By BILL REYNOLDS, The Providence Journal

So it ended, this strangest of seasons for the Patriots.

This season that started with the NFL lockout got emotionally complicated with the death of owner Robert Kraft's wife, Myra, just before the season started, and seemed for a while in early November as though the Pats' glory days were all in the past and they would be watching the Super Bowl instead of playing in it.

In the end, it doesn't matter how you win, of course.

In the end, it doesn't matter that the Baltimore Ravens missed a 32-yard field goal in the dying seconds, one that would have tied the game and sent it into overtime.

In the end, it doesn't matter that the Patriots were very lucky Sunday afternoon.

We've seen this before, of course.

We've seen the Celtics trying to wring one more glory run out of an aging Big Three.

The first time was in 1990, when the names were Bird, McHale and Parish, three iconic figures in Celtics history, and the hope was that they still had the magic, even though age and so much of basketball history told us otherwise.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - You come looking to find out who Aaron Hernandez is, the New England kid who is starring for the New England Patriots.

You know all the obvious things.

You know that he is a tight end who catches passes like a wide receiver.

You know that he has made the transition from the University of Florida to the NFL.

When I first heard a movie was being made from the book "Moneyball," I had my doubts.

How were you going to make a dramatic movie about stat geeks?

How were you going to make a dramatic movie about things that aren't really dramatic?

Where was the tension?

I didn't get it.

Silly me.

It never should have come to this, of course.

It should never have come to scoreboard-watching on the last night of the regular season.

Wednesday night's game in Baltimore should have been irrelevant, little more than batting practice before the playoffs.

SMITHFIELD, R.I. - His life changed in an instant.

It is cruel irony that the Big East imploded on the day it was announced that Dave Gavitt had died.

That was the day we learned that both Syracuse and Pittsburgh will be moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the symbolic announcement that the Big East we have known for a long time is over, that in this new game of musical chairs it's every school for itself.

I first met Dave Gavitt in the late 1960s on a cold winter's night in Hanover, N.H., long before he became one of the all-time leading sports figures in Rhode Island history, long before he created a legacy here that will exist as long as they play college basketball.

It's easy to take New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for granted.

He's been around for 12 years now, has had a career that could not have ever been envisioned back in 2001 when he replaced the injured Drew Bledsoe, a year removed from being a sixth-round draft choice.