The 2004 Beanpot...six months later...

It's been six months since the Beanpot debacle where those BC assholes won and destroyed what could have been the one saving grace to the disastrous '03-'04 hockey season. At the time, I was writing my weekly column for the WTBU Sports website and wrote about the game afterwards. I never published the column. Now, I present to you my finished column on the 2004 Beanpot...

The Last Cut is the Deepest

How did it come to this? 8-12-6 heading down the final stretch of the season...and a second place finish at the annual Beanpot Tournament.

Before my freshman year, BU had won 23 of 48 Beanpots, having claimed the last six in a row. In fact, 1998 was the only year in that stretch where the Terriers had won by a mere goal (a 2-1 OT win over the wicked smahties). If you told me during my freshman orientation that the Icedogs would lose two of the next four, I'd have told you that you were crazy.

I spent Monday night drowning my sorrows with some fellow members of Terrier Nation at the Dugout on Commonwealth Ave., the site of so many celebrations during the second Monday in February. Staring down at the empty pint glasses and pitchers on the table, I sat and wondered to myself, "How did this ever happen? What went wrong this season?" and perhaps most of all, "Why did this all happen during my senior year?" Nobody spoke. It was just silence. What was there to say? Nick Cardamone broke the silence. "We came in as losers and we're going out as losers." It didn't justify the loss, but it seemed to make sense.

But this was THE BEANPOT. This was the tournament known throughout college hockey circles as "The BU Invitational." It was OUR tournament, 25 times over. And the Eagles swept in and stole it away.

Granted, BU hockey is not having a strong season. What they're having doesn't even justify being called a season at all. That much is obvious to anyone. It's a rare occurrence for the hoops team to be a more apparent NCAA lock than the Icedogs. But a win at the Beanpot could have erased the hurt from this season. It could have validated some of the heartbreak. I could have forgotten about those three losses to BC. I could forget about the 8-4 Black Bear Massacre. Hell, I could have even forgotten about 2001.

What's worse is the new tradition those clowns at the FleetCenter started this year. A banner hangs from the rafters of the House that Jeremy Jacobs built which advertises the Beanpot Tournament. After 51 prior tourneys, they decided this year to attach a banner underneath to honor the reigning Beanpot champion. After all, 52 seems like a nice round number to start a new tradition. It's not like the 50th Tournament (a 5-0 BU victory over N'Eastern) would have been more appropriate or anything. Seeing that banner which read "Boston College: 2004 Champions"...it made me want to throw up. It was like someone just dumped a container of Morton's salt onto the fresh knife wound in my heart. It just sucked.

What's left to look forward to? My last home game at Walter Brown Arena among the Section 8'ers? A possible berth in the Hockey East playoffs? There's a slight chance that BC and BU could face each other in the first round, and it'd be so sweet for a shot at redemption. But it'd never be the same as the Beanpot.

I just hope that the Class of '04 was an aberration, an "ebb" in the "ebb and flow" of BU hockey. I hope the Class of '07 experienced their only Beanpot loss. In my four years it comes down to this: two BC wins, or two BU losses. Either way you look at it, that's two more than there should be.