After waking up at stupid o’clock on Friday morning and hearing “Despair in the Departure Lounge” by the Arctic Monkeys come up as the first song on my iPod’s shuffle feature, I ignored any and all possible irony that I could have been made to face while waiting for my early flight out of Omaha.

It was just a coincidence, surely, and not a bad omen for my journey. On-a-budget hedonism was still only a few hours away.

Then again, even the best-laid plans …

Four of my best friends and I had expected to fly out of Eppley Airfield at 6:10 a.m. to Chicago Midway, followed by a three-hour drive into East Lansing, Mich., the site of the weekend’s CCHA series between Nebraska-Omaha and Michigan State. However, winter storm warnings in Chicago caused our flight to be canceled, and the next available flight into Midway was not set to take off for another six hours or so.

You can’t get there from here — or at least, not back to Omaha from Chicago (photo: Matthew Semisch).

On the back of that evidence, it quickly became clear to the five of us that we probably weren’t going to be able to hit a rich vein of luck that morning, try as we might. With the opening faceoff of Friday night’s tilt still some 12 hours away, though, we were able to experience the thorough lack of pomp and circumstance of waiting around in an airport — albeit a familiar one — for hours at a time.

Patience is a virtue, though, and if Tom Hanks could find a way to retain his sanity while hanging around in an airport for dogs’ years, then so could we.

We did eventually grab an opportunity to get on our way around lunchtime, though, as the skies over Chicago cleared long enough for us to take off around 12:30 p.m. A six-hour delay that felt more like a geological age at times was not going to keep us from our long-awaited college hockey voyage to the Great Lakes State.

East Lansing

Put in the simplest of terms, Munn Arena is nice. It doesn’t necessarily overwhelm in the architectural sense and it was never loud enough inside at any point of the weekend that I couldn’t hear myself think, but I still found it to be a barn worthy of housing the defending national champions, and a very enjoyable place to watch a hockey game.

What’s more, it’s the kind of arena that some Maverick fans believe UNO would do well to use as a model should they ever decide to build their own on-campus rink. With a capacity of 6,470, Munn is not even half the size of the cavernous Qwest Center Omaha, the Mavericks’ current home, and many fans have been clamoring for a more intimate setting in which to watch their beloved team.

Jon Brooks is one of those fans. Brooks, the administrator of the Mavpuck.com fan website and message board, has seen many UNO games in East Lansing in recent years, and would like to see his alma mater build an on-campus arena using rinks like Munn as a reference point.

“I think (Munn) is very nice,” he said. “I don’t know if UNO would want to have the bleachers, but this is nice with the concourse up above where you can walk around while the play is going on. It’s a good size for what UNO would need.

“The ideal rink for us would probably be around 7,500 seats, all in a single-bowl configuration where you could walk around the top and look down. Just like the lower bowl of the Qwest Center Omaha; if we could get an arena with that and a lower ceiling, it would be perfect.”

As for the weekend’s games themselves, our expected itinerary for Friday should have allowed us all the time in the world to make it to East Lansing for the 7:00 p.m. EST drop, even after picking up our rental car at Midway and driving into East Lansing from there. Instead, such as it was, we were forced to miss the first period and much of the second and were probably the last spectators to enter the otherwise jam-packed arena.

It all turned out all right, though, as we were treated to an exciting third frame and an extra one to boot. What’s more, the large band of travelling UNO fans were rewarded for their long day’s journey at 2:53 of the overtime period when Maverick forward Dan Charleston, fresh from serving a hooking penalty 38 seconds into the extra frame, made a beeline from the penalty box to the Spartan net and backhanded past Jeff Lerg to give the visitors a 5-4 upset win over fifth-ranked MSU.

Normal service for the home crowd was resumed on Saturday afternoon, though, when the Spartans recorded a 4-2 victory over UNO, snapping the Mavericks’ six-game road winning streak with the help of three unanswered goals in the first 4:56 of the second period. The game wasn’t without its memorable incidents, though, including the first penalty shot awarded to UNO in nine years, although Lerg stuffed Bill Bagron on the play to ensure a split in the series.

