 Brian Boyle reflected on his roller-coaster year as captain of the men's ice hockey team.
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There they were, skating on the fresh ice of Kelley Rink one last time, 14 hockey players participating in their own form of group therapy, a pick-up hockey game.
There was a lot of laughing and hollering amongst the Boston College hockey team.
There were neat spin moves by Nathan Gerbe and acrobatic saves by Cory Schneider.
It was Tuesday afternoon, three days after the most devastating loss of the year, a 3-1 defeat in the NCAA Championship game to Michigan State, and for Brian Boyle, it was a loss that ended his career at BC.
Boyle, perhaps experiencing the joy of an end-to-end rush for the last time during the on-ice team get-together, reflected on a time of transition in his hockey career.
For the 2003 first-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings, the transitions are many; from college senior to professional hockey player, from team leader to rookie, from worrying about a final exam, to worrying about a head-on collision with NHL mammoths such as Zdeno Chara and Chris Pronger.
The senior is now in limbo between the two lives as he continues to stay in playing shape for his future professional career while catching up on missed school work from the team's extended playoff run.
"Right now I'm a little back and forth with the Los Angeles organization; hopefully I'll play in the AHL playoffs with the Manchester Monarchs. It's just a situation where nothing's been finalized yet so I don't know what my immediate plans are. I'm just trying to stay up and catch up with the class work. After the sting wore off, we realized we got some work to do so this week has kind of been catch-up week," said Boyle.
The "sting," Boyle admits, is still there from Saturday night's loss.
Watching an opposing team celebrate the national championship for the second year in a row was probably not what he had in mind when he decided to return to BC for his senior year instead of jumping to the NHL a year early.
Going through that experience twice didn't make it any easier to swallow. There was no dramatic send-off from the captain in the locker room.
