It may be that the University of Maine’s mission was stronger.
It may be that the Black Bears wanted the game more.
It may be just a simple matter of the boys from Orono being just a little bit better.
Whatever it is, the Boston University hockey team’s season is finished, while Maine heads to St. Paul, Minn., for the Frozen Four and a chance to play the University of New Hampshire one more time to get to the National Championship game.
Maine’s 4-3 win was just the latest in a series of classic matchups the two teams have produced — and that’s just in the last three weeks.
For the Icedogs, the game ended in a way that all the March games against the Black Bears have ended — in disappointment.
“Unfortunately for us, a typical BU-Maine game,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “Real close, and Maine won. We beat them in overtime in November and then we haven’t been able to get by them in the last three games we’ve played.”
Indeed, in four games dating from the first of the month, Maine has held the advantage, going 3-0-1 and knocking BU out of both the Hockey East Championship and the NCAA Tournament.
The Black Bears rode their designated BU-stopper, senior goalie Matt Yeats, who earned his second-straight win over the Terriers in an elimination game, eerily by the same 4-3 score.
“I don’t know what it is about BU,” Yeats said. “I do seem to have their number. I love playing against them. They’re my favorite team to play because they basically throw the puck to the net all the time, and I’m always in the game.”
Unfortunately for the Terriers, while they did get the puck to the net quite a bit, 31 times in all, Yeats was up to the task 28 times.
Scottish sniper Colin Shields scored his fourth of the year against BU, and it was the killer. With less than five minutes left, Shields outskated a gassed Chris Dyment to an errant John Sabo pass from John Sabo that flew out of the Maine zone toward the BU net. When Sean Fields made the decision to stay back and not play the puck, Shields, who has scored almost every type of goal imaginable against BU, took it and beat the BU sophomore — who up to that point, had been spectacularly good — to the five-hole with a quick shot.
Freshman center David Klema still had more magic to work, scoring his second goal of the period with 3:02 left, but the BU comeback magic of this season had apparently run out.
For the Terriers, a huge effort was unable to stop the rolling Black Bears, who have gone 8-1-2 in their last 11 games.
By now, everyone knows the story of both teams. For BU, this season was one of redemption. After a 14-20-3 2000-01 season, the Icedogs came out and ensured that their season was one that fit in with the great seasons in BU history — the majority of the seasons in BU history. Despite an exit before the greatest stage, BU hockey was BU hockey this year, including the obligatory Beanpot victory.
For Maine, this season was one of remembrance. As the Black Bears have repeatedly stated, they are playing this season for Shawn Walsh, who passed away after a battle with cancer last fall. Just as BU did in honor of paralyzed teammate Travis Roy in the 1995-96 season, Maine brought a jersey with Walsh’s name and the number 01 to the ice for pregame warmups this year and hung the sweater on the bench during games.
Black Bears captain Peter Metcalf’s victory skate with the Walsh jersey elicited the greatest response from Maine’s fans, as well as the respectful applause of the BU faithful who had just seen their team fall to a great opponent in a well-played game.
“He built this program and he built this team,” Yeats said. “And we’re really playing for him.”
As cliché as it is to say, it seemed higher powers were at work when with less than half-a-minute left, senior captain Mike Pandolfo cleanly won two faceoffs, exactly the wins on the draw that BU needed to set up a play to get the puck to the net.
And both times, the puck slid untouched by a BU blueliner toward the empty BU cage. It seemed then to be clearly Maine’s day.
“Well fought game, well refereed game, and the better team won,” Parker said. “They go to St. Paul and we go home.”
As the final postgame press conference of the season wrapped up, the fortunes of the Terriers seemed to be well represented on stage: Parker just finished his 29th season at the helm on Babcock Street; Pandolfo just finished a senior year that represented all that’s proud with BU hockey; and Klema, a freshman who played his best games in the season’s biggest games, and distinguished himself as future of BU hockey.
But nothing could change a simple, brutal truth for the resurgent Icedogs.
“When it came down to it, we just weren’t as good as we had to be,” Pandolfo said.