A HOCKEY GAME

Without being maudlin or mawkish; without allowing sentiment to impose unreal meaning on a well-played, smartly played game until nearly the overtime end, let it be seen at least that the University of Maine hockey season explained the worth of sports in a way words cannot.

Sportswriters and attentive fans reviewing the 3-4 loss to the University of Minnesota will wonder what effect the death last September of Shawn Walsh had on a splendid team now led by Coach Tim Whitehead. They will speculate how much inspiration, matched with talent and perseverance can account for the team’s success in post-season. They will recall the talisman of the Walsh jersey and imbue it with certain properties.

But who knows what difference these made Saturday? Minnesota, behind by a goal with less than a minute to go, scored and, in overtime, scored again on Maine’s terrific goalie Matt Yeats, bringing to a joyous end its own home-ice epic and leaving Maine saddened by a second-place finish that, in truth, exceeded the expectations of many.

The what-ifs will fade in Maine as surely as winter turns to that post-winter semi-thaw that other places refer to as spring; as surely as the memory of Coach Walsh will remain strong in the Maine players’ hearts. There’s only this: The arrangement sports makes with life is that while games are being played all that is worth caring about is the home run, the free throw or the power-play goal. Everything else will wait outside the stadium while little triumphs and tragedies carry those inside away. Inside, life will leap from a ref’s whistle; death will always be entirely temporary.

That is the arrangement. It holds for hundreds of desperately played games every weekend. What is important is what is revealed when the arrangement is broken.