The Maverick fans who made the trip may have felt unlucky to have only come away with two points on the weekend, but it was the least of my concerns; I had other fish to fry. The Michigan Wolverines were hosting Northern Michigan an hour’s drive away in Ann Arbor, and I had managed to score a guaranteed spot deep in the heart of the brick beast they call Yost.

Ann Arbor

To the newcomer, Ann Arbor is a lot like many other mid-sized college towns, exuding levels of contemporariness and cosmopolitanism far exceeding expectations. If it is a link between Ann Arbor’s past and present you’re looking for, though, you don’t need to look much further on the University of Michigan campus than Yost Ice Arena.

It becomes clear from the moment you enter the building that the venue is fairly no-frills in comparison to larger league rinks such as the Qwest Center Omaha and Value City Arena in Columbus or even Munn, but the sense of 35 years’ worth of glorious hockey history that flows through every square inch of the building more than makes up for the lack of state-of-the-art amenities. There is another intangible element, however, that should be credited above all for Yost’s deserved reputation as one of the greatest college hockey venues in the country.

From the moment referee Craig Lisko started Saturday night’s game between U-M and Northern Michigan, the atmosphere in the arena carried with it enough electricity to light up several small towns. The raucous student section and the equally energized pep band, serving as a sort of human metronome for many of the loud and organized cheers that echoed throughout the arena, were into the game from the outset, cheering on their Wolverines and laying waste to their visitors from Marquette — not to mention their allegedly ugly parents, according to the students — at most every opportunity.

Those two things alone must make opposing fans dread coming to Yost, but the overall atmosphere inside the old barn makes for one hell of a place to watch a game if you are a neutral observer.

The game itself did little to dampen the mood in the building, even with NMU fighting back from a 3-1 deficit halfway through the game to earn its second 3-3 tie with Michigan in as many nights. Northern had earned a share of the spoils, doing all it could to keep both the Wolverines and the boisterous home crowd at bay in the third period and in overtime despite surviving several close calls in the defensive zone.

Mission accomplished, but it was always going to take much more than a draw, deserved though it was, to silence the Yost crowd.

As the clock hit zero and fans began filing out of the arena, we bade farewell to the Michigan fans in our section in the north end who had befriended us and helped to provide us with a wonderful night out. It may have been different if UNO had been in town that night, but while it is well-documented that many UNO hockey fans have little love for their U-M counterparts, I will not soon forget all of the extremely friendly people I met at Yost that night.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

After conducting our own little tours of the campuses of Western Michigan and Notre Dame on the way back into Chicago on Sunday afternoon, we returned to Midway Airport exhausted but buoyed by the success of our trip. All that was left to do was to return our rental car, pass through airport security and head home.

Again, this turned out to be much easier said than done.

Just as we were pulling into the airport, we began to experience near-blizzard conditions that ended up dumping about half a foot of snow on the ground over the course of an hour. Westbound flights, even to presumably sunnier locales like San Diego and Las Vegas, were getting canceled left and right, and it was only a matter of time until what we had expected to be an already-late flight back into Omaha was also grounded for the night.

After trying again on Monday morning with the same results, we simply decided to take the train home. One was set to leave Union Station at around 2:30 p.m. for Omaha on its way to San Francisco, which ended up putting us in Omaha around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Taking into consideration our concerns about work and school, we decided that an 11-hour train ride back into Omaha made more sense than remaining stranded in Chicago with no guarantee as to when we would be able to go home.

At this stage, our road trip officially crossed over into the realm of planes, trains and automobiles. John Candy would have been so proud.

In the end, the weekend was all time well spent, if only because of the experience that the trip had allowed us. It gave the five of us an opportunity to get a taste of the rest of the CCHA, one that many UNO hockey fans don’t take due to Omaha’s geographical distance from the rest of the league, and perhaps also because of the subsequent lack of an established league rivalry akin to the more deeply-rooted ones found in points further east on the CCHA map.

League politics aside, though, I am reminded in closing of a young Frenchman in his late 20s named Thibault whom I met on the train back into Omaha, who quite profoundly put into one sentence the entire reason why I had made my own journey over the weekend.

Upon striking up a conversation with him just outside of Des Moines, I found out that he had made it a goal to travel across the United States by rail, something he said he had designs to do throughout the world and relay his tales back to schoolchildren in his hometown in the southeast of France, between Lyon and Marseille. After I asked what made him want to do this, he said he wanted to see and learn about other cultures, and that the more cultured one becomes, the better off they will be.

