Shelters in the storm

By Jim McCabe, Globe Staff, 2/3/2003

hese were the games he lived for, the encounters with the dreaded Terriers. Throw in the added spice of it being the second game of the Beanpot, and the electricity was at a fever pitch. Until, that is, he stepped onto the Boston Garden ice. That's when Paul Barrett noticed something different about the atmosphere.

''We'd look up and the place was clearing out,'' said Barrett, the South Boston native who was a cocaptain of that Boston College team. ''We weren't sure if it was because we were getting blown out or the storm was blowing in.''

Consider it a combination of the two. Boston University indeed was pouring it on BC - Barrett's score cut the deficit to 6-4 early in the second, before BU scored five straight goals and eventually won, 12-5 - but it was the snow piling up outside that sent folks charging onto Causeway Street. Tom and Bonnie Barrett, it should be noted, did not head for the exits.

''They stayed at the Garden for four days, I think,'' said Barrett, now a partner in a local telephone company called Alticomm. ''Here's my dad, who worked two jobs all his life, and he walked all over town because we were lucky to even have one car, and they couldn't get back to Southie. I think they stayed in the offices and people took great care of them.''

This was before cellphones, so Barrett didn't hear from his parents for a week. His eight brothers and sisters? Most of them were at home, but there no worries. ''Where were they going to go?'' he said, laughing.

Between periods, the talk was not about execution and what changes could be made. It was about the weather.

''Nobody had ever experienced anything like it,'' said Barrett. ''I guess it was snow's version of `The Perfect Storm.'''

With the wounds from the shellacking still fresh, Barrett said the Eagles wasted little time getting on their bus, intent on putting the evening behind them. But they weren't going to get back to campus in a hurry; in fact, the bus never made it. The players already had pushed the bus twice, so when it got stuck a third time, in Cleveland Circle, the decision was made to find shelter where any true BC student would go: Mary Ann's.

''We each threw in $5 to the equipment manager and student managers to empty the equipment off the bus,'' said Barrett. ''Time sort of stood still that week. There was no school. Essentially we just practiced all week. We couldn't drive. What else could we do?''

Go to Mary Ann's, of course, although even that option lasted only a few days.

''By Friday, I think they ran out of beer and the trucks couldn't make deliveries,'' said Barrett.

This story ran on page D6 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
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