With Apologies To The Seer From The Sagebrush...this was posted timely in the St. Louis Diner Review but was sloppily tagged by the editor of same. My life is an alphabet of WOE!By Dan Kukla
Habitually heartbreaking.
That is how my friend Ian Callon described the Miami hockey team. He couldn't be more wrong.
Miami isn't just habitually heartbreaking. That doesn't even begin to describe what it is like to be a RedHawk hockey fan. Going from one of the last teams in the tournament to a two goal lead over the top seed with a minute left in the national championship to losing in overtime on a puck bouncing off your own player making the right play is not heartbreaking. Especially not when you add in the history of Miami always - and I mean always - losing to Boston College in previous tournaments and the losing to another Boston team soon after the Eagles' elimination.
Cruel. Unusual. Punishment. Those are the words that come to my mind, at least, and those same word came flooding back in Friday night.
I could have dealt with a 3-0 blow out loss. Not at all what I hoped for or expected from my heavily favored 'Hawks, but when you get out played you curse and you move on. At its worst, that is heartbreaking.
But no, Miami staged an epic comeback with three goals in the third (and final, for all you hockey illiterates out there) period, starting with two goals in a 14-second span. That's the team's largest comeback since 2002 and quickest pair of goals since 2005 when it scored the infamous 2-in-22 to beat Western Michigan - promtly sending me onto the back of my friend Dave D'Amore.
With all the momentum, Miami then went on a five-minute power play (opponent is penalized and plays with one less skater - usually for two minutes) to end regulation. The quality scoring chances were too many to count. The power play carried over into overtime. Still no goal.
Then the puck rolls over our goalie's arm on what felt like UMass-Lowell's first rush on net since the second period. Not quite a deflection over his shoulder, but darn close enough. You can't make this stuff up and I wish God would stop making this stuff up.
Cruel. Unusual. Punishment.
I told you the NCAA hockey tournament takes the drama of March Madness to a new extreme. This is just one of the rare occaisions I hate being right -- kind of like earlier this month when Missouri lost.
Now that was heartbreaking.
When Miami's game ended with my Tar Heels winning by just one late in the second half, a UNC loss to Miami's arch rival Ohio seemed to be a lock. On a half-court hail Mary, sure, why not. They survived but watching a tournament favorite squeak by a 13 seeded mid major is hardly a pick-me-up, especially when an Axis of Evil looms in the Elite 8 ready to dismantle the Marshall-less Heels.
One of my favoirte writers, ESPN's Bill Simmons, once wrote a column called "Levels of Losing" in which he quantifies sports pain (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020528). I'm sure he would argue this but for me the 2009 NCAA Hockey National Championship was "That Game", Simmons' highest level of losing that "actually combines The Guillotine and The Stomach Punch" (for him, a die hard Boston fan, he uses Game 6 of the 1986 World Series -- i.e. Bill Buckner). Friday's loss wasn't that high on this scale but it came in as a solid "Stomach Punch," just one level behind. Here's his explination of what I am feeling.
"Now we've moved into rarefied territory, any roller-coaster game that ends with A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play, or B) one of your guys failing in the clutch ... usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all ... always haunting, sometimes scarring ..."
Because I wasn't at the game and because it was only the first round, I am able to take this one in stride. I wasn't so fortunate in 2009 when I literally did not move for an entire 45-minute tram ride back to the house we were staying at in DC.
For the neutral fan, this is why I so adamantly endorsed the hockey version of March Madness, which can still be seen on ESPNU Saturday and Sunday. For me, however, I will not be emotionally stable enough to watch any more college hockey this weekend (although I hope to recover by the Frozen 4) so it's back to basketball -- where I will most likely receive the "Level VI: Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking" against Kansas.
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