For Southie, for Southie, we sing our proud refrain....

For here men are men and the girls are true....

Boston Tech, Boston Tech, brave, courageous and bold;

Long live her fame, and long live her glory, and long may her story be told....

It was a little after three in the afternoon, and the guys from Tech were starting to arrive now, here at the Arena. Most of them had these blue and white athletic jackets on, with TECHNICAL embroidered right over their hearts. All the hard guys were here, and they were here early because after a month or so of messing around with the cellar-dwellers. Tech was playing for the marbles this afternoon. They were playing Southie.

And the Southie guys... well, you can't really call them guys, they're more like men, f'crissake, most of them are 26, 27 years old... they've been here a while, and you can tell them right away. They're standing around in groups of three or four or so, leaning up against the walls here in the Arena, swigging coffee, talking tough out the sides of their mouths; and you just know, after listening to them for just a couple of minutes, that there is no way for Tech to beat Southie in hockey today.

So, as you stroll around the lobby before the game, munching on some of those greasy Arena french fries, you must understand that, you are present at something historic today. This is the first time Tech and South Boston have ever met in hockey, and one hell of a lot of arguments are going to be settled when one blows the other off the ice.

This is all very different from when I went to school in town, you understand. You had two leagues then. City and District, and although the City League was pretty well-balanced, with either Tech, Latin, or B.C. High copping the title, it was getting pretty boring in the District. I mean, let's make this clear right now. Only Irishmen know how to play hockey, and in the District League, the Mickies all play for either Southie or Charlestown.

So it was getting ridiculous, f'crissake. I remember one time when Charlestown only had eight guys eligible to play hockey in the whole hulking school, and they were still stomping teams like Eastie and Reslindale by 10, 11, 12 goals.

Last year, the administrators got wise. They split up the two leagues and formed three. One had the nucleus of the old City League-Latin, English, Tech, B.C. High. Another had the heavies from the District-Southie, Charlestown, Hyde Park, and East Boston, who, after all, skated pretty well for Italians.

Then there was the low division-Brighton, Roslindale, Trade, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain. I mean, you had to do it like that. Schools like JP and Dot were getting murdered. And you never knew who was best when both Charlestown and B.C. High were going undefeated in their own league and never got to play each other.

Well, all that's changed now, and that's why the hard core guys from Tech and Southie are here today. Tech is unbeaten. Southie is too, but they've tied Charlestown and English. And the winner keeps all the marbles, at least until he plays Charlestown.

But one of the best parts of a Tech Southie game is the jam that will take place afterwards. You just have to have one when the atmosphere gets as heavy as it is this afternoon. Sure all the fans are Irish. Ethnic brawls just for the sake of ethnic brawls died a long time ago, although you can still get pretty serious about the blacks, but they don't play hockey, so that's irrelevant here.

But everyone here today understands that there is one hell of a lot of honor at stake, especially for the dudes that go to Tech, but live in Southie. Because tonight, when the boys are hanging on the corners in Southie, certain people will be taking huge amounts of crap because of what happened to their hockey team at the Arena this afternoon. No one in Southie likes taking crap, you understand, but if your hockey team got blown off the face of the earth, there's no point in arguing. You're inferior.

So it's necesary, of course, to have a jam after the game to insure against taking crap that night. It's quite logical, actually. This dude from Tech feels like he's God, just because his hockey team really put it to you. So you sucker him, let him have a good shot to the mouth when he least expects it, and somehow, it's all even again. That is, of course, unless he and his buddies want to START something to save Tech's honor. Then you'll really have a jam.

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.

The Southie guys, they seem to sense it, too. The fans were noisy at first, while Southie was still in the hockey game, then they were dawn quiet. But now, now that the game seems pretty much decided, it becomes time to build a little ill will. Out from under this sealley cap on the South Boston side comes this basic street-corner voice, yelled out during a break in the action when everything is relatively quiet.

"HEY, RILEY! Hey Riley you bum! Wait'll after the game, Riley." Riley, Jimmy Riley the Tech left wing who lives in West Roxbury and has been playing high school hockey for at least six years, is skating around, waiting for the face-off. You know he hears that voice. Christ, everybody hears it. But Jimmy just pretends that nothing at all is happening. Maybe he knows that this sort of thing gets yelled at him all the time, or that the guy probably hasn't got the sack to actually sucker him outside after the game.

But it obviously doesn't bother him much, because a couple of minutes later he goes after Coughlin at center ice, hits him low with a shoulder, and lifts him head over heels, sending Coughlin and the puck in two differend directions. The Tech fans, who love to see Riley get into jams on the ice, go crazy. The Pork just shakes his head and laughs, and Coughlin, covered with ice shavings, gets up and skates back into the game.

Damned Hacker

But even though it seemed like a legal check-it was at center ice and Riley wasn't charging or anything-something about the way Coughlin went sprawling on the ice really rips the Southie fans. They think Riley is a damned hacker anyway, just like the Tech guys think that Dick Hart is a hacker, and now they're really bellowing for his head.

All of a sudden, Southie seems to get the momentum. It's as though they figured that the only way they were going to get on the board was to feed the puck to Coughlin and let him take it in himself like Ahern does. A couple of minutes later. Coughlin winds up in his own end of the rink and starts flying. Almost imediately, he's past the Tech forwards, and as he comes in on Ahern and Delisle. he skates to the goalie's left side, away from Freddy. Delisle comes up to pokecheck, and Coughlin blasts one by him, past Conroy, who is screened out, and Southie is only losing 3-1 now.

