The student newspaper the day after BU's first Beanpot 4th place finish in 31 years.

I’ve experienced lows as a fan before. I’ve been a fan of teams who Super Bowl wins were denied by field goals, blue collar Canadian teams defeated by oil magnet America’s Teams, a quarterbacks whose career was ended by one hit after one guard missed a block and allowed a hit so hard he was knocked unconscious, and league founding hockey teams struggling to exist in an economically devastated city. I’ve felt the lows, I’ve felt the pits, I’ve felt the loss of identity. I know what it’s like to wonder why you even cheer on a team, geography, tradition and childhood be darned.

But Boston University’s loss Monday night in the Beanpot consolation game, giving them their first last place finish in the event snarkily referred to as the BU Invitational in 31 years, felt like something different. While I didn’t have the sucker-punch pit I did when Scott Norwood’s kick went too far right, or when Jeremy Newbury missed the tackle to let Aeneas Williams take Steve Young down that last time, I felt more like I was watching an oddity. A bad dream. Something so unreal that I would undoubtedly wake up and text Laurel like I do after any weird hockey related dream, saying despite the now three hour time difference between us, “I had this crazy dream that we lost the Beanpot to Harvard.”

This dream-like sequence was further assisted by the fact that I was watching this once in a lifetime (because literally, it has only happened once in my lifetime – I’m only 29) loss from a perch on the ninth floor of the TD Garden, bright green laminated press pass around my neck, sitting at an assigned seat, laptop computer open and frantically typing away. Those I only had ever seen on NESN were walking behind me, getting ready for the main event, the Northeastern – Boston College championship game. People I recognized from Twitter, from local news sites, people who have no idea who short little me was but who I knew immediately. And I was one of them, if only for two nights in February.

I watched the Terriers defense seemingly fade to invisibility as goaltender Kieran Millan was left in the cold as a Harvard team who literally only had this game to play for from my perch. I watched as Harvard outskated BU, scoring three goals in two minutes. I watched as BU pulled Millan but never got close to converting their man advantage. I watched them lose a Beanpot with the lowest point of effort I may have ever seen from a hockey team. Even the lowly Merrimack teams of five years ago would bite, even the UMass Lowell’s seemed to have a sort of pride to play for. And now, it was one of the nation’s historically best hockey teams looking like they checked their motivation in 2009. But I was watching this all from a seat that represented the pinnacle of what I’ve been working towards since I was 12 years old.

The arena was empty, the press box was barren, and BU had just lost a game against a team that had had only four wins prior to that night. But I was in a press box, and people wanted my take on the game immediately.

“This is the lowest of lows,” I said to the first person who asked.

But still, part of me inside was jumping on a metaphorical mattress. I was in the press box, in a major venue, for a major event. And because of that, it was the best night of my entire life. The best night gift wrapped as one of my lowest nights as a sports fan.

The previous Monday night during the BC-BU first round.

Per usual, I’m all over the Beanpot like wanna-be rock stars up on MySpace. Catch my extensive overview of Beanpot Players to Watch on Beantown Athletic Supporters. Tonight, I’ll be live tweeting for BU Today along with several of my co-workers and students, and you’ll also be able to catch my reports direct from Twitter.

Later this week, I’ll be profiling the Charity Beanpot Challenge, a game featuring Beanpot alumni and supporting the Travis Roy and Mark Bavis Foundations.

Happy Beanpot Monday!

Brandon Yip, Chris Higgins and Jason Lawrence celebrate BU's Hockey East Championship (Photo: Boston Herald)

I immediately thought of the following photo that I had featured in my blog last month. Wow, isn’t the above picture strangely familiar to this picture from their freshman year, isn’t it?

Lawrence, Higgins and Yip celebrate their first Beanpot win as freshmen in 2006. (Photo: Jamd.com)

Let’s all feel nostalgic and old now, shall we? Sniffle, sniffle.

And they are off!  Sam the Minuteman was definitely the most athletic of the bunch, despite having one of the most unwieldy costumes. Maybe they should recruit him to play on the actual hockey team?

