TD Garden Celebrates #TBT Early, Experiences Blackout During Beanpot Final
The 1988 Stanley Cup Final. Photo via AP
The Boston College Eagles emerged victorious from a grueling, defensive Beanpot championship game against Comm. Ave. rival Boston University Monday night. It marked the first-ever 1-0 final score in the tournament’s storied history. It also marked its first power outage.
Just over 11 minutes into the first period, with the puck in BU’s end, the lights at TD Garden went out.
The lights seem to have gone out. pic.twitter.com/rpCTiR2fsx
— dafoomie (@dafoomie) February 9, 2016
We've got a #Beanpot Blackout! pic.twitter.com/voHWUZpI34
— Jake Meagher (@Jake_Meagher) February 9, 2016
https://vine.co/v/i1juupQb5lV
Play was halted for nearly half an hour before the lights came back on and both teams were ready to return to action.
The scene harkens back to the 1988 Stanley Cup Final, in which Cam Neely, Ray Bourque, and the Boston Bruins took on Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers. Roughly 37 minutes into Game 4, the lights went out in the old Boston Garden not long after the Oilers celebrated their game-tying third goal. The exact cause of the power outage remains unknown, but the intense late May heat and ensuing fog is often cited as factor.
The unique situation prompted NHL President John Ziegler to invoke to League bylaw 27-12, which, in case you don’t have your leather-bound NHL rulebook handy, reads: “If, for any cause beyond the control of the club, a playoff game should be unfinished, such game shall be replayed in its entirety at the end of the series, if necessary, and it shall be played in the rink in which the unfinished game occurred.”
The next game was played in Edmonton, where Gretzky, who scored the game-winner, eventually hoisted his fourth and final Stanley Cup before being traded to the Los Angeles Kings.
@dafoomie Beanpot will now be moved to Edmonton.
— Peter Winson (@Bruins309) February 9, 2016
Lights have gone out at the TD Garden during the Beanpot final between BC and BU. Shades of 1988 Stanley Cup Finals
— Mike Lynch (@LynchieWCVB) February 9, 2016
Interestingly enough, the Northeastern Huskies, who blew out Harvard in this year’s consolation game, have not won a Beanpot title since 1988.
