Despair, From A Distance

From the Bible of Sports Journalism, Chapter One, Verse One:

Thou shalt not root for the team thou coverest.

OK, so today I'm a sinner. Hey--Lent is over. For that matter, so is Harvard's hockey season.

And dammit, that fact distresses me.

You follow a team for four months. You go to all the home games, many of the away games. Players become people, even friends and you desperately want to see them through their entire season, even all the way to a national championship.

And instead, you're in a sports bar in Scottsdale, Arizona, searching on a satellite for a game transmission that cannot be found.

Well, at least that's how it was for me. Harvard hockey may be an all-consuming passion for one third of the year but the demands and pressures of life at Harvard last twice as long. And when you get the chance to relax, when the window of spring break opportunity opens, you have to jump through it.

You still care. But if you can't be there? You try to make do with what you have.

Unfortunately in Arizona, where "hockey" consists of the IHL's Phoenix Roadrunners, puck fans have less to munch on than Wil E. Coyote. On March 27, a half-hour search o the Tempe (Ariz.) Daily Tribune discovered a one-sentence note about Harvard's 7-1 win over UNH the day before, and it took a lucky glance at ESPN that night to confirm that it would be Lake Superior St. and not second-ranked Michigan that the Crimson would face in one of the national semifinals in St. Paul, Minn.

All good news to me, likewise to my fellow Harvard golf teammates. But we were in Arizona first and foremost to get ready for our spring season, and when we saw that the Lake State game had a 2:00 p.m. EST start time, we knew that rinks and the links couldn't mix.

At least not live.

Aha! we thought, the morning of the game. Daily TV listings in the Tribune mentioned a tape-delayed showing of the NCAA Div. I Men's Ice Hockey Semifinals" at 11:30 p.m. that night. Perfect! Nobody call home to find out the results, we'll all go watch the game then.

So half an hour before the broadcast, a sixsome of us duly departed for the Chicago Sports Bar and Grille. Part of the master plan was already ruined as freshman Alexis Boyle had received a message at the hotel's front desk from boyfriend (and Harvard forward) Marco Ferrari about the game's outcome earlier in the evening. But she didn't tell anyone, and although I subconsciously tried my darndest to figure out what it was she knew, I couldn't penetrate her chronically happy countenance.

We sat down Dan ordered drinks. Talk was of how Harvard should win, should face BU in the final, should cream them again and take the title home to Cambridge....such happy thoughts.

Then came 11:30 And no hockey game on the screen.

OK, no need to panic. The waitress brought me the satellite book, and there were other options: SportsChannel New York had a replay similarly scheduled for 11:30 as did the SportsChannel affiliates in Ohio and Chicago, and if all else failed, Texas' HSE had a replay pegged for midnight.

Live from New York...nothing.

The Windy City? Nothing.

Cleveland? Cincinnati? Nothing.

The smoke could be seen visibly pouring out of my head. At least by then, it was almost midnight and our last options still loomed.

I pleaded for one last chance from the woman pushing the buttons. She, apparently thought as much of college hockey as did the cable sports networks. But in a near-empty bar, she agreed and switched the big screen TV to...

....guys in blue uniforms jumping up and down. Hockey players. From Lake Superior State.

In an instant the image was gone, like Harvard's season. The scene was only part of the opening for the upcoming replay of the day's other game Minnesota-BU, but for us, it stood for the entirety of Harvard's loss.

My stomach sank. Alexis told us of the overtime finish, of the breakaway goal that beat Aaron Israel, of the crock of a five-minute penalty assessed to the Crimson's Kirk Nielsen late in the game, of Lou Body's back injury that robbed Harvard of a critical defenseman as fatigue became a factor.

I couldn't form these opinions myself. I could only rely on the secondhand testimony of someone 1500 miles away from the arena in which it happened.

So we were left to wonder. About a game that we never saw, even a boxscore that we wouldn't see until it came out in The Crimson three days too late. About how BU was eight goals worse than Lake State in the title game, and how easily the Crimson might have been champions.

And worst, about the way spring break saps the Harvard campus of life during the one sporting event which might get its student body collectively excited about its athletes.

Last night, a giant-screen television at Duke University showcased the Blue Devils' NCAA basketball championship game against Arkansas and literally thousands of students showed up to watch the game together. Imagine their excitement, feel their collective tension with every made or missed shot.

Even their shared heartbreak at game's end, as Duke came up short.

But hey--at least those loyal fans got to share their feelings together.