Sam the Minuteman lost the ball after some stick clashing with the Vermont Catamount. My favorite, the Skating Monk (actually a friar), is getting in on the play. The Northeastern Husky is depressed and lifeless in the corner. (Insert snide remark about how the Northeastern offense was very much the same in their semifinal game here.)

The Merrimack Warrior and Wiley E. Cat fight for the ball, as the Catamount tries to make a charge.

Oh, Bananas the Bear. Oh, Bananas. You’re making me want to cry. Stop looking so sad. Oh my gosh. I just want to give you a hug or something. Next year, Bananas.  Provided Gustav the Mighty stays, you might be playing at the Garden. Have hope!

Bananas reaches out to Wiley E. Cat for some solace. Wiley can’t help him. “Look, dude. My team is labeled as the ‘University of No Hardware.’ You really think I can make you feel any better?”

Hey Baldwin the Eagle, you think touching another mascot’s behind with your stick is allowed by the Catholic Church? I think you might have to go to Confession for that one.

Inexplicably, the Merrimack Warrior decided to take on the Vermont Catamount. Really? Mr. Warrior, you don’t even come out for your own team’s home games, and you decide to throw down at the Garden against a mascot of a team that has only been in the league four years but has probably already amassed more league wins then your own? That takes guts.

The Happy Friar – Skating Monk just looks on, with his big grinning face.

Bye, Skating Monk! Bye, Vermont Catamount! Oh, Bananas. Don’t look so down. No, Wiley E. Cat, you have to get off the ice now. Believe it or not, your team isn’t playing in the semifinals.

When I was a Brownie Girl Scout, my troop partook in the Strasenberg Planetarium Sleepover. The name of this program pretty much explains it – roughly 50 Girl Scouts take over the planetarium for an overnight and stay up late watching every show in the planetarium’s rotation. You then get two hours of sleep in the planetarium lobby, where they then wake you up at an ungodly hour by blasting “Here Comes the Sun” and handing you a Wegmans donut and orange juice before forcing you out so they can open for a more profitable event. As you can tell, it was the highlight of the year, especially when your troop eschews camping, like mine did. (We didn’t like getting dirty. Or ticks. Or dampness.)

On a late March Friday evening, I took part in the Great Garden Sleepover Party, or as everyone else knows it as, the Hockey East Semifinals. I was there from 5:15pm – five minutes into the first semifinal game between the University of New Hampshire and Boston College – until the bitter end of the Boston University versus Vermont game – with a final whistle at 1:05am. Such an evening epitomized college hockey for me – spirited, crazy, and a true sports fans dream.

Seeing that I am finally getting around to finishing this post a month and a half after The Giant Garden Sleepover Party happened, I won’t go into too much detail. Whatever could have been said about the outcome has been said, and in hindsight, all of us Hockey East fans should be happy that Boston College showed the Notre Dame’s and Michigan’s of the world that we can play ourselves some college hockey here on the East Coast – should being the operative word. Whether we all are is another topic all together.

But there is one thing I can add to the discussion. One thing that one can never, ever, get tired of talking about.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the annual Hockey East Mascot Game!!!!

For those not familiar with Hockey East, all of the mascots of Hockey East teams gather and play a scrimmage during the intermission of one of the two semifinal games held at the TD Banknorth Garden the Friday evening of Championship Weekend. I’m impressed that the mascots stuck around for the game, as it was held during the second game of the night, which began after 10pm. Some years, this game is more interesting than the actual semi-final games. This year was not one of those years, but I took photos nonetheless. (Sorry that they’re not better – they’re taken from the cheap seats.)

Most of the Hockey East mascots show up at the Garden for the Semifinal games, regardless of if their teams have made it that far in the playoffs. Case in point – above, we see the Merrimack College Warrior discussing strategy with my personal favorite, the Providence College Friar, aka the Skating Monk. I think they are discussing being Catholic. Or maybe their teams never making it to the Garden. Or maybe, how they can show up all the other mascots. I take the last one.

And they’re off! Vermont’s Catamount and Boston University’s Rhett the Terrier let the three mascots of teams not at the Garden take a breakaway. Joining the Skating Monk and Warrior is the UMass Lowell RiverHawk. Who knew a RiverHawk was cardinal red and blue? I thought they were kind of a drabby gray, like a pigeon. That’s it – they should be the UMass Lowell Pigeons! They’re annoying and you can’t get rid of them easily – just like how the Terriers feel when they play them in the Hockey East quarterfinals!