He couldn’t have been more right.

For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

Wedding vows? Yes.

But also Boston University’s Beanpot track record. If it’s a year that the Terriers rank among the best teams in the country, they advance to the Beanpot championship where they almost always take care of business. If instead it’s a rare down year, the Terriers still advance to the Beanpot championship where they almost always take care of business.

In the one case, the first two Mondays in February serve as a perfectly timed springboard to even greater things in March and April. In the other, they revive a team bordering on life support.

This year’s Terriers didn’t come into the tournament their fans like to call “The BU Invitational” on life support, but they weren’t in robust shape either.

A sweep at the hands of New Hampshire the previous weekend prompted head coach Jack Parker to say, “We’re in bad shape now because team-wise we don’t feel very good about ourselves, we haven’t got any confidence, we just let four points slip away that were very important to us and now we’re two games under .500 in the league. We’ve got to dig ourselves out of a hole again just to make the playoffs, never mind get home ice.”

With an 8-13-4 record, this year’s edition had to draw on inspiration from similar teams in 2003-04, 2000-01, and 1998-99, all of whom would finish with losing records and fail to win a league title or qualify for the NCAA tournament. Even so, those teams still got to the Beanpot title game.

Over the past 24 years, the Terriers have always avoided the dreaded Beanpot consolation game save for 1994. And while they might occasionally lose in the title game, they still claim 11 of the last 13 championships.

Not a single consolation game since 1994 and only that one since 1983!

Archrival Boston College hadn’t defeated BU in an opening round since 1981, an eye-popping statistic made even more impressive when considering how many of those Eagle squads were legitimate national championship contenders.

So when on this night the third-period score stood at 3-3 and BC scored a goal that on first viewing looked as though it would be held up under instant replay review, it didn’t seem shocking when the goal was disallowed.

Such things always happened to BU Beanpot opponents.

When the game went into overtime despite a significant third-period territorial advantage for BC, the mind’s eye still saw BU somehow coming up with the game-winner.

Even when BC spent a disproportionate amount of the overtime in the BU end, the decisive counterattack still seemed up Parker’s sleeve.

Until, that is, Nathan Gerbe scored the game-winner and banished the streak that dated back to the early Reagan administration.

“I always say it’s like flipping a coin,” Parker said. “We’ve had an unbelievable run. It’s not the first time we’ve gone a long, long time without having to play in a Beanpot consolation game. We’ve been very, very fortunate to come out with great efforts in the first game of the Beanpot to get ourselves into the final.

“It’s uncharted territory for us to be in that consolation game next week.”

Uncharted territory? How about a sign of the apocalypse?

At least, that is for the Terriers. They had, after all struggled at times this year with their confidence. How good could their self-image be when it was relegated to the unthinkable, a Beanpot consolation game?

“I don’t think we’ll have a problem with it,” Parker said without even the hint of whistling past the graveyard. “We played very well on Friday night and we played well again tonight. It’s not like we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win.

“All our young defensemen are playing much better. Bennett is playing better. So we should be in pretty good shape as we head down the stretch. Losing this game obviously won’t give us momentum, but it won’t knock us back on our heels.”

BC coach Jerry York seconded that emotion. “BU is going to go on a run here late in the season. They’re a very good team. I wouldn’t be fooled by their record.”

So perhaps college hockey hasn’t just seen a sign of the BU apocalypse. Perhaps the Terriers will rebound and go on a torrid stretch run.

Without a doubt, though, they’ll be in for a rude surprise next Monday night. As they take the ice they will hear the painful, unaccustomed roar … of silence.

Early Bird Gets The ‘Pot?

In the early game between Harvard and Northeastern, Harvard jumped out to a 3-0 lead with three goals in the first seven minutes of the game.

According to Harvard senior captain and Minnesota native Mike Taylor, who scored the second goal and assisted on the third, getting the advantage early was crucial.

“As a freshman coming in, particularly from the Midwest, I didn’t really understand how important the game was right away,” said Taylor. “By the time I realized it, we were down by a couple of goals. So I really knew how important it was to get out to an early start.

“We really wanted this one, probably more than any game of my career. [Harvard’s seven seniors] really instilled that in the younger players.”

