Soaking Up the B?nnies

We've come to expect a climax in the things we view, and usually a happy one. We are indignant if Superman allows Lois Lane to be undone by a buzz-saw, or if the U.S. Calvary and Rin Tin Tin don't beat the shit out of the Indians. So one's sense of propriety was jarred this weekend when Cooney Weiland's illustrious hockey career ended not with Harvard's first NCAA championship, but with an unbelievable 6-5 loss to Minnesota, and then a 1-0 defeat the next afternoon. Where was God, or Cecil DeMille for that matter, that this atrocity could be allowed to happen?

God's presence was easily explained. He was making the snow that fell all over Syracuse this weekend. Even the storm was like Harvard's performance in the tournament. I woke up Thursday morning, looked at those big flakes, and expected a one-foot blizzard. By late that night it had turned to slush.

And so it was that as my Greyhound pulled out of the terminal after Saturday's consolation game, while some new snow was coming down, that I had this irresistible tendency to flip the bird right through that dirty window to Syracuse. Sure it was immature, but even if we're only young once we can be immature forever. And the immaturity of the act was so clearly outweighed by its emotional appropriateness. Besides, how much can an impending eight-hour bus trip enhance your perception of good taste? So I flipped the bird.

But who am I to feel sorry for myself? Hadn't I just had the chance to eat chicken and hot apple pies at the Red Barn and send postcards of Syracuse to several friends, including my dog? Certainly. And who are the five Harvard guys in the car they've driven to Syracuse to feel cheated because the hockey team played five lousy periods?

What about the team itself? Don't they have a right to feel ten times worse than we? For once Harvard seemed a good bet to win the NCAA's, and the Crimson had to fly home with nothing more than a fourth. For 13 years Joe Cavanagh and Dan DeMichele had been linemates. At Syracuse they were within reach of a great climax. Then it all ends, all 13 years of it, when DeMichele gets a quick thumb from the referee at 12:14 of the first period after fighting with Denver's Brian Morenz. Think of DeMichele skating off the for the last time as the fans at the Onondaga County War Memorial cheered. Erich Segal should have been there.

DeMichele's fight was fairly representative of the whole game. The first PA announcement after it was over was about the penalty record that Harvard and Denver, but mostly Harvard, had set that afternoon. It was all we had to take away with us. And then our sensibilities were injured further when Denver coach Murray Armstrong had the indecency downstairs to call it a "fine game." It was as if he'd spent the whole afternoon just watching Bruce Durno.

But there is considerable comfort in the knowledge that many of us will never see Syracuse again.