Let me digress here for a second to discuss the existance of the Catamount. Now, I probably am wrong, but I believe that a catamount and a bearcat are the same thing. That being said, shouldn’t it be that a bearcat looks more like a bear, and a catamount more like a cat? Now, examine the Vermont Catamount in comparison to the Binghamton Bearcat (gosh, I wish they would field a men’s hockey team and join Hockey East. Please?!? Screw the law school plan and build an ice rink!!!)

Which one looks more like a bear, and who looks more like a cat? When you see Rally the Catamount in person, he definitely looks more like a bear. You can’t fully appreciate the bear ears in the photo. Baxter the Bearcat looks more like a…umm…mix between a cat and a bear? But at the end of the day, what is the difference? They both are supposed to be underrated vicious cats, that won’t maim you like a lion or tiger, but will give you more than a superficial scratch. Back to our regularly scheduled blog.

I believe the traffic jam at the net was being caused by Rhett the Terrier, who had the puck to the right bottom corner of the photo. Notice how depressed the Maine Black Bear looks. Is he even paying attention? I know it was hard for Maine this year, but they have to keep their chin up. They might contend again next year, and if not then, the year after that. Come on, it’s Maine - there is enough Quebecois there to stack any hockey team at any level.

We have Rhett taunting the crowd and/or Wiley E. Cat, the University of New Hampshire Wildcat. “Bring it!” Rhett is ordering. Rhett seems to forget that’s Wiley’s it has already been brought, and crushed in a 3 overtime loss to Boston College. Luckily for Wiley, most of the action occurred at the other end of the ice – he could be depressed without having to pay attention to playing goalie.

Next year, I swear I am going to get near the ice to take better photos. Anytime you have a Monk playing hockey with a Spartan Warrior and a Wildcat, Catamount and Pigeon – I mean RiverHawk – there is a good time to be had.

Wait — isn’t a Wildcat the same thing as a Catamount and a Bearcat? It is! Oh, America East schools and your lack of mascot originality.

TO: The Collective Population of New England (especially the Citizens of Massachusetts)

FROM: A Disgruntled Western New Yorker Turned Bostonian

RE: Geography of New York State and the Sports Fandom it Dictates

DATE: November 2, 2007

I feel it prudent at this time to provide you with a refresher geography lesson of New York State (or for those of you who did not pay attention in social studies, a first lesson.) This lesson was spurred on by the absolutely drunk (and I believe underage) Bruins fan and native New Englander who sat in front of me during Thursday evening’s Bruins-Sabres game. This fan proceeded to taunt all the Sabres fans (of which there were many, including myself) by telling us that the “Yankees suck,” and that A-Rod does several unrepeatable acts of a sexual nature. He then decided to mention that “Look, who won the World Series this year – the Red Sox, not your stupid (insert-bad-word-here) Yankees.”

Oh, Mr. Underage Drunk who was using a fake ID to provide his even more underage girlfriend with beers, which proceeded to cause her to do several imitations of various Family Guy characters for all of us to enjoy throughout the evening (not well, by the way – they were clouded by her Jimmy Fallon-esqe fake Bostonian accent circa the Saturday Night Live “Billerica Knights of Columbus” sketch.) If the Massachusetts school system had taught you anything, you would know that true Western New Yorkers couldn’t give a darn about Major League Baseball, seeing that many of us go our entire lives without seeing a MLB game live. This, of course, because we live no where near a MLB team worth merit. Of course, we could cross the border and watch the Blue Jays, but no one has wanted to do that since the mid-1990s. Anyway, we are too busy with football, hockey and lacrosse – baseball would over extend our sports focus.

Mr. Underage Drunk and your fellow New Englanders, to best argue my case, I present a map of New York State.

