Walter Brown is melting. The de-icing of Boston University’s arena is scheduled for today, and soon there will be nothing but cement where the ice used to be. The old friend (although only 32 years old, he hasn’t aged well) I have spent the entire school year with is going into his summer hibernation.
Monday marked the last day of hockey for me at Walter Brown this semester. Every Monday and Friday this semester, I have played hockey scrimmages in Barb Pinch’s class. Hockey with Barb is the fun part of hockey, rather than the intensely competitive slashfest that can erupt in an intramural game. It’s when a guy you level with a good check to clear him out of the crease smiles because he appreciates a good hit, even when it’s on him.
You can’t take hockey with Barb too seriously because the locker room conversation before and after games is nothing but jokes, stories about Thursday night drinking and frank discussions about whether the Sharks, Rangers or Panthers sucked most this year.
Barb’s class is also a place for people who don’t belong in hockey. Bill from Atlanta. Joel from Anaheim. Ed from Miami. And don’t forget me from San Jose. We are the most dedicated hockey people because we’ve become hockey people where people usually become football or baseball people. It’s like most people who leave the warm states to come to BU we’ve always been a bit different from our friends who stayed in a warm place.
Hockey, like BU, is a lifestyle. I mentioned one day in the locker room before a scrimmage class that alcohol is the great social lubricant. Brian Schwartz, the class goalie and resident classic rock expert, turned to me.
‘You know what else is?’ he said. ‘Hockey.’
Of course it is. Hockey is one of the best conversation-starters in the world. The only people from my classes I stay in contact with are the hockey players. My favorite professor? He’s a goalie. My future wife? Before we marry, she’ll have to agree to season tickets in the budget.
So yes, I’m a hockey junkie. But it’s hard to think of my good friend Walter Brown as just a flat expanse of concrete because I think there’s something more to it than just hockey. Walter is melting to nothing, and the comparisons are easy: to friendships, to roommates, to classes and to the end of college life. They’re all melting away for the summer. We will come back in September with new classes, new dorm rooms and the addition and subtraction of friends. Fresh life. Fresh ice.
At the beginning of the semester, I was eager to return to California for my beloved roller hockey summers. Well, I still can’t wait to start the immense competition for our group’s Most Valuable Player trophy this summer.
But I’ll miss the ice. So in the last 10 minutes of scrimmage on Monday, I played harder than I had all year. It was as if after a semester of slacking, I decided to pick my game up and cram for the final. I hit my stride, skating around defenders with ease and making a few great passes. (Note: for me, ‘great’ passes qualify as halfway accurate.)
My hard work paid off with an assist and a fanned chance to score a final goal on Brian. Then we switched sides so my team was trying to hit the posts of the open net at the other end of the ice. Time was about to run out when I found myself in a two-on-one breakaway streaking toward the goal. I got in close to the net and passed it backward, around the defender to Justin, my breakaway partner with the more accurate shot.
He shot. He missed. I swooped in on the puck as it sat inches away from the goal line. All I needed to do was lift the puck and hit the left post. I poked it straight into the net.
No post. No goal. Time up. Game over. Ice hockey over. Enjoy the off-season, Myers, you horrible shooter.
But that’s not too surprising. How often do we ever end the semester the way we want? There’s always the last little bit of work we could have done. There’s always one more day we could have hung out with friends before settling into three months of sparse instant messaging.
So make the best of these last two weeks, before the spring semester melts away. And even if you don’t finish everything, you’ll be back in September, when there will be many more chances to put the puck in the net.
Peter Myers, a sophomore in the College of Communication, has been a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press and can be reached at pmyers@bu.edu.
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