Home, sweet home

The last college hockey game I'd covered came in March of 2004.

It was then that the end of my incarnation as a hockey writer coincided nicely with the end of Paul Pooley's head coaching career. In a matter of days, in events completely unrelated to one another, Pooley resigned at Providence College and I was offered a job on the sports desk here in Maine. I honestly thought when the horn sounded on the Providence-UMass Lowell game, it was the end of hockey for me.

When the puck dropped on Saturday's Colby-Castleton State game at Alfond Rink, and the Mule forecheckers raced off into the Spartan zone, I took a swig of coffee and smiled. It was so good to be back.

Division III hockey is a far cry from the Hockey East Association, but the pace, the integrity, the heart is still there. And it felt good afterwards to talk about systems, odd-man rushes and 5-man forechecks.

Unwittingly, Michael Belliveau certainly added something to the equation, too. It's long been said that hockey players are far and away the best athletes for the media to deal with, and I've got no squabbles with that. There's something about the aww-shucks nature of the Canadian kids, too, that adds to it. No pretense, suppressed egos and an understanding of hockey as a way of life that you just don't find in American-born players.

I've found myself missing the Lowell-to-Worcester-to-Manchester weekends of my days covering the American Hockey League's Providence Bruins, and I've also thought a lot lately about the buildings I visited while covering the Friars -- Alfond Arena, the Whittemore Center, Matthews Arena. Great hockey barns all of them.

It's good to be back in the rink...