Light On

The end that was.

Would you believe me now if I told you I got caught up in a wave?

Almost gave it away

Would you hear me out if I told you I was terrified for days?

Thought I was gonna break

Oh, I couldn't stop it

Tried to slow it all down

Crying in the bathroom

Had to figure it out

With everyone around me saying

"You must be so happy now."

--"Light On" by Maggie Rogers, the final song written for her 2018 debut album Heard It In a Past Life

It was always going to end this way.  Not because we wanted it to be, not because we deserved it, but because it is the way it has been for nearly three decades.  Michigan has a hockey team good enough to make the Frozen Four, and, unless it shuts its opponent out, loses the national semi-final, usually in overtime.

Oh, if you keep reaching out

Then I'll keep coming back

And if you're gone for good

Then I'm okay with that

If you leave the light on

Then I'll leave the light on (Light on, light on, light on)

"Light On" is a dreadfully ironic choice of title and theme for a post about the conclusion of another hockey season that, like most do, ended with a loss.  All Michigan had to do was turn the (goal) light on one more time, and they would have assured the Big Ten its first NCAA men's hockey championship since 2007 and the first since the league began sponsoring men's hockey.  They took shot after shot after shot, all of varying quality, and at one point right before the bitter end, Michigan was outshooting Denver 52-25.  The consensus of the media, fans, and the Michigan team itself was that Michigan was largely the better team in the second period, third period, and both overtimes.  But as college hockey so frequently reminds us, the best team is not the one that plays the best over the course of the game, rather it is the one that finds a way to score more goals than it allows.  Yes, it is the entire point of the game: score at least one more goal than your opponent, and you are declared the winner.  Once again, Michigan, which by several metrics looked like the best and most complete team in the country over the course of a regular season, will not get to hang a banner honoring the completion of that journey.  There are no banners for "#1 NPI" after all.

And I am finding out

There's just no other way

That I'm still dancing at the end of the day

If you leave the light on

Then I'll leave the light on (Light on, light on, light on)

The natural tendency after a season-ending loss is a combination of sadness, regret, lamentation, bitterness, and doubt.  Perhaps because there were so many stats at the ready showing the futility of Michigan in the NCAA tournament since it won its ninth title in 1998, coupled with the frustration of a game that ended around 12:50 AM EDT, there seemed to be a lot of questioning by fans in the Michigan hockey hive on Bluesky as to why we do this to ourselves, invest emotionally in a team that seems to get up to within view of the summit, only to fall all the way down the mountain in a painful, but often predictable way.  

And do you believe me now that I always had the best intentions, babe?

Always wanted to stay

Can you feel me now that I'm vulnerable in oh-so-many ways?

Oh, and I'll never change

But we love it.  Hockey is the best because it is the worst.  Hockey shows you so many tremendously skilled things on any given night, coupled with exceptional physicality, that makes it so compelling to watch.  There is no other sport quite like it.  That the NCAA tournament is single-elimination does not make hockey bad; it just allows a significant amount of randomness to enter the sample.  As I explained to my son on Monday when he asked me before the men's basketball title game if I was more nervous about that game or Thursday (meaning the Frozen Four game), I said Thursday without hesitation.  He looked at me and asked why, and I explained that dozens of things have to go wrong for a team to lose a basketball game.  One thing and only one thing has to go wrong to lose a hockey game.  And I've seen it happen a dozen times and more.  Obviously, this is an oversimplification of an emotional truth.  One could easily argue that every shot Michigan took last night that didn't go in was something that went wrong, for instance.  But it doesn't feel that way when the overtime winning goal goes into the net for the opponent.  That's what went wrong; it was all over for another year.  

Oh, I couldn't stop it

Tried to figure it out

But everything kept moving

And the noise got too loud

With everyone around me saying

"You should be so happy now

Yes, let us acknowledge that it is understandable if folks outside the Michigan fandom would like to give us a bit of side-eye for being sad about this loss, given that Michigan won the men's basketball team, something so many of us deeply enjoyed and celebrated literally earlier this week.  We should be so happy now!  It's a valid argument.  I thoroughly enjoyed this year's men's basketball team and the title run was amazing and unforgettable.  But at the same time, Michigan hockey has always been my second-favorite Michigan sport, and it honestly might be my co-favorite with football.  Every spring for the past thirty years, I have geared up to watch Michigan make a run in the NCAA tournament, and after feeling very good about the two titles in three years at the start of that, the next quarter century, give or take, has been season after season of frustration in various ways, shapes, and forms.  That so many of those shapes and forms look similar, I think, is what makes it so challenging emotionally.  We're watching a new movie, but we recognize the tropes.  We know what the doombringer generally looks and sounds like, and we're just waiting for it to come.  But we want to believe it will be different because it can be different.  After all, it has been different.  But it hasn't been that way during the 21st century.  This is not a case for giving up or abandoning the thing you love; it's just acknowledging that it's not necessarily going to bring you the ultimate joy that you long for.  And maybe that's OK.  And maybe it isn't, but only you can make that choice.  

Oh, if you keep reaching out

Then I'll keep coming back

And if you're gone for good

Then I'm okay with that

And if you leave the light on

Then I'll leave the light on (Light on, light on, light on)

And I am finding out

There's just no other way

That I'm still dancing at the end of the day

If you leave the light on

Then I'll leave the light on (Light on, light on, light on)

Maggie Rogers might be my favorite musical artist whose entire output is from the 21st century.  In the decade since her Masterclass moment with Pharrell at NYU went viral, she has put out a significant amount of absolutely banger indie pop/folk/rock.  In a 2018 tweet, Maggie herself explained that "Light On" was a note to her fans and her friends and loved ones who supported her before and after her sudden fame, that she had to understand everything that had happened to her, how it had changed her, but also how it had not, and how that could alter relationships with people known and unknown.  The future is unknowable; all you can do is chart a course for yourself and hope that people will want to join you on that journey.  The past is not destiny any more than the future is predetermined.  Maybe next time will be different, because it can be different.  We'll leave the light on.

Next year in Washington.