Battle for Beantown

I very provincial city. In a nine way. Every year, some newspaper outside New England will run a feature on the Beanpot Tournament--not so much a sports article, but a slice-of-life-in-Boston article. Curious, isn't it, how Bostonians get so excited over college hockey, the collegiate sport that never managed to produce the same nationwide mania as football and basketball? And they pack the Boston Garden for a little tournament--the same four teams play every year, even--and they scream themselves hoarse, Quaint old Beantown.

The games don't even count in the ECAC standings. But somehow, when the first two Mondays in February roll around, the Beanpot suddenly seems desperately important to players and fans at Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, and Harvard. This year marks the 32nd time the quartet will fight it out for the unofficial championship of Boston college hockey.

Many of the skaters on all four teams are locals, and inevitably know some of their opponents--which makes for some intense, rivalries. Each of the coaches has been in the area a long time. B. C.'s Len Geglerski was an Eagle standout before the tournament began and N. U.'s Fern Flaman was a hard-hitting Boston Bruin, while B.U.'s Jack Parker and Harvard's Bill Cleary were starring in the Beanpot as players. All four know how seriously the fans take the Beanpot. A year after his Huskies won their first-ever ECAC title, Flaman said some N. U. alums had told him how that was nice.

They would rather have had a Beanpot.

The winners have been hard to pick in recent years perhaps, but most things about the Beanpot stay the same.