To respond to those that wanted to see the entire article -
-------------------------
BOSTON, April 9 -- On a bright, blustery Tuesday afternoon, Travis Roy could look out the picture window of his seventh-floor apartment to a panorama of tall buildings and take immense satisfaction from living in, this week unquestionably, the hub of the hockey universe.
Roy, 28, achieved his dream of playing Division I college hockey when he jumped onto the ice for his first game as a freshman for Boston University in 1995, only to suffer a horrifying head-first crash into the boards just 11 seconds later, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. Roy remains confined to a wheelchair, but his optimism is boundless and his spirits especially high with an unprecedented four days of hockey unfolding at FleetCenter.
The fact that the hometown Bruins and rival Montreal Canadiens opened Stanley Cup play Wednesday and Friday was occasion enough, but of more interest to Roy were the college games on Thursday and Saturday: the NCAA men's Division I semifinals and final, the Frozen Four.
"I think college hockey is hockey in its purest form right now," Roy said. "It's not commercialized yet. You've got great fans, good coaches, kids who are playing to win, playing for their teams and playing for their states, no money involved, no egos, good old rivalries. You fight, you're out of the game. It's the way sports should be, you know."
Roy's passion for college hockey is widely shared in an area known for celebrating its Beanpot Tournament of four schools located within a few miles of each other: BU, Boston College, Harvard and Northeastern. The annual event draws sellouts of 18,000-plus to FleetCenter on consecutive Mondays in February. With this week's Frozen Four, fans from across the country -- some after 25-hour bus rides from Minnesota -- joined resident fanatics for a festival of college hockey as the University of Denver took on Minnesota-Duluth and Maine met BC in Thursday's semifinal doubleheader.
"You want to see good hockey, you can't find it any better," Roy said.
How right he was. One bus from Duluth with Aaron Bedessem aboard concluded an all-night drive by pulling in at the Causeway Street arena just 20 minutes before the first game's faceoff at noon.
"I came with the band and the cheerleaders," said an eager Bedessem, Duluth's Bulldog mascot, in full-blown attire. At midday, FleetCenter rocked with band music, cheers from the seats and hard checks on the ice.
For a contest in which the prize is pride and a trophy, with all the intensity, emotion and joy it generates, the Frozen Four offers an appeal of its own in a sports-crazed city where the Bruins are battling the Canadiens, and the Red Sox came home Friday to open their Fenway season. That's the way Roy and so many others feel about college hockey, including the man who scored the winning goal in the 1980 "Miracle on Ice," perhaps the most cherished victory in U.S. sports and the subject of a recent film.
"When I played at Boston University, it meant a lot to me to put on a BU shirt," said Mike Eruzione, the captain of the underdog American team that upset the Soviets and went on to win Olympic gold at Lake Placid, N.Y., in a time frozen in memory. "It's the same with these kids here, playing for Duluth or Denver. You're playing for your school.
"Out here," he said, with a nod toward the ice as he prepared to take part in a telecast of the Frozen Four, "you'll see, much more than you'll see at the NHL level, the purity of the game."
Roots of Amateurism
This area is such a hotbed of college hockey, you would think Hobey Baker came from here. But Pennsylvania was home to the World War I fighter pilot, whose name is attached to the award given annually to college hockey's top player, won Friday by Minnesota-Duluth's Junior Lessard. Still, Hobey Baker's hockey legend began not far from here, at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., before he entered Princeton in 1910 and went on to be captain of both the hockey and football teams. He was the quintessential amateur athlete who stood apart for his firm purpose never to take money for playing a game and his profound disdain for dirty play.
At Harvard, you can find another legendary amateur, this one from mid-century. Like Eruzione, Bill Cleary played on an Olympic gold medal hockey team that beat the Soviet Union. That was in 1960. He is retired now, but only after serving as Harvard's athletic director and, more famously, as its longtime hockey coach. Cleary guided the Crimson to the 1989 national championship.
"I always enjoyed the amateur side of things because that's where 99.9 percent of the kids are," he said this week at Harvard's athletic complex. "The best thing I did, I turned down professional hockey my sophomore year, and if I hadn't, I wouldn't have played in two Olympic Games. Just marching in that parade was better than 10 Stanley Cups."
Similarly, Jack Parker was a hockey star at Boston U. and coached the Terriers for 31 years, including their 1978 and 1995 national championship teams.
