ONE FACTOR, of course, in determining whether there'll be a jam is the amount of liquor and pills and stuff the boys from either side have taken before the game. It's understood that someone on pills, or even Bicardirum, will look for a fight, and there's a good bet that at least a third of the Southie boys are going to be that way.

All Beaned Up

It doesn't take long to find out for sure. I'm standing there with a box of french fries, talking with Dick Hart, who lives in Charlestown but plays for English. We're discussing Hart's lack of scoring power this year, when he flips his head to one side and says: "Those Southie guys are all beaned up."

I turn around just in time to see some dude wearing a Gate of Heaven bowling jacket and a scalley cap, his mind stoked with bennies, float by. His eyes are as big as five-cent gumballs. He has a silly smile on his face and a seven-inch knife in his back pocket. Yes, there will be a jam this afternoon at the Arena.

Well, by now the ice is all resurfaced, and the official scorer sounds this automobile horn to bring the teams out of their dressing rooms. Hart and I go downstairs to watch Tech and its coach, Bob Martell, with whom both Hart and I have had disagreements, hurry by. There's Kenny Cusack, number five; and Freddy, Freddy Ahern, the star, number six: Jimmy Riley, Chucky Carrigan. Dee Conroy, all of them stomp by their mouths set, walking up the passageway and Conroy, the goalie, steps onto the ice and the Tech stands explode.

By now, Southie is on the ice too, and their two guns, number six, who is Richie Fowkes and number seven, Brian Coughlin, are gliding around and around, flipping pucks against the boards as the crescendo builds from both sides of the rink.

THE SOUTHIE cheerleaders are here, too, but these ones aren't like any of those suburban babes who come in town in their own cars to cheer for Melrose and North Quincy on Friday nights. The Southie babes are dressed in these goddamn athletic jackets, dark red and blue with SOUTH BOSTON on the back, and names like Donna and

Kathy and Jeanne and Christine stitched on the front. Their young, tough little bottoms are encased in levis, and they're chewing gum with their months open, stomping on the floorboards down by the edge of the rink, and when they sing "Ki-ill Te-ech" and swing their arms back and forth, they look like real hardnosed little broads.

But Tech, you understand, is an all male school on the Roxbury-Dorchester line, and they haven't got any babes for cheerleaders. But they do have The Pork, who is also my brother, really gets ragged about the lack of school spirit at Tech on occasion, and when he's here at the Arena, you can bet there'll be some noise. The Pork used to play football for Tech, until he got hurt, and track, until he got bored, but he still has the Beach Boys be-true-to-your-school feeling, and he gets really psyched about hockey. So when Conroy and Freddy and Riley and Richie Delisle skate by the Tech stands. The Pork stands up on his chair and roars, "Give me a T." and the boys are going crazy now.

The scorer hits the horn again, and now all the substitutes skate over to the benches, and Martell gathers the studs, his six starters, around him for a little talk. Then they break, and Ahern and Delisle skate back to defense, and Carrigan, Riley and Cusack cruise to center ice for the face-off, while Conroy skates from side to side in the goalie's crease, roughing up the ice purposely he he'll get the proper traction. Now it's just Carrigan and Morrill, from Southie, all alone in the face-off circle, and the ref drops the puck, and the arguments are about to be settled.

Hart and I are sitting with the Charlestown goal, hoping to hell that Tech bombs Southie. It appears that this might be the case, because Walsh, the Southie goalie, isn't too sure with his glove, and Christ, he leaves rebounds all over the place. You can do that against Brighton or Trade or somebody, but if you try that kind of stuff against Tech, which has boys that know what to do with a loose puck, you get a couple of goals scored on you before you know what's happened.

And after a couple of minutes, it happens. Ahern, who skates around guys without even trying, and who'll probably go to Harvard next year, hits Carrigan with a pass at the red line, and Chucky sends Cusack in all alone, and Kenny beats the Southie goalie and it's 1-0. The Tech fans go wild, the Pork is up and screaming, and the Tech song, which goes to the tune of "Wvatt Earo," is on everyone's lips.

Well. Southie is a little ripped by this, because no one usually scores on them this early, but a couple of minutes later. Cusack and Carrigan get the jump on everybody, and bear down on this Southie defenseman, O'Rourke. O'Rourke goes after Cusack, but Kenny slides the puck across to Carrigan on the right wing, and Chucky, all alone, beats Walsh on a breakaway. 2-0.

Four minutes later, the period ends, and Latin and Eastie come on to play. All the Southie guys storm out into the lobby, and you can just tell that they're pissed as hell, but no one says anything. It's too early for a jam, and what the hell, two goals isn't really that much. But it's the pride thing, you understand. Southie is never down 2-0 to anyone.

But almost as soon as the second begins, Southie is down 3-0. Freddy takes the puck in his own end and begins one of his famous rink-length rushes. Just Freddy, going to whole way with the puck, all alone, like he's a one-man team. He fakes out one Southie forward, moves around a second, and he's in one on two, on the Southie defense. O'Rourke and Carney just sit back and wait, easily skating backwards, waiting for Ahern to make his move. They're playing close together so that Freddy will have to go around them, one way or the other, and they can probably ride him off into the heards.

But, Ahern heads right into the middle, flips the puck a little way past them, and leaps in between the two Southie guys. Then, somehow, he regains possession, moves to the right of Walsh, and puts the goddamn puck over his shoulder for the third Tech goal. The Tech boys are tearing the place down, now, and in the stands, Hart and I look at each other and nod knowingly: That's all she wrote.