MARASCO: Beanpot Hangover

A mere 6.4 seconds were all that were left in the first overtime period Monday night, when Bill Arnold beat Kieran Millan to his glove side to give Boston College a 3-2 victory over Boston University in the 60th annual Beanpot tournament.

It was a stunning moment for BU fans, as the student section fell completely silent for the first moment since they had entered TD Garden.

In that fleeting, but seemingly eternal moment of nauseating pain when one is blankly staring ahead, his brain needing a moment to decide if what he had just witnessed was indeed the sad reality, the BU faithful glared directly at the gut-wrenching sight of the Eagle players diving all over the ice in a state of unabashed ecstasy.

For the moment, this horrid mental snapshot has surely sullied the Beanpot experience for many Terrier fans. However, let us not be trapped in this dark, hopeless place and lose sight of the joy that is the Beanpot.

It’s the middle of the afternoon on a Monday. Almost any Monday of the year you stroll about the BU campus at this time, you will discover students rushing to and fro – going to class, the library, the GSU or even back to their room for a nap. Everyone is busy. Everyone is in a hurry . . . and stressed . . . and tried. All of these Monday afternoons blur together, as students go about their busy days pining for the weekend past.

This all changes for those first two magical Mondays in February, when students are blessed with an excuse forget about the grind of their typical Monday schedule and act more like the irresponsible young adults that they are.

Imagine it’s Monday afternoon once more – except this time, students are leaving class early, or ditching their mid-afternoon ones altogether. They aren’t rushing back to their dorm to get out of the cold and take a nap, but rather to get changed into their hockey jerseys. No one is stressing about all the work they need to get done, but instead beaming with excitement about an evening excursion to TD Garden to see the Terriers fight for Boston’s yearly bragging rights.

You walk past Marsh Chapel, following your usual route to the library, but there’s something different going on. There’s a horde of students – hundreds of them, all adorned in BU hockey gear – waiting to mob the Green Line together and chant the afternoon away.

The atmosphere is infectious. You can’t help but let yourself leave the stresses of the day behind. For this day TD Garden is not ruled by sterile, corporate types in suits, but rather overrun by rowdy collegians.

The bands of the opposing schools ring out across the arena, dueling with each other, as the rival student sections compete to create the loudest and most clever chants.

An older man or a child appear on the jumbotron donning the colors of one of the three other schools, and you boo them . . . and you don’t just boo them, you heckle them loudly and passionately until their image is gone from the screen. You feel no remorse. In fact, you feel that you’ve done your due diligence. Why? Because it’s the Beanpot.

BC had their moment of glory, and they’ve won three years in a row so you’re feeling a little down these last few days. True, a win on Monday night would’ve given the Terriers the prestige of having half, 30-of-60, of the Beanpot titles, but make no mistake about it – BU is still at the top of the Beanpot food chain.

Four. That’s the number of Beanpot titles held by Northeastern University. Add six more to that and you have Harvard University’s total. Not since 1993 have either of those schools won the tournament.

BC now has 17 titles and has that three-year streak going. If one is going to use previous years as a measuring stick, however, they must look at recent history as a whole. From 2000 to 2009, BU won seven of the 10 Beanpots.

Still hung up on BC’s three-peat? From 1995 to 2000, BU took the title six years in a row. So, even counting the last three years, BU has won 12 of 18 Beanpots.

Can you really ask for much more as a BU fan?

Now is not the time to succumb to grief. Beanpot heartbreak needs to be put in the rearview mirror because bigger and brighter things are on the horizon.

Remember that Boston College team? Well, BU is tied with them for second in Hockey East.

And the first place team? The University of Massachusetts-Lowell is a mere point ahead of the Terriers, with a home-and-home series looming this weekend.

About a month later is the Hockey East tournament followed by the NCAA Championships. Success in those events surely would serve as an antidote for this Beanpot hangover.

Don’t let one tragic moment take away from the beauty that is the Beanpot, and don’t let your sorrow blind you from the truth – there is an awful lot left to look forward to this season, Terrier fans.