Memories of an ESPN Error

Have you ever had something that's bugged you for years?

Sure, it's meaningless, unimportant, even forgettable for every other person to ever walk the face of the planet, closer to Duke football than it will ever be to Duke basketball, yet somehow, no matter what, you just cannot let it go.

Me? I have a case of this, and I have it bad.

On Mar. 3, 2008, more than 19 months ago, Alex Ovechkin, a left-winger for the Washington Capitals and better known as one of only three ice hockey players anyone in Houston has ever heard of, recorded a hat trick against the Boston Bruins.

Oh, one of those goals, his first, was his 50th of the season.

And that's a very rare feat, but even rarer if your source of news is ESPN.

Now, how can a feat be rarer than itself? Isn't that an oxymoron? Well, sort of.

According to ESPN, and ESPN liked this stat so much that it ran it both on SportsCenter and ESPN.com, trust me, I remember, it was only the fourth time that a player scored his 50th goal and recorded a hat trick in the same game.

The first three were done by Wayne Gretzky, Wayne Gretzky, and Wayne Gretzky, respectively, in 1981-'82, 1983-'84, and 1984-'85.

That is impressive. But it also makes sense that ESPN will tweak history to create a sensationalistic situation.

If you are advertising your next SportsCenter segment, which sounds sexier?

Coming up, can Ovechkin do something that only the great one has ever done before him?

Or...

Coming up, can Ovechkin join Wayne Gretzky, Pavel Bure, and some random dude on the 1970-something Buffalo Sabres in the record books?

Unless you are Pavel Bure or some random dude on the 1970-something Buffalo Sabres, I'd venture a guess that the previous statement sounds a lot sexier.

So what better for ESPN to do than to advertise Ovechkin's achievement as such? And ESPN did.

The network liked it so much that it ran it on SportsCenter that night. And the next morning. And online. And during highlights of Ovechkin's next game.

But as you might have guessed by now, the accuracy of that stat was far from accurate. You might even call it inaccurate.

In 2000, Pavel Bure, then of the Florida Panthers, entered the Nassau Coliseum on 47 goals. His opponent, the New York Islanders, entered literally needing to win every remaining match over the final month of the season, and have the eighth-place team lose every single match, to reach the playoffs.

But the game was close, a lot closer at least than I was to the game. I had tickets on the back row, and that is no exaggeration. Back row tickets are $5 less than second-back row, so we bought them. I mean, not like anyone else will be at the game, so we'll eventually be able to move down.

The entire way to the game, I kept saying that Bure would get his hat trick. “Hat trick to 50! Hat trick to 50!” It was a fun, childish game of song and, had I not been seated in the back seat of the car, dance.

I sang it so much that, when Bure still had not scored with under a minute to go in the second period, I was actually surprised that he was not going to accomplish the feat.

But in the final 10 seconds of the second period, Viktor Koslov intercepted a pass at mid-ice, passed it to Ray Whitney, who back-handed it to an open Bure. With the period all but expired, Bure whipped a one-timer past Kevin Weekes. There was only 1.4 seconds remaining.

The Panthers took a 2-1 lead and Bure was up to 48 goals.

My hopes and dreams now revived, my family moved down to the front section for the final period, the front row of the front section to be exact. The recorded attendance was 10,017, but if there were more than 5,000 people still at the Coliseum, I'll be damned.

Very quickly, maybe even before we reached our seats, the Islanders tied the game at two. And it stayed that way into the final two minutes of the game.

So there we were, 120 seconds to go, and Bure still needed two goals for 50. And then there was 100 seconds to go, and 80...

With about 75 seconds to go, the Panthers issued a line change. Meanwhile, the puck was lose exactly where Bure was coming in. He grabbed the puck, rushed to net, and slapped a wrist-shot past Weekes.

1:10 to go, Florida 3, New York 2. Pavel Bure on 49 goals.

After they won the face-off, the Islanders pulled Weekes to get an extra attacker, leaving an empty net in their defensive zone. It looked like it was going to work, as they got off two great one-timers, both cupped to safety by Florida goaltender Mike Vernon.

Then Bure got loose.

He checked someone, I don't remember who, into the boards right where I was standing. I saw the puck trickle back and there was only Bure to scooped it up.

With no one back to stop him, Bure eased towards the goal and deposited the puck into the back of the net.

Twenty seconds left and Bure had his 50th.

There are some things that we hold onto for no reason, and this is one of them.

I'm sure even Pavel Bure, had he seen the SportsCenter episode or read the article online, thought it strange that ESPN would have forgotten him. Then he moved on.

But I'm not going to move on, not on this one.

I've long since lost count of how many times I've emailed ESPN about this. Every time I submit a correction about anything, like Buster Olney writing that Florida Marlins' manager Fredi Gonzalez is in his second season at the helm when, in reality, he is in his third, I also mention the error in that article from months and soon years ago.

ESPN will never admit its mistake, and at this point, I'm willing to accept it. But until the entire world remembers what I remember, I will not be able to let this go.

This is why I'm holding onto this little piece of nothingness. This is why I will always rub this mistake in ESPN's face.

Meaningless, sure. Unimportant, sure. Forgettable, sure. But even someone has to root for Duke football, too.