Northeastern coach Greg Cronin was more impressed with what happened after the three goals.

“They played a really smart game,” said Cronin. “Once they got the lead, they didn’t allow us any odd-man rushes, or really allow us to get back in the game. I was really impressed how they played the last 53 minutes of the game.”

Huskies junior captain Joe Vitale, also a Midwesterner, had his own comments about the Beanpot prior to the series.

“When I go back to St. Louis, the first thing I’m asked about is ‘What it is like to play in the Beanpot?'” said Vitale. “Not, ‘What is it like to go to a Red Sox game?’ or ‘What is it like to live in Boston?’ but rather, ‘What is it like to play in the Beanpot?'”

History Lesson

Harvard had not been in a Beanpot final since 1998, and hadn’t won a first-round game against Northeastern since 1993. Rather than allowing the weight of that history to hold his team back, Harvard coach Ted Donato turned it into a positive.

“We’ve had some frustration over the years in the Beanpot,” said Donato. “And maybe that frustration causes the event to lose some of the excitement, some of the luster, that it is supposed to have.”

So Donato and his coaching staff prepared a video of key Harvard moments to show the team before starting practices.

“We watched a video on the history of the Beanpot,” said Taylor. “It really got us fired up for the game.”

No doubt, the video contained some clips of Donato, who as a player carried the Crimson to two finals in 1989 and 1990.

“So we showed the team some highlights of past Beanpots,” said Donato. “Not as motivation or pressure, but as a message for them to seize the opportunity. And it worked.”

Eagles In Tune

Boston College had an unusual advantage before starting the second match against BU.

Massachusetts native and BC sophomore Ayla Brown sang the national anthem in spirited fashion to a thunderous ovation.

Brown was one of 24 finalists on American Idol during the fifth season, advancing to Hollywood after auditioning in Boston. Brown is attending BC on a full athletic scholarship for basketball. She is one of the all-time leading scorers in Massachusetts high school basketball history.

This came just a day after the season-six American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks, performed the same duty of singing the national anthem at Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz.

Sick Puppy

Boston University has recently been devastated as a particularly nasty version of the flu as Jack Parker missed the Beanpot media luncheon on Tuesday afternoon, and assistant coach Mike Bavis ran practices for the team all week.

Parker was behind the bench for Monday evening’s game against BC, but first-line forward Bryan Ewing’s status was unknown right up to game time. Ewing ended up starting, and provided a crucial screen on BU’s third goal.

Reviewed Plays

Two goals in the game needed to be reviewed.

In the second period, Boston University had 17 seconds of a 2-man advantage, as both Brian Gibbons and Nathan Gerbe were sent off for the Eagles. BU scored its third goal just as the initial penalty counted to zero, and the play was reviewed to determine if the goal was scored before or after the penalty had expired. It was after, so Boston College escaped without additional shorthanded time.

In the third, Boston College scored what would have been the go-ahead fourth goal, as Andrew Orpik slapped in a puck sitting in a wide-open crease after BU goalie Brett Bennett had been pushed clear. It was determined that another BC player had entered the crease before the goal was scored, and the goal was disallowed.

“On a play like that, sometimes the reaction on the bench can be a real downer,” said BC coach Jerry York. “But for us, it wasn’t like that at all. We fed off of it.”

Gerbe, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime, agreed.

“It was a huge setback at the time,” Gerbe said. “But the coaching staff did a real good job of keeping us composed. We just tried to get the goal back on the next shift, and then again on the next.”

The reviewer for both plays was Brendan Sheehy, former Supervisor of Officials for Hockey East.

Quotable

“I want to apologize to all the Northeastern fans, particularly those that stood outside for up to six hours to get tickets for tonight’s game. We didn’t give them much to cheer about.” — NU coach Greg Cronin

“This is uncharted territory for us, playing in the consolation game next week.” — Jack Parker, BU coach. The Terriers have not played in a Beanpot consolation game since 1994, and prior to Monday had won 23 of the last 24 first-round games.

“I’m still bummed about the Pats. It’s a tough day to be a Boston sports fan. This takes some of the sting out of it, though.” — Jerry York, BC coach, on the Patriots’ upset loss in Sunday’s Super Bowl.