BOWLING GREEN — It was an hour before faceoff Saturday night at the Slater Family Ice Arena, and inside the Madhouse, the Bleacher Creatures were stirring. Outside, taillights painted the campus red, the gridlock on Mercer Road about backed up to the main drag.
Soon, the fire marshal would be on watch.
“So awesome,” Bowling Green hockey coach Chris Bergeron said after the Falcons’ showdown against Ohio State. “What a great atmosphere.”
Add in the product on the ice, and the only thing missing was big hair and a Members Only jacket.
For a proud program long in pursuit of the towering shadow cast by its 1980s pinnacle, the scene here was a slapshot from the past and perhaps a herald that it could yet be recaptured.
I don’t want to say something special is happening with this Bowling Green team.
Not just seven games into the season. No, sir, we are too LEVEL-HEADED!!!
But ...
OK, something special might be happening at Bowling Green.
Have you heard the word? The Falcons are not just beating some of the top teams in the country. They are housing them. In its four games against top-20 opponents, BG is 3-0-1, having felled Western Michigan 6-2 and 4-1 and outscored the No. 4 Buckeyes — ranked first last week — 10-4 during the weekend.
In Columbus on Friday, the Falcons chased one goalie 12 minutes in, promptly ran another, and before you knew it, the home chant could have been O-H-7-0. BG went on to win 8-2, then skated to a 2-2 tie at home before a sold-out crowd of 5,000.
So far, the 15th-ranked Falcons (5-1-1) have been the greatest show on ice, led by the nation’s highest-scoring offense (5.14 goals per game) and star junior goalie Ryan Bednard. They should vault into the top 10 in the next poll and are third in the latest Pairwise ratings, which determine the 16 teams in the NCAA tournament.
A tourney Bowling Green last visited in 1990.
Our forecast: Get the dance shoes ready.
At the least, BG can dream big, which is a beautiful thing.
Consider: Between Toledo and Bowling Green, Falcons hockey is the one program that has won a national title (1984). The one program that can truly go head to head with the big boys. The one program without a governor on its tallest ambitions.
For those reasons, you can make the case BG should worry less about the outrageous arms race in football and basketball and go all in on hockey, where there are only 60 Division I teams and the pride of having a true annual contender would be immeasurable. Remember, this is a hockey community that not only raised millions to save the program in 2009 but once filled the old barn — a still-irresistible soundtrap so cozy you can touch the ceiling from the last row — every night during the glory days.
“BG has reached those dreams,” Bergeron said. “Those aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. Those are dreams that have been reality around here with a national championship. ... That’s the coolest part about it. It’s real. It’s happened before and we think it can happen again.”
Keep dreaming, Bowling Green. Really.
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084, or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published October 28, 2018, 10:01 p.m.
