Freshman forward Ryan Suter smashed the blade of his stick on the ice. Unhappy with the outcome, he smashed it again, this time a little harder. This time it broke. The stick still in one piece, he was still not satisfied. To cap things off he snapped it in half over his knee.
He had just been beaten by Maine freshman forward Mike Hamilton, resulting in the goal that ended Wisconsin's season.
Junior goalie Bernd Br??ckler hunched over in front of the net as if he was about to be sick. His fellow teammates surrounded him to make sure he knew it was not his fault.
He was the team's Most Valuable Player and the East Regional's Most Outstanding Player, giving up just two goals in over 135 minutes of play during the weekend, but it was the last one that marked the end of his season.
\It's an empty feeling right now. We came away short. In our locker room there are heads hanging and our seniors are done playing for their career,"" Br??ckler said after the loss.
Senior forward and tri-captain Rene Bourque dropped to one knee by the bench, realizing that his career as a Badger was over. He remained in that position until teammates came to help him to his feet to shake hands with Maine.
He had scored the team's only goal of the game, but Hamilton's goal meant that Bourque would end his career three points shy of 100.
Senior defenseman and tri-captain Dan Boeser, Friday night's hero, shook hands with the Black Bears who had just ended his career, then skated back by his bench and stood there. He was the last Badger to leave the ice, standing by momentarily to watch Maine's celebration.
""It was my last college game. I was just trying to take everything in and stay out there as long as possible,"" Boeser said.
Each player had his own reaction to the final goal, a goal that abruptly ended a season in which the Badgers defied the odds.
When the season began, nobody expected Wisconsin to finish its season one goal away from the Frozen Four.
Yet the Badgers finished in third place in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, five spots higher than the league's coaches predicted at the beginning of the season. They went to the NCAA tournament and advanced. They were the only team not seeded one or two in the tournament to win a game. And they were just inches from finding themselves in Boston a week from today.
""We were 10 games under .500 last year, so it would have been reasonable to get back to .500, but then we finished 10 games above,"" Head Coach Mike Eaves said. ""As the season went along we forged ourselves into a good team and expectations changed and the reason that these young men are disappointed is because of that.""
The remarkable turnaround season had to end at some point, and losing in the Regional Final to, not only the top seed of the region, but the top-ranked team in the country by one goal in overtime, is not a terrible way to finish.
The end of the season comes as a disappointment to the team who wanted all season to be No. 1. The end of a career for the seniors is always hard. But the future of the Wisconsin program is looking up.
The freshmen class led the the team in scoring this season with the sophomores coming in second. This year's team was very young. The Badgers will face high expectations in the 2004-'05 season, but they have shown their ability to exceed expectations all season. Do not be surprised if Wisconsin finds itself in the Frozen Four one year from now.