"College hockey has grown," Parker said. In fact, almost 22 percent of this season's NHL players played U.S. college hockey. "But," Parker added, "it's still really a small world we live in. Everybody knows everybody, and I think that makes it more competitive and it makes it more fun. . . .
"There's a tradition in our sport, a thread running through it that ties us all together."
At BU, hockey is "kind of our flagship sport," Parker said. "We want to win. But the nicest thing about it for me is the relationship with my players. I say, I have two daughters and 187 sons."
Travis Roy, of course, is one of his "sons." A large photo of Roy on the ice for the Terriers is prominently placed in Parker's office. Beneath it on the wall is a self-portrait by Roy in his No. 24 BU uniform. Roy paints with the end of the brush held in his mouth, and he has become accomplished. Four of his works of flowers framed on a wall in his apartment are uplifting and make his dwelling a better place, as art should.
"Travis Roy changed my view on a lot of things," Parker said, "on what courage is all about, what perseverance is all about, the willingness to face adversity and keep on going."
As much as he loves to win, Parker can better accept a rival's success than he once could. But even with the perspective gained from years behind the bench, and from Roy's accident in particular, hockey is hockey, and Parker still appeared glum as he considered that this was BC's, not BU's, year, first in the Beanpot and now with the Eagles reaching the Frozen Four. No, he wouldn't exactly be "rooting" for BC -- that would be too strong a word.
"In the long run, it's good for Hockey East if a Hockey East team wins the national championship," he said, allowing for Maine to win it as well. "But I don't think if BC is playing in the final game, BU fans would be rooting for them because of the rivalry of the Beanpot and that. But there's a little bit of pride that Boston's all right, you know."
Anything Can Happen
Denver and Minnesota-Duluth (UMD), both from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, presented a clash of two underdogs in Thursday's first semifinal. Ryan Caldwell, a tall Denver defenseman, said that his team had seemed "down and out" several times during the season, especially after three losses to North Dakota by the combined score of 20-5 and consecutive defeats at home to, none other than, UMD. But the Pioneers tied a talented North Dakota team in their fourth meeting and, surprise, finally beat North Dakota, 1-0, to advance to the Frozen Four. The Pioneers have won five national titles, but none since 1969, and neither they nor UMD had been to the Frozen Four in almost two decades.
UMD produced NHL star Brett Hull, but nevertheless, the school has long been cast in the shadow of the University of Minnesota, champion the past two years. Not so this time; UMD arrived here on the strength of a 3-1 victory over Minnesota in the Midwest Region final. "UMD always wants to prove we're as good as what we call 'the southern campus,' " said Trish Maki, a UMD graduate and member of a particularly avid UMD rooting group called the "SRO Rowdies."
The Bulldogs seemed destined to make the title game until the opening minutes of the third period. With Bedessem changing jerseys near a first-aid station because of heavy perspiration he had worked up beneath his Bulldog mascot outfit, Denver struck for two goals in 34 seconds to tie the score at 3. The winner came on a soft shot by Denver's Lukas Dora, a senior from the Czech Republic. The puck slid ever so slowly toward the net and, somehow, between the goaltender's pads. Following an empty-netter, the Pioneers could hardly believe they won. Rarely has a winning team expressed such amazement.
"I'm stunned," said senior goalie Adam Berkhoel. "We've never come back like this."
"Between the periods, I told the guys that I believed in them and that I thought we could win the game," Caldwell, the captain, said. "But whenever you're down, you say that. You always seem to end up on the short end of it."
Denver's title-opponent Saturday night certainly has more swagger. The Black Bears walked into the building for their first workout Wednesday with apparent confidence. Maine was runner-up two years ago, after winning its second title in 1999 and finishing as a semifinalist in 2000.
Depending heavily on Jimmy Howard's 40 saves in a tense 2-1 semifinal win over BC, Maine managed just 18 in winning its 10th straight game, the last eight by a single goal. The Eagles were thought to have a good chance for a national title -- they won in 2001 -- and much of Thursday's second 18,000-plus crowd rooted for their hometown team.
But as Jerry York, the BC coach, said quietly, "Goaltender play was the reason our season ended tonight."
And it's the reason untold numbers of Maine fans will be driving here Saturday, many seeking tickets. As Kathryn Slott of Bangor said: "Mainers are passionate about Black Bears hockey. It's college hockey. It's exciting."
