"You Are Union"

I've been sitting on this post for a while, thinking of different ways to retell what happened on Saturday Night. A slideshow? A recording of "Ho-bey Ba-ker" chants ringing through the Arena at Harbor Yard Webster Bank Arena? Perhaps Union superfan Will Friedman's look of pure, unadulterated happiness? It feels cheap to chalk it up to a mere: "you had to be there" (what is the point of writing about it, then?). I'm still searching for the appropriate response--aside from snapping up the requisite Union Frozen Four garb (which will be overnighted to the bookstore). There may never be one. Saturday night was just that good.

Courtesy Adriano Manocchia

As the groundswell of coverage grows in this anticipatory week, "little Union" might just be at the tip of the tongue of the hockey world. But there's no finality yet; there's still hockey to be played. And that may be the best descriptor of all. It's March 26th, and we still have hockey to play.

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Talking to UMass-Lowell fans post-game, they stressed that the game was never that close. But after the River Hawks pulled within one goal off a flukey turnover behind Union's net, we were right back to the start. Union thoroughly outclassed UML, much as the team appeared more skilled against Michigan State.

These affable River Hawks fans: they understood the smile on our faces. After winning only five games last year, UMass-Lowell advanced to the tournament for the first time since 1996. These fans had been through famine and now were enjoying a feast. Downcast after the loss, they heartily congratulated those wearing the garnet and white. But they weren't upset at the Dutchmen for bouncing them from the table; they were happy just to be invited.

Union fans felt the same way.

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Post game, Troy Grosenick spoke to a cavalcade of media: "It's a testament to the program, really. All the hard work everyone before us put in really built the foundation." Part of the beauty of college hockey is its permanence and its transience. Programs like UMass-Lowell's can stun the competition; perennial contenders like Cornell revel in a rich history. For each fan, their hockey team means something else, something personal. Players will inevitably move on, graduate, sometimes go pro. But there is an immediate and lasting connection to a team that can remain distinctly yours even when ESPN is flashing your star goaltender's top play at the end of SportsCenter. But Troy Grosenick played with Stéphane Boileau, who played with Jeff Christiansen, who played with Sean Streich, who played Joel Beal (now an assistant coach)...

It's at once an elite fraternity and an open party--and Union fans from the Harkness years to the Leaman  Cleary Cup are all on the guest list. There are no cover charges, no fees, no tests to pass. Just get in (for free!) and make Section Q shake. Or pony up the nominal fee to sit in the nicer seats. (Or get your buddy to let you in the side door near the press box while you hide behind the pile of snow placed there by the Zamboni).

And because, as a long suffering Mets fan, I have to justify my fandom, maybe it is a little like rooting for that team in Flushing. There are the great years (1969, 1986), good ones, and tryingly lean ones. As a Freshman (as the Mets blew their second consecutive September lead), I lent some of my affections to the team over in Messa Rink. They had everything I loved about the Mets--the underdog spirit, the stadium that others had belittled and that I had embraced. But they had nothing about the Mets that stuck in my craw; there were no lackluster efforts, no expectations bolstered by the next paycheck. I shouted as the Sophomore phenom (I had marginally followed his exploits as a senior in high school after being accepted) Corey Milan stood between the pipes. As a (pretty bad) goaltender myself, I couldn't help but love the way he played. With smarts, reckless abandon, and aplomb. That team cast the hook. I provided the line and sinker.

***
I have no battle scars like some of the Garnet Blades members do. The Union Hockey lifers--followers of the men's and women's programs--smile with memories of Division III dominance and cringe at the meager years of the 1990s. But they are quick to remind us of games like this. They remind us that the Women's team will be in a similar place to this year's men's team in just a few years. Just look at the core they're building, they remind us. Just look at the tenacity of that team, they say.

They've never charged me, the chanters from Section Q, the casual Saturday-nighters, the former players, the hockey neophytes, or anyone, for that matter, admission into their club. They beckon us with open arms, welcoming us to a club that can have your emotions run the gamut from ecstatic to downcast--all within a few minutes. They welcome our criticisms and our passions.

The encouraged post-game reaction, according to Will Friedman

An enduring motto that still waves on flags around campus--but seems to have been toned down by the PR department--is "You Are Union." It's got a nice ring to it, I used to think. But outside of the gates of campus, perhaps less and less substance. But watching the Union faithful pour into Webster Bank Arena this weekend changed my mind. I sat next to a Union fan who graduated in 1976, a Freshman, a Senior, the Head Coach of the Women's team, a fan who never attended the institution, but who still shouts "the Union forever, boys! Huzzah!" He told me he wants to get "ARTHUR" emblazoned on the back of his jersey. Number? "48, of course. The year Chester A. Arthur graduated." The same fans who chanted "E-C-A-C" toward the end of the UMass-Lowell game in response to previous taunts of "EZ-AC" from the River Hawks contingent" were anything but homogenous.

The gracious Eric Hornick, a Union grad, and now statistician of the New York Islanders (another team that unfortunately tugs at my heart strings a little too much), and former Union Hockey broadcaster on WRUC (shameless plug, I'll take it), had told Evan and me during the Michigan State game that "little Union" could garner some big national attention with -- at that time-- two more wins. Two wins later, and a first ever Frozen Four berth, some of that attention is starting to roll in. "It's exciting to see us get some national attention," Jeremy Welsh told the media after the UML game. I couldn't help but smiling. Will Friedman roared. Union fans milled about in bunches, sporadically chanting "Fro-zen Fo-ur!" They thanked the Sacred Heart band that was ingnominiously dubbed the "rent-a-band." The Nott Noisemakers native to Messa Rink had unhappily, and unceremoniously, been displaced for the weekend. But the Union bunch, ever willing to make good on their motto, welcomed the controversial substitute band into their world. By the time they marched out, the Sacred Heart band was smiling as much as anyone else. I had to crouch in the concourse of Webster Bank Arena. This was the top, I told myself, still crouched. This was it. I had to rub my face to make sure I wasn't going numb from excitement. This was the top of the mountain.

But as I willed myself away from the ground--harder than it looked, thanks to some arena hot dogs--I began to think about that old guard of Union fans. Was this the mountain top for them? They undoubtedly looked forward to Tampa and the ensuing matchup between Ferris State. (Although at the time, we were pulling for an all-ECAC game with Cornell). But this wasn't it. How, after all, could you mash years of shared memories, chants, and tears into one splendid, albeit solitary event?

And then it hit me. These fans--this program--for all of the highs, and lows--has remained constant for so many different people. The entrance to the Frozen Four was not a crowning achievement. It was merely a new, better opportunity to welcome those who previously been away, into their fast-growing group. "You are Union," the banners still read. I never thought it would take a hockey game to hoist that motto right below my own flag.