No-Hockey Weekend

My father was in town this weekend. He wanted to know where I spent all my Friday and Saturday nights during the winter. I took him over to Bright Center.

"You got to see this place, Dad," I told him. "The whole place fills up. Standing room. The band goes crazy. And then these bunnies..."

I guess he believed me, although when we finally got to Bright, the doors were locked and the seats were empty. It was a ghost arena.

"It's quiet, now," I said, "but next weekend, they'll be playing again. Then this place will be rocking."

I'm sure that even without the visual proof, he believed me.

My father has never been to a hockey game. Basketball? He used to play in the Puerto Rican league. Golf? Has played ever since he was six. Swimming? Used to swim laps every day. Pool? Won the Puerto Rican championship twice in the 1960s.

Hockey's another story. My father has never seen a game, never heard the sound of pucks bouncing off the boards or skates racing down the ice. Never.

Only empty arenas.

I would have probably played golf for the rest of my life, too. But then came the day my uncle took me to see the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Don Maloney scored three goals. Two days later, I bought a hockey stick, wrote Maloney's name on it and went to my neighborhood playground for an afternoon of six-on-six.

Michael Utke was on the other team. Michael Utke liked to hit. For the first time, I knew the feeling of being smashed against a fence.

By when I scored a goal (assist by the Maloney stick), I knew the feeling of stuffing a puck past a goalie.

This weekend was a strange one.

Not because my father came to visit.

For the first time since November, there was no hockey game to watch. There were no walks across the river, past Blodgett, past Briggs to Bright. No road trips to upstate New York or subway rides to Boston Garden.

A lot of questions, though. Who's Harvard going to play next weekend? (Lake Superior State) How did St. Lawrence lose twice at home to Wisconsin? (Who knows?) What are the chances of Harvard meeting Michigan State in the Final Four? (Not bad.)

What's a weekend like without hockey?(Nothing really changes, just that Bright is empty.)

I watched some NCAA basketball this weekend. North Carolina State defeated Iowa in double overtime yesterday. The Wolfpack has a player named Chucky Brown. Chucky. I know I've heard that name before somewhere.

The Harvard women's lacrosse game defeated Penn on Saturday. Lacrosse--great sport to watch in the spring. Kind of like watching hockey on grass. Remind me to go to lacrosse games in April.

But for now, give me a packed Bright on the last home hockey series of the year. Lake Superior State, the defending NCAA champion, against the Crimson. Winner goes to the Final Four in St. Paul.

Wish my father had decided to visit during the series, instead of this weekend. He'd find out what a crowded hockey rink is like, and why I think about Michael Utke and that Maloney stick all the time.