COLUMN: Steve Solloway

Heartbreaking conclusion to a hard-fought season

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Photo by Harvey Levine Ryan Getzlaf and Nathan Marsters console Pirates goalie Jani Hurme after Hershey's goal Tuesday night in sudden-death overtime eliminated Portland from the American Hockey League playoffs.

HERSHEY, Pa. ‹ The ride ended Tuesday night. The Portland Pirates lost Game 7.

Eric Fehr's goal, his second of this wild, back-and-forth final game, broke a tied game and a tied series.

And broke the hearts of Pirates fans, who had learned again to embrace a professional hockey team.

The Hershey Bears won the final, 5-4, in overtime. They go on to play the Milwaukee Admirals for the Calder Cup, minor league hockey's ultimate prize.

The Pirates will return home to a city and a state where fans will measure future Pirates teams by what they saw over the past week and the past eight months.

The seventh games of best-of-seven playoff series are desperation games. Games that are played in a cauldron where emotions bubble over.

Before the gameplay Tuesday night there was wordplay. Six days separated Game 6 from Game 7. Six days of talk, talk, talk that got more heated after the Pirates arrived here Sunday.

Hershey Coach Bruce Boudreau, backed by his players, called out Portland Coach Kevin Dineen for his audacity in watching a Bears practice from the stands. Never mind that league rules stipulate that practices must be open unless agreed to by both coaches.

Boudreau and his team played the now-familiar respect card. They were giving respect to the Pirates, they said in the local newspaper, but weren't getting it in return.

The Bears also played the underdog card, ignoring the fact that both teams had three wins and they were playing at home in front of their 8,261 madly cheering fans. Forgetting, too, that they had won the first 10 games of the playoff season, including the first two over the Pirates and three of the first four.

Hershey also had a 2-0 lead after two periods in what might have been a deciding Game 5. But the Pirates scored three goals in 20 minutes, and suddenly everything was different, even the bearded faces.

Dustin Penner, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf left Portland, called up to the parent Anaheim Mighty Ducks to help them in their quest for the Stanley Cup, pro hockey's biggest prize. The Ducks were eliminated and the three returned for Game 7.

Penner scored two goals Tuesday night. Perry added another. The cavalry had arrived, but it wasn't enough.

This is playoff hockey, when reason and sanity bow to a fever that isn't found in any other sport. Don't try to understand why.

Game 7. Expect anything, see everything. Portland goalie Jani Hurme had to face a goalie's ultimate test - the penalty shot - in the third period. Colin Forbes, one of many of last year's Pirates now on Hershey's roster, took the uncontested shot, no one between him and Hurme. The puck never made it into the net.

Game 7. The finality of it drives players rather than breaks them. The Pirates scored the game's first two goals, quieting the large and raucous crowd. But who expected a two-goal lead to hold?

The Bears tied the score at two. It was tied again at three goals each, and once more at four with just over two minutes left in the game. Graham Mink, who also wore Pirates colors last season, forced the overtime period.

Game 7. The final game. Hershey 5, Portland 4.