Well suddenly the Tech fans, who were beginning to think that maybe they had the game bagged, are starting to get a little more interested now. And only moments later, damned if Coughlin doesn't do it again, unassisted, and instead of a 3-0 game, it's 3-2. The Southie cheerleaders are jumping up and down, and screaming like hell, and the Southie guys arehollering, and Kenny Cusack feeds Chucky Carrigan one more time before Tech has even had time to get worried, they're in control again.

So it's 4-2 now, and Martel, who has been giving crap to his players for the last couple of minutes, is breathing a little easier. Ahern has this look on his face, as if to say, "All right, you guys, enough of this bullshit," and once again he's skating by Southie guys as if he's just screwing around. Late in the second period, Cusack, who is playing one hell of a hockey game, bombs over the Southie blue line, runs into heavy traffic, and flips a pass over to Riley, who is all alone at the left face-off circle. Riley fires it past the Southie goalie, and it's a rout again.

When the period ends, the Southie fans know that it's just about all over. Coughlin is obviously going to have to get in gear, and hell, you can't expect a guy to bring you from that far behind twice in the same game.

It's pretty much decided that there'll be a jam now. Southie won't be undefeated any more, and there'll be a lot of crap handed out on the corners to night, and you know it won't be Tech guys that are absorbing it.

And even when Murray, a Southie spare, sets up Natale, another spare, to make it 5-3 in the third period, there's no way Southie is making another comeback. Tech is taking it pretty easy, passing the puck around, putting just enough pressure on Walsh to keep Southie honest. But at 11:59 of the third period, with one second left in the game, Cusack, just messing around in the Southie end, manages to steal the puck away from the defensemen, and zips it past Walsh just before the buzzer to make it 6-3.

It's a perfectly legitimate goal, you understand, even though it doesn't mean one hell of a lot, but the Southie fans, well, they think that that kind of stuff is real bush. But there doesn't seem to be any sort of mass shift to the Tech side to avenge Southie honor. Most of the guys seem to be leaving without too much delay.

BUT YOU know that it won't be a Tech-Southie game until someone jams, and it's only a matter of time until some Southie dude, drunk out of his mind or all beaned up, comes over to sucker someone from Tech. The Tech guys, led by The Pork, are all singing the Tech song, and it sounds really loud and they're just asking for a brawl. Well, eventually some Southie guy does come over. He's been drinking, and he left his coat with his buddies or someone while he strolled over to take care of a little unfinished business.

Here he comes, stomping past a bunch of cops standing next to the hot dog stand, turning right past the french fry counter, and walking up in back of the Tech stands. He spots some guy, and doesn't like his looks, and yells "Tech eats it!", and belts him upside the head. As anyone who is around the Arena a lot can tell you, his is not the best way to start a jam.

For one thing, there are always cops around at the Arena, and they spray Mace first and ask questions later. For another, you don't just walk over to the enemy side, all alone, and yell "Tech eats it," unless you have a shiv or something handy.

But Christ, this guy's from Southie. So it's not surprising when suddenly eight guys clobber him at once, and the Southie dude is yelling, and the cops pull out the old Mace and go to town.

For some reason, this unexpected display really disgusts the Southie guy, and he starts screaming at the cops that all he was trying to do was to get at somebody that suckered him for no reason at all.

Well, you know the cops don't buy that stuff at all, and they're forcing him against a wall, keeping him away from the Tech guys, who all want a piece of him by now. People are running towards the scene from all over the Arena, even the Latin hockey team, who were in the showers and threw on pants or something to come up and watch.

Eventually the guy's buddies come and get him and hustle him off, and everything quiets down. The cops clear out the Arena, and everyone heads for Symphony station, where there'll probably be another jam. The last MTA jam took place after the Southie-Charlestown game a few weeks ago, and two guys got stabbed.

So Tech is king of Boston now, but over the weekend Ahern and a couple of other guys catch the goddamn flu, and on Tueseday, when Tech plays Charlestown, Freddy can't even skate past the red line he's so tired.

Later, after Charlestown blows Tech out of the Arena, 8-1, Hart is telling me about it, smiling like a sonovabitch the whole time. "The way Charlestown was skating," he says, "they would have beaten anyone in the state that day. Even Needham. They were really up for it."

"Were there any jams?" I asked. "My brother told me that when the Tech guys began singing that song, the Charlestown guys just left quietly."

Hart shoots me one of his "Are you shitting me?" looks. "Those Charlestown guys are all longshoremen, right?" he laughs. "They think Tech is soft pussy, f'crissake. They would have eaten those guys up." Dick laughs again, then goes downstairs to dress for the game. English is playing Tech today, and it is no secret that Hart has to score if English is going to win.

Well, Hart spends most of the game in the penalty box, and he never does score, but when its 4-0, Tech ahead, he does hit Chucky Carrigan a real good shot along the boards, and Carrigan crumples to the ice with a shoulder separation. Hart, of course, gets a major penalty for this, but when he's sitting in the box, with the big, blue 8 on his back advertising that, yes, Hart has been hacking again, he knows it's worth it.

"That's the best two minutes you ever spent," a teammate tells him later. But Hart knows that his finest moment came between the periods, when he and I are drinking out of the bubbler downstairs, and Martell comes down the corridor. Here is Martell, you understand, with his leading scorer, and the leading scorer in the City, out for the game and maybe a couple of more. He gives Hart the goddamn dirtiest look you can imagine, but doesn't SAY anything, and Hart just gives him a hulking Charlestown grin and clomps down the passageway in his skateguards. Tech wins 4-2, but Hart still beats Carrigan. That, basically, is what the Arena is all about.