The red part of the map represents New York City, Westchester County, and Long Island, aka, the parts of New York that Western New Yorkers and New Englanders mutually loathe. The orange part of the map represents a few counties that think they are Upstate, but are really lumped together in our disdain with New York City residents. The green part is indicative of the Adirondacks region of New York State, a part that I’m surprised has yet to be annexed and split in half by the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. People here don’t pay attention to sports that are not represented in the Winter Olympics. The rest – the yellow – represents true Upstate New York.

Upstate New York can be further divided into four separate areas:

1. Western New York (of which I am biased towards, being raised here.)
2. Central New York (another place I am somewhat biased towards, as I went to school here.)
3. Albany/Capital Region
4. Poughkeepsie, or the Land of Downstaters-Who-Aren’t-Really-Downstaters, therefore we like them.

Within these four regions, sports team devotion is quite varied. Those from Albany and Poughkeepsie definitely tend to like the Yankees or Mets, because of their proximity to New York City. However, for football, while those from the Poughkeepsie area tend to like the Giants or Jets, I have found that those from Albany like either the Bills, Giants or Patriots, but not the Jets. The Giants hold their training camp at SUNY Albany, the Bills are considered the team of all of Upstate New York, and the Patriots are somewhat close by (2 ½ -3 hours) and for a few years now, have been quite popular to follow.

Central New Yorkers seem to split when it comes to liking baseball – half seem to not realize the sport exists, while the other half either like the Mets or the Yankees. When it comes to football, this region is all over the map – while you will find your fair share of Bills fans, I have come across Philadelphia Eagles fans (for example, Binghamton, NY is on the Pennsylvania border, and is maybe a 3 hour drive away from Philly – thus the Eagles fans there) and Giants fans. Strangely, I rarely found a Central New Yorker Jets fan. It is important to note that the further North you travel in Central New York (Syracuse and Utica, for instance) you will find mostly Bills fans, while in the armpit (Broome, Delaware, and Chenango counties), you find the most diversity.

Now we come to the land of my birth, Western New York, where you are a Bills and Sabres fans upon your conception. Besides my Uncle Sean, I know of no Jets fans in Western New York, and I certainly have never met a Giants fan from here either. (Although, if I remember correctly, there is/was a bar on West Ridge Road in between the Kodak complex and the retail Candy Land that is Greece, NY that advertised as being the Giants fan hangout on Sundays. It is in that strip mall with the Abbots and, I believe, Buffalo Bill’s Tavern that has the white, hot pink and ’80s teal awing. Those of you who know Rochester know what I’m talking about.) The only other football team represented in the area are the Cleveland Browns – a small contingent of their fans exist throughout the area. These fans tend to be older in age and hawken back to the day before the Bills existed, and the Browns were the only team nearby. Strangely enough, this leads to a weird mix in Erie, Pennsylvania (just over the Buffalo border) where you have a pretty divided mix of Browns fans and Bills fans, with a smattering of Steelers fans.

However, baseball fandom in Western New York tends to be highly personal in nature. I know three devoted Red Sox fans in the area and two Yankees fans. When I was in tenth grade, I knew a few guys in school who aligned with the Red Sox because it was, in the words of one of them, “the team that college kids like.” I don’t recall their fandom going any further than the purchase of Red Sox hats. The majority of Western New Yorkers really do not align themselves with a particular baseball team. For example, when I was growing up, I once asked my father, who I looked to for all of my sports knowledge, what baseball team I was supposed to root for. He shrugged and answered, “I don’t know – the Blue Jays?”

Western New Yorkers do care about Triple A baseball, with the Buffalo Bisons, Rochester Red Wings and Syracuse SkyChiefs all in the International League and all playing each other regularly in “Thruway Series” games. But when it comes to Major League Baseball, Western New Yorkers live too far away from New York City (at least a six hour drive) to make it to a Yankees or Mets game on any regular basis. In addition, culturally, Western New Yorkers despise New York City with every ounce of their being – we equate Bloomberg, Guliani and their political counterparts with the devil for monopolizing state funding away from our region; we blame New York City for the past two decades’ influx of crime in the area due to criminals from NYC being sent to serve their time in Western New York and residing here when they are released; and overall, we hate the way Downstaters pretend we don’t exist. Truthfully, Western New Yorkers have an inferiority complex when it comes to Downstate, and we aren’t afraid to show it. Thus, the majority of Western New Yorkers would never think of adopting a New York City sports team as their own.

