green line to join the 13,909 descending on Causeway St. In the early days I was a hard-core B.C. devotee and my enmity for B.U. soon found long and lasting roots.

B.C., Harvard and Northeastern all, for one reason or another, employed local talent on their squads. But those bums from Comm. Ave. always had a stream of talent from out of the North country and Que.s and Ont.s conspicuously accentuated the B.U. players' hometowns. It particularly annoyed me that these semi-pro ringers were forever foiling my Eagles much to the delight of an obnoxious New York crowd, which, in my opinion, deserved no part of this Boston Tradition.

This was all exasperated by the fact that my baptism into the Beanpot coincided with the transformation of the tournament into a veritable B.U. Invitational. Including last night's shootout with icemen from the Heights, the Terriers have skated off with the laurels eight of the last 11 years.

Another aside to the evening was the fact that the Championship game seldom ended before midnight so by the time the Green line had noisily rattled me safely home it was well after 1 p.m. This created perhaps the coolest aspect of my newly found tradition--relating my late night exploits to the envious crowd at school the next morning.

In 1969 a sophomore center named Joey Cavanaugh ended a B.U. skein of three, as the Crimson downed Herb Wakabayashi and Co. 5-3. After Cavanaugh had sent linemate Dan DeMichele away to tie the game at two, the soon to be National Champs flexed their muscles and it looked like Beanpot number four was in hand. But an impossible flurry and a Cavanaugh empty net goal clinched the Harvard victory.

After four more years of sadistic punishment, and a shift in loyalties to the Crimson, I found myself at the Garden for Beanpot number eight. However, a 2-0 deficit after just five minutes seemed to assure a fifth straight victory for the Kenmore Sq. crowd.

But with Harvard's Jim Murray turning in a strong performance in goal and a scrappy Crimson offense chipping away at the lead the good guys were suddenly on top 4-3. However, B.U. raised its ever consistent stick in a post goal celebration and the dream was over. But somehow a wrench named Randy Roth was thrown into the Terrier machine and Harvard emerged with a 5-4 miracle.

And last night it was just frosting on the cake. While Harvard was drudging through its 4-2 consolation win, my old friends from B.C. were tuning up for the upset of the season. And, after the smoke cleared from the shootout on the Garden's ice, that damned old dog, the Terrier, lay dead, 6-3. And I just sat back and smiled.