UNH learns title path, but keeping win in perspective

BOSTON – As game time approached on Saturday evening, the traffic-snarling nuisance locals call “The Big Dig,” combined with the exodus of thousands of Bruins fans from the FleetCenter, made the University of Maine hockey team’s commute a nightmare.

“We left the hotel at five minutes of six and it took us 45 minutes to get over here,” said bus driver Jerry Cyr, who has been shuttling UMaine hockey teams across the Northeast for 17 years.

“It’s a about a mile [from Cambridge to the FleetCenter, the site of Saturday’s Hockey East championship game]. It takes 10 minutes on a good day,” Cyr said. “Today was a bad day. It wasn’t a good day for a bus driver.”

That’s because Cyr finished his trip alone: The Black Bears disembarked … in traffic … and hoofed it to the rink.

At first, the move caught some players by surprise. Niko Dimitrakos, for one, didn’t know what was going on.

“I had my headphones on and wasn’t even paying attention,” Dimitrakos said. “But everyone got up, so I got up and followed everybody.”

Dimitrakos could have served as the ideal tour guide. He’s a Bostonian, after all, having grown up in nearby Somerville.

He wasn’t needed. And his explanation neatly sums up Saturday night’s matchup with New Hampshire for Hockey East bragging rights.

“Everyone else knows how to get to the rink,” Dimitrakos said. “We’ve been here four times, so everyone knows where it is.”

In hockey terms, here’s what that means: In the past, UMaine has indeed shown it knows how to get to the FleetCenter. Its appearance in Hockey East’s premier weekend has become nearly a foregone conclusion, and Saturday’s game was UMaine’s 11th championship appearance in 16 years. The Bears had won four titles.

UNH, on the other hand, was a team looking to establish itself as more than a regular-season contender. The Wildcats had never defeated the Bears in Hockey East tournament play. They’d never won the league title.

Until Saturday.

On Saturday, the Wildcats showed that they know the way to Boston, too. And so do their fans, which significantly outnumbered the Black Bear faithful in the record throng of 17,122.

As the clock ran out at the end of UNH’s 3-1 win, the Wildcats mobbed goalie Michael Ayers.

“There was kind of a lot of yelling and screaming,” Ayers said, trying to explain what it sounds like when 20 players simultaneously experience something no other team in school history has.

“I don’t think we can repeat it,” star Darren Haydar said.

Even if you’re a diehard Bear-backer, you’ve got to admire Ayers. He’s the player who’d impressed Maine fans earlier in the year after a teammate’s skate severed a tendon in his left wrist on a Friday night game in Orono.

The next night, he was back in net, and earned a 2-2 tie. The day after that, he had surgery on the wrist, and missed three weeks of action.

“Coach [Dick] Umile has been waiting a long time to get to this point,” Ayers said. “To be able to win tonight, to prove to our fans that we’re a great team, and to show the country that we’re a great team, means a lot to all of us.”

Here’s what it means to UNH standout Colin Hemingway.

“Oh, man. It’s awesome. We made history tonight,” Hemingway said. “Like coach said in the dressing room, there’s been a lot of guys come through UNH season after season after season who never had the chance, the opportunity, to win this thing.”

This UNH team did.

But leave it to Haydar to put things in perspective. He knows a Hockey East championship is a worthy goal, but still ultimately a well-furnished rest stop on the road to greater things.

Haydar, you see, was a freshman back in 1999. He was in Anaheim. He lost to the Black Bears in the national championship game. He remembers how that feels, too.

And he knows that the season begins anew next weekend, as the NCAA playoffs are staged in Worcester, Mass., and Ann Arbor, Mich.

“It’s definitely a great feeling,” he said late Saturday night, a smile creasing his face. “But we know we might see them again, so I’ve got to be careful what I say.”