This disdain of Downstate New York is a reason why many young Western New Yorkers are seemingly flocking to Boston to lead their adult lives – career opportunities in our home region are so limited, but we can’t bring ourselves to move down to New York City because of our overwhelming dislike of the area. So we choose Boston, an area with similar, if not more intense, feelings towards Downstate as the ones we were brought up with. And this is why, at Sabres-Bruins games, the Sabres fans come close to outnumbering the Bruins fans – we’re moving up here in droves.

So, Mr. Underage Drunk, the next time you attempt to taunt Buffalo Sabres fans by telling us how much the Yankees suck, recall that we too, hate the Yankees. Instead, we recommend that you just singsongingly taunt, “Chris Drury. Chris Drury. Chris Drury.” or make up some taunt regarding the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals. We’ll smirk, and then, just like what happened on Thursday, some Sabres fan will remark to the other Sabres fans around him, “Never mind – the Rochester Amerks (the AHL team in Rochester) sell more tickets than the Bruins.” We’ll all laugh, proclaim the fan’s correctness, and look at the New Englanders’ confused faces.

*******

An aside added later – I forgot to add an important discussion piece in this entry. I feel that Major League Baseball had more of a fan base less dependent on geography before the most recent players strikes. In order to appeal to fans outside of a teams geographical region, a sport needs to have a momentum building that transcends geographical limitations. With baseball, when you had larger than life players like a Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and the like, ones who seemed almost mythical, the story sold in places with smaller populations like Western New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Iowa, even though the teams involved played far away. Once player strikes began to happen, outlying fans such as these had less buy-in than fans in the actual regions where teams existed, and thus, were the first to abandon baseball. Baseball has been back for over a decade now, but only now are they rebuilding the momentum – you had three long suffering franchises win the last four World Series, which is again news worthy for those with no baseball team in their area. It will take a bit longer for baseball fandom to reach its before strike levels, and the fear should be that they have lost an entire generation (those 22-28 or so, who were of prime fan development age during the 1994 strike) of fans. However, I have no doubt that baseball will always be a relevant and successful sport in this country.

The NFL has this momentum now, with a wide ranging appeal that defies geographic boundaries. What helps professional football is that every state in the US has a Division I college football team, which is essentially the equivalent of the farm system in baseball. Even those states with seemingly nothing else have college football (Montana State – always a contender in Division I-AA, Boise State – the surprising stars of last year’s college football season,) thus allowing fans to follow players from college into the professional ranks. This buy in increases the propensity for someone not near any NFL team to be a fan of a NFL team. The NBA had the mythical athlete appeal through the 1980s and 1990s and have lost it – thus why the NBA is increasingly suffering loss of viewership over the past view years. The NHL barely touched the mythical athlete appeal with Gretzky, but besides that, never had a reason for those not located near a team to become a fan – thus why the sport is now failing miserably. A professional sport built on a pure regional adoption of team as the sole reason for fandom model will no longer succeed in America.

For the second year in a row, I had the opportunity (aka, Chris and I had enough “Terrier loyalty points”) to attend the Beanpot. For my Upstate New Yorkers, the Beanpot is a four university hockey tournament that has been going on for 55 years. It features Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, and Harvard. The tournament takes place the first two Mondays of February, with two games each night. There is a women’s hockey Beanpot, a baseball beanpot, and even a Rice and Beanpot, but the most well attended and well known is the men’s hockey Beanpot, played at the Fleet-Banknorth-Boston-Garden-Center.

The last thing that y’all Upstate New Yorkers need to know about the Beanpot is that Boston University has won more times than the other three teams combined. Bostonians snidely call it the “BU Invitational.” (And as a good Binghamton alum, I always respond to that by asking, “But I don’t see any Bearcats around.”)
While I can’t contribute much beyond what everyone else in the blogsphere has already, I bring you my thoughts from my second in-person Beanpot final.

