5-1, 3-4, 1-5 the scores. The Wave, Biddeford Youth Hockey’s Midget Major U18 boys team, devoured their first opponent on their trip to the National Championship in Wayne, NJ last week. But though they continued to outplay their adversaries in their second and third games, those adversaries both pulled out upsets, ending the Maine team’s gorgeous run through the season.

“There was nobody that was clearly better, and there was nobody that clearly shouldn’t have been there,” Wave head coach Mike O’Brien says. “The parity in the tournament was perfect.”

The Wave gather together players from nine southern Maine schools. Jake Gross, Cam Loiselle and Cam Brochu represent the Scarborough Red Storm on the roster, and Gorham, Noble, Cheverus, Kennebunk, Biddeford, Thornton, Wells and Berwick.

“The competition level is a lot higher,” says Owen Lemoine (Thornton). “All the kids on the Wave are really good hockey players, and I love spending time with all of them. They’re like family to me. We always have fun; it’s just a good time to be together with those boys.”

Whether the team’s on-ice or their off-ice experiences were more transformative is hard to say. They went for the hockey, and everything that goes with it: cool rushing air, intense focus, you-know-you’re-alive collisions, brotherhood in victory or defeat.

“When you get there, they have tents, and bands and cheerleaders,” O’Brien says. “The jerseys are all hanging around. The electricity around the rink is incredible.” The team quickly understood they were no longer just Biddeford, but Maine.

But more the once, just getting from point A to point B showed them sides of the world they’ve maybe glimpsed before, but probably never taken a long hard look at. After all, if Maine is The Way Life Should Be, then beyond our borders must represent The Way Life Really Is.

It started simple. “We checked into the hotel, and everything was great,” O’Brien says, “and we hired a bus company – who showed up 45 minutes late. I was highly stressed, obviously, that we’d missed our picture and were going to miss our game.

“But the boys went out, and we played Hacky Sack in the parking lot, and we had a ball. The bus company eventually showed, and we rolled into the rink just in the nick of time. The other team was standing there, dressed and ready to go.

Luckily, the game preceding Maine vs. Texas slid into overtime, cutting the Wave some slack. “We played some more soccer,” O’Brien says, “and we were so loose, we just jumped all over them. We beat them in every facet of the game.”

“We came out ready to play,” Jake Gross (Scarborough) says, “and put in a few quick ones, and that set the tone for the rest of the game. We weren’t playing catchup. It helped morale a lot.”

Lemoine actually doesn’t remember much of the Dallas game. He took a particularly hard hit early that likely reminded him more than just you-know-you’re-alive. More like, you’re-alive-but-you’re-not-invincible. Part of him realized he was concussed, but “we were down there for Nationals; it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I didn’t want to be missing any games.” He was able to hide the injury, even from O’Brien, who’s trained to look for symptoms. His teammates eventually noticed, however.

The Wave washed over Dallas, 5-1, giving them a 1-0 record in the round-robin prelims and all the momentum they could hope for heading into their second matchup. That matchup, though – against Alaska – proved a far greater challenge. Biddeford went down early, then regained a 2-1 lead before falling behind again 3-2.

“Taylor Browne (Thornton) got us 3-3 with a couple minutes to go,” O’Brien says. “We went into overtime with a powerplay, and didn’t win there, obviously, and we went to a shootout. We’re one goal away from accomplishing our goal, which is to get to the crossover…and we fall short.”

The Wave succumbed in the shootout, which, for many coaches and players, is not a particularly satisfying way to win or lose a battle, even if it is an uncommon spectacle. The shootout is often considered more a “skills competition,” as O’Brien puts it, than it is a continuation of the actual hockey game.

“As a team,” Gross says, “you can’t really feel bad about losing a shootout, because that’s really more about individual play. As a team, I thought we played great. We came back, got the game-tying goal shorthanded. That alone was a great experience.”

To advance beyond the round-robin, then, Biddeford had to win their Friday morning bout with Rhode Island. Once more, they fell behind early. “We didn’t play very good in the early minutes of the game,” O’Brien says, “but then we kind of caught our stride.”

“Kind of” is something of an understatement: the Maine squad peppered their RI counterparts offensively, ultimately outshooting them 52-21.

And yet, they lost, 5-1.

“I had scouts from junior teams, from colleges,” O’Brien says, “walking through the lobby, and nobody could believe we lost the game.”

What happened? The Wave, attacking aggressively, got caught back. “When you’re pressuring that hard,” O’Brien says, “and nothing’s falling for you, through transitions [the other team] gets very good chances. And we had crossbars, we had posts, we had one that went in and the ref said no-goal.”

“For three games, we played very good,” O’Brien says. “I wouldn’t say ‘excellent,’ but ‘very good.’ We made some mistakes and they cost us. At that level, every time you make a mistake, it’s going to cost you. But overall, we outplayed all three teams. We just came out on the losing end.”

O’Brien expresses great pride in the way his team comported themselves across the three days. Moreover, he stresses, it wasn’t just the Wave who displayed such sportsmanship and professionalism, but all the teams they faced as well.

“I go through the handshakes in the regular season, and it’s just kind of two hands slapping together,” he says. “But the handshakes at these games are like, at the NHL level, where they take a while, because everybody actually shakes hands, and there’s a lot of compliments and ‘attaboys.”

Browne finished the tournament with four goals and an assist. Alex Fallon, also of Thornton, had two goals, one assist. Bryce Fraser (Kennebunk), one and one. Gross and Chullainn Kelly (Noble) scored once each, and Nik Lemieux (Biddeford) put up a pair of assists. Seven others each tallied one assist. Oliwer Hogberg-Karlsson (Thornto) faced 53 shots and saved 46, while Andrew Huot (Thornton) faced 11 and saved 10.

After their dispiriting last game, the Wave returned to their hotel and had a team dinner. Then the boys hit the parking lot for some street hockey under the lights until “pretty late, from what I gather,” according to O’Brien. They checked out the next morning, Saturday.

In one sense, it’s fortuitous that Biddeford bounced from the proceedings before the bracketing really began. They’d raised about 10,800 dollars from the community to fund the trip, but even leaving early, they found themselves having spent roughly 10,300 of that.

Not every team faced the same financial difficulties. “There was a team with practice jerseys with the Nationals logo on the front.” Where does that money come from? O’Brien’s guess is that some teams have heavy corporate backers – or even individual backers, for whom a team is their “toy.”

Before they headed home, the boys had one last stop to make: the Prudential Center in Newark, for a Devils vs. Capitals game. The boys, according to O’Brien were particularly excited to see Alex Ovechkin play. What they saw en route was probably eye-opening for some.

“We took two different trains to get to that rink,” O’Brien says. “On that train-ride in, we saw some poverty, phew. It blew my mind, too.” Newark, spitting distance from NYC, is the sort of urban area many of the boys had never visited.

Only Lemoine missed the Devils/Capitals trip. He spent the night in the hospital, getting checked up on for that concussion he’d hidden. So while the injury didn’t cost him ice-time, or worse, it also wasn’t free. “When we got to the hospital, they asked me what the score of the [Dallas] game was, and I told them the wrong score,” he says.

“They definitely got an education,” O’Brien says. “Most of them did not enjoy the public transportation experience, and I pointed out, ‘This is the way of life for millions of people – just not in Maine.’ That’s why we live there, probably.”

OK, so maybe the Wave didn’t come home with the gilded W they went in search of. But it sure sounds like they came home on top.

Cam Brochu (Scarborough) cuts up ice for the Wave in a fundraiser game.Andrew Huot (Thornton) watches the action in-net for the Wave during a fundraiser game.