In all the Patriots hurly burly, I almost forgot to mention the Beanpot.

(Aside: I had to use that link because there is no official website for the tournament that I can find. Odd.)

For the one or two of you tuning in who may not know, the Beanpot is a college hockey tournament featuring the teams from BU, Harvard, Northeastern, and BC. It's the country's oldest such tournament, and this year sees its golden anniversary.

I won't get into the games too much, other than to note that Northeastern beat Harvard and BU beat BC in a fairly ugly game marked by (a) a shorthanded goal by BC, and (b) an own-goal by BC that shifted momentum pretty much for good.

BU-Northeastern was the first Beanpot final my freshman year. I didn't see it. The team my freshman year was pretty lousy; the first two games I went to were a pair at home against Maine, which we dropped by a combined score of 15-3. While I was hooked even in defeat, I figured that the average student wouldn't give one whit about the Beanpot (given our chances), so I sauntered down the morning of the ticket sale to get my ducats.

Only to find a couple thousand of my classmates already in line. Thus I learned the first lesson of the Beanpot: it is as much social occasion as hockey tournament. From that point on I've not missed one, regardless of if I had to sleep out, get vouchers, grub tickets from friends, whatever. It turned out that I listened to NU win their fourth and most recent 'Pot while working on an article for the Freep.

The next year saw us play Harvard, which was memorable on a few fronts.

First, as I was leaving my room to head down to the Garden, the phone rang. It was the Warren Towers residence life office, concerned that I'd not scheduled an RA group interview, and that the only open time was in a half hour. Could I make it?

Off came the sweatshirt, on went the coat and tie. Had to shave, find T change, and read the scenario. As it turned out I was the only person from that group to get an RA position, and was even wanted by the folks at Warren. Perhaps I am fated to work in student affairs after all.

The second memorable thing about this game was the horrid, excremental play of BU goalie Peter Fish. You can go on about Jason Tapp, but Fish was, without a doubt, the worst goalie to put on the scarlet and white since I've followed the team. And that includes third stringers like Andy Warren and Chris Bice. The highlight of the 9-6 loss to Harvard was Fish sweeping the puck into his own net.

The win was also memorable as it propelled Harvard on their national title run (even though they didn't win the ECAC title; a cookie to the first person to tell me who did win). BU would get the first solid "triple crown" in my memory for taking the Beanpot, Hockey East, and NCAA tourney titles.

From my years watching the Beanpot, a rule has emerged for who wins when:

Harvard Wins in years of Presidential succession, such as 1989 and 1993. It's not that they have to win in those years (they didn't win last year), but that's when they can win.

Northeastern Wins in years where the third digit is an eight. They've won four Beanpots, all in the 1980s. Should this rule stand, the Huskies have a long wait ahead.

Boston College Can win once a decade, as they did in 1976, 1983, 1994, and 2001. So it's another eight years for them.

Boston University Wins all they can.

Seriously, should the Terriers take the title this year, they will have won exactly half of all the Beanpots. They made up for not winning until the event's sixth year by winning six in a row from 1995 to 2000.

Anyway, the NU-Harvard match was the early game, a significant problem given that they bring the fewest fans. NU has a fairly rowdy core of fans, but not much else. Harvard has a smattering of students and alums, but the only time they get rowdy is when the cheese table is out of brie. If nothing else, Harvard's band has let their hair down a bit, having switched from crimson blazers to hockey jerseys. They still play an unusual selection of music for a pep band; the one song I clearly made out when they were playing was "Rule Brittania."

In any case, when I started watching their game (on TV), there was at most 2000 people in the stands. That may have been generous. The early game suffers sparse attendance, but this was low even by early game standards.

The BU-BC tilt brought more fans to the game, but one group was conspicuous in their depletion: the BC "Superfan," the gold-T shirt wearing student cadre. There was one section primarily made of them (who were thankfully in a section that the scoreboard blocked from my view), but they were much fewer in number than in years past.

Must have jumped off the hockey bandwagon and onto the basketball one.

So, for most of the game, the loudest factions in the Fleet were the BU fans and the remaining NU fans. They spent most of the first period jawing at each other, with the BC fans only chiming in when they scored.

BC's band is kind of lame, too. I've never heard our fans boo a band. They did on Monday.

Not much else to say about the night, other than this: at one point I had to go to the bathroom, and so walked passed the entry with the female pictogram and into the next open doorway.

The first thing I noticed was that the entire room was lined with stalls. As I was musing the lack of urinals, I realized something else.

"Hmm, these guys all have pretty long hair... uh oh!

I don't think anyone noticed, as I was able to make my retreat without comment or screaming or getting maced.