I like the Boston University band. They are a traditional, large, hard-core athletic pep band. They play upbeat, horn-led, traditional peppy songs. It’s interesting to compare other schools with the BU Band, which is easy to do at the Beanpot. The Harvard band knows five songs total, but I like their fight song and often have it stuck in my head, so they get props. The Northeastern band had the bright idea to include their cheerleaders, but that always makes me nervous, because they place them in front of them, in the front row of the upper most section at the Garden, which has an unacceptably low guardrail. The Boston College band has recently come to the realization that they are a Top-40 station, and played, among other TRL like material, Ridin’ Dirty by Chamillionaire. I don’t have a problem with that…but how does that pump up a crowd? I mean, “They see me rollin’, they hatin’, they’re trying to catch me ridin’ dirty?” (Mind you, I didn’t have to look up these lyrics, that’s how horrible my musical taste is.) I mean, gosh, I know BC tends to play dirty (hello, Gerbe!), but the band shouldn’t be pointing this out in a song.

A young woman at a sporting event alone (Chris had class during the consolation game, and so I ended up at the Harvard-Northeastern consolation game alone) who has knowledge of the game astounds any male over the age of 50. Case in point: I take a wrong turn and end up on the lower box level of the arena. As I’m trying to get to the escalator that will take me where I should be, I pass one of the Boston University players warming up. There were two middle aged men in front of me on the escalator, and they were staring at the player, astounded that he would be out in public stretching. They turn to me and ask me if I knew what team the player was from. I told them, including name, number, year and position without flinching, and they looked at me like I had three heads. But yes, I’m used to this.

It amazes me that the Garden still will acknowledge that the Celtics play there. They had tons of advertisements on the ribbon board and Jumbotron during breaks in the action for the remaining Celtics games. I mean, when the Bills were low they weren’t even this bad. 18 losses in a row? They haven’t won in over a month? How is that supposed to woo me to finally attend a Celtics game? Can they just totally revamp the team, starting with the pronunciation of the name? It’s the Boston Celt-ics! See them wear kilts! See the dance team Irish dance!

I love the second to last row at sporting events. You are either with the die-hards or the careless. There is no in-between in the last two rows. I have fond memories of the second to last row in Rich Stadium, because that’s where my seat was when I saw the 49ers-Bills game (including the one and only Steve Young of course) back in 1998. You know you’re dedicated when you are in the last two rows of any game–in particular football games–because you so want to see this game that you are willing to have that poor of a view.

Why is Budweiser served at hockey arenas? If I ruled the world, all beer in hockey arenas would either be Labatt Blue or Molson Canadian (aka the official beers of Hasenauer family functions–only the most Canadian of beers for the most Canadian of accents.)

Am I correct in remarking that college hockey coaches raise heck over calls a thousand times more than NHL or AHL coaches? In my years of watching hockey with my dad back in Lake-Effect-Snow-Land, I do not remember John Tortorella flinging his arms about regarding a call like the wild-wacky-inflatable-arm-waving-tube-man. Yet college coaches argue every call so spastically and physically that it’s a wonder one hasn’t flipped over the board while doing so yet.

Speaking of Lake-Effect-Snow-Land, here is an off-topic comment: yes, 100 inches of snow is a ton of snow. However, trust me when I say that the people of Oswego, Fair Haven, Sterling and Red Creek, NY know how to deal with it (I would know–I spent summers with my grandparents and aunt in Fair Haven during my childhood.) And really, there are people in those towns who aren’t even batting an eye at this amount. It’s Lake Effect–it’s unpredictable, it’s crazy, and it lasts from October till April. Gotta love it!

If I were BC Athletics, I’d tweak the maroon in their uniforms and other apparel. It’s not consistent and, in its worst form, it resembles a muddy brown. That gold is nice, and is much too vivid to pair up with a maroon with too much brown in it.

Last but not least, I would like to wholeheartedly thank the management of the TD BankNorth Garden for having the foresight to include two Dunkin Donuts in their arena. The championship game didn’t start until 8:15pm, had TV timeouts, and went into overtime. The only thing keeping me going at the end was coffee (or coffee-flavored cream, as I tend to make it.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to the news reporters go crazy over 3 inches of snow. Now, when I was a girl, I walked back from school in valleys created from 3 1/2 feet of snow being plowed. Freaking out about 3 inches and some freezing rain will always seem like overkill to me.