Seeing the largest TD Station crowd of the season give a gutted Bouthillier - who gave his all in an 8-2 Saint John Sea Dogs loss to the Drummondville Voltigeurs - a roaring applause of appreciation was one of the best fan reactions I've seen in junior hockey.
Bouthillier has been Saint John's most valuable player all season long, giving his defensively challenged team a chance to win time and time again. If this had been Bouthillier's final game at TD Station, he would have gotten a similar response.
One week after that moment, here we are, trying to grapple with the fact that we may have seen the end of Bouthillier's time in Saint John.
Let's face it: there's a very realistic chance we may not see the Sea Dogs again until training camp opens in August. As a fan, that's a sobering fact. The Sea Dogs had, at minimum, eight games left to play this season, which included at least four home games. Even though most of us knew this season was going to end soon, we weren't ready for it to end this soon.
As a fan, it's a tough thought to handle. We'll see the Sea Dogs again at some point, but we may never see these Sea Dogs again. Bouthillier and his fellow overagers, Jeffrey Durocher and Nicholas Deakin-Poot, will never get their proper send off. Several other players will no doubt be traded or released. Even the coaching staff is a question mark heading into the 2020-21 campaign. Despite all that the Sea Dogs are, without question, one of the luckier teams dealing with this situation.
The last thing this blog is is a Moncton Wildcats sympathy website, but imagine what their fans and players are feeling. This team had a realistic shot at winning the Memorial Cup this season - and they traded away most of their future to do so. Now, they may not even get a chance to play for a trophy.
The same goes for the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, who also loaded up at the trade deadline. The Sherbrooke Phoenix were having their best season in team history. The Rimouski Oceanic may have seen the final game of Alexis Lafreniere, a generational talent, wearing their jersey.
Yes, hockey may return in a month or two - and let's hope it does for many, many reasons. But even if it does, we still may have seen the end of some teams and players - like this year's Sea Dogs, who may not qualify for a shortened playoffs. And that sucks.
As has been written elsewhere, it's hard to think about there potentially being no Stanley Cup champion in 2020 - but it's even harder for followers and players in cyclical leagues and sports, like junior and college hockey, to think about there being no champion. A lot of teams were built to peak right at this moment. They may never get to see how high they can go.
The Sea Dogs are one of the lucky ones. The best days for this core are ahead of them. That's great news - great fortune - and we all know that. But that doesn't make it any easier to feel great right now.
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