Found: My first year with Boston University Hockey
Though you only get four years as a student,
you get a lifetime as a Terrier.
— Joe Rouse, friend and fellow Freeper in his final column.
I just relocated this piece that I wrote at the end of the hockey season in 2004, my first full season covering the BU hockey team for The Daily Free Press as a photographer. Pretty cool that I have this record of such a great year in my personal and professional life. I’ve reposted the original blog post -totally unedited- and hope you enjoy it. (Note: 2,000 frames no longer seems like much, but I shot a majority of that season on film.)
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March 22, 2004
This is a piece I wrote for the opinion section after the last hockey game of the year. This is different from what was published, though. I changed a bit of the order and some of the wording to make it a stronger piece. I got quite a few compliments on it, which was unexpected and cool, the biggest of which came from sports journalism prof. Jack Falla. Anyway, I’m posting this mostly so I don’t have to dig through the online archives when I want to show it to someone. Without further ado:
“Learning the game, loving a team, all through the lens”
The final buzzer of Boston University’s Friday night Hockey East playoff game brought tears to the eyes of many as one of the oddest seasons in the Icedogs’ history came to a close. But the red-rimmed eyes that surprised me the most weren’t those of senior goalie Sean Fields or head coach Jack Parker. They were my own.
When I walked into Walter Brown Arena for the first time, I was a freshman photographer for BU’s Office of Photo Services assigned to shoot freshman goalie Stephan Siwiec’s first collegiate start. At the time, the only hockey knowledge I had was taken directly from the Mighty Ducks trilogy, but, while my camera and I perched atop Section 4, an old hockey sage with the thickest of Bostonian accents took me under his wing and began to dissect the game. By the end of the season, I was more comfortable shooting down by the boards and knew three things to be iron-clad: (1) Coach Parker is a brilliant man, (2) Sean Fields is a deity and (3) BC sucks.
Last fall, I found my photographic niche in the sports section, and when the hockey beat writers asked me if I was going to travel with them to shoot the games, I leapt at the chance. It was a perfect opportunity to immerse myself in the ways of the game and quickly become acquainted with the heroes and history of what I was beginning to realize was a hockey powerhouse.
Over the past five months, I have traveled to 10 different arenas across more than 1,500 miles spending a total of more than 48 hours in a car. I’ve chatted with New England’s best sports photographers, over-heard thousands of game analyses and tagged along to countless press conferences. I now know hockey.
The instigating point in my fascination with this particular team came over Winter Break when I made my way to Mariucci Arena to meet the beat writers and cover our two-game series against the University of Minnesota. (As a native of central Iowa, my trip to Minneapolis paled in comparison to the 44-hour, 2,200-mile round-trip from the East Coast by my writing compatriots.)
In these games, arguably the best 70 minutes of regular-season hockey (two of the season’s frustrating 12 overtimes were that weekend) I have photographed, I finally saw the players’ passion - a quality I’d sensed all along - show up in my camera’s viewfinder. In every subsequent game, I sought to find that fire, regardless of how the game was going. And it wasn’t always easy - on both sides of the glass.
Despite some disappointing performances, bounces and injuries, my shutter clicked on, eventually capturing David Van der Gulik’s game-winning goal (in overtime, of course) at the University of New Hampshire and our season was given a second chance. I spent one-third of my Spring Break at Conte Forum, watching a driven team battle out of a corner with enough heart to leave me speechless. One week later, I unexpectedly found myself at the FleetCenter again, recording another well-played, hard-fought effort by the men I’d grown to know and admire.
As a photographer, I walk a delicate tightrope between living in the face of my subject and being completely alienated from it. I’ve been deafened by opposing teams’ fans as I wait to capture that perfect just-across-the-crease goal shot. I can tell you what each player’s face looks like when he steps into the face-off circle even though I can’t begin to describe his voice. I’ve shared the penalty box with some of my favorite players but can’t bring myself to say “good game” in the dining hall. I’ve seen players cry, yet I’ve rarely seen any of them in street clothes.
Out of the more than 2,000 frames I snapped this season, there may be a few I’ll savor, yet I remain unsatisfied with my coverage of the team. Through the 33 games I covered (I was sick for five), I observed much more around the ice than I photographed. I never caught any of the times Steve Greeley acknowledged his little sister’s support in the stands. I didn’t make much of Kenny Magowan returning from injury - either time. And I failed to get any good shots of Fieldsey’s jaw-dropping glove save. But the worst part - what I realized at the buzzer Friday night - is that I won’t have an opportunity to do so with these guys in scarlet and white ever again.
When that heart-sinking sound announced the conclusion of the third period and our season, the journalist in me started clicking as fast as the motor drive would go, knowing it was a matter of seconds before the end of my first true hockey season along with a Terrier era. As I snapped away, watching my favorite team make its way off the ice, a large “31” drifted into the bottom of my frame. I focused on the shrinking jersey skating toward the exit and stepping onto the bench. Then the end of his stick disappeared into the tunnel and Sean Fields - my definition of BU hockey - was no longer our goalie.
And for the first time all season, I really wanted those five extra minutes.
