Holy Shit, a FHMAM Update!!

OK folks, sorry I've been off the wagon for a while but I've been really busy, plus my internet connection and Blogger have both been giving me problems left and right. You get what you pay for, I guess (that's referring to Blogger, not the internet connection).

Anyway, after back-to-back sweeps over Maine and Lowell, the hockey team again takes the ice Friday night in Durham for the first half of a home-and-home against Hockey East-leading #3 UNH. Friday will be my first game at the Whit, so I'm pumped for that. I'll have a preview of the weekend in the next day or two. I will say now that the team is rounding into form at exactly the right time--I'm very optimistic about our chances in the Hockey East and NCAA tournaments. We're looking pretty strong for the NCAAs as it is and either a split with UNH or advancement to the Hockey East semis should lock up a berth.

The hoops team suffered 3 consecutive losses, two of which were pretty bad, but rebounded with a strong win over Clemson on Senior Day. Right now I'd say anything this team can accomplish is pretty good--everyone wrote them off and penciled them into the NIT after the suspension of Sean Williams, but Jared Dudley has taken the team on his back (with help from Tyrese Rice, Sean Marshall, and Tyrelle Blair) and locked up an NCAA berth. It'll be absolutely criminal if he doesn't win the ACC player of the year award.

Football recruiting is a year-round sport and BC's offers are beginning to fill out for next season. We've contacted some serious heavy hitters--Jags and co. are not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the big boys, and I think we'll land at least a few of these guys. At some point in the near future I'll discuss some of these guys and talk about how I rate our chances of getting them.

Finally, an interesting story out of St. Joe's University--apparently their student council has decided to officially adopt BC as the home team, and Hawk fans will be making a trip to a BC game next year. I was always a Villanova basketball fan growing up (although growing up in Philly you tend to pull for all the local hoops teams, even the arch-rival of your favorite), but St. Joe's is now pretty high on the list as well. Hopefully we can get a few more schools on board with similar deals (Providence and Merrimack, both Catholic schools in New England with no football teams that probably have a lot of BC fans in their student bodies anyway, are both naturals).

5-2

That's a good score to see again, isn't it??

Last night was one of the best performances BC hockey has put on all year. It's still too early for me to say "I told you so" regarding my last post, but I think this team has finally woken up. The best thing for me about the game was that we've finally started to play team defense. Maine's early shorthanded breakaway notwithstanding, the guys did a spectacular job on D. Carl Sneep continues to get better and better, Brett Motherwell reminded us of '05-'06 Brett Motherwell with his play last night, and the Boyle-Bradford-Gerbe line is really clicking.

Now onto the bad--the crowd. Simply pathetic for a game of this magnitude. The arena was MAYBE 30% full at faceoff, eventually grew to about 2/3 full, and was deathly quiet. Some girl sitting behind me literally fell asleep during the 3rd period. Absolutely awful. And it's disappointing for me too, because one of the 5 loudest crowds I've ever been a part of at Conte was the Maine home game last year. I expected last night to be similar, but far from it. Tonight, we as BC fans need to do a much better job of getting in early--yes, traffic was a nightmare last night because of the road conditions (it took me almost 30 minutes on the BC shuttle bus to get from Roggie's to Lower) but you KNOW THIS ahead of time so why not adjust accordingly?? At least tonight's start time is 8 pm, so Conte should be pretty full at the start.

The fact that I had the most annoying girl in the world sitting next to me for much of the 2nd and the entire 3rd periods didn't help, either (one of these people that obviously comes from a BC family--she was talking about tailgating as a little kid--and reads up all the crap written on the message boards and passes it off to her friends as fact; at one point she told her friends (in the midst of the 20 minute stretch when she was turned around talking to them with her back to the game) that Matt Ryan isn't going to be our starting QB next year because "he doesn't fit into Jags' system").

As for tonight?? SWEEP THE FUCKING BLACK BEARS. That's all it is. We win tonight, we are WELL on our way to an NCAA tournament bid. Just get it fucking done.

Prediction: BC 3, Maine 1

GO EAGLES!!!

The season starts tonight

That's my take on it, anyway. BC is in trouble. Our backs are against the wall. We need at least 8, probably 9-10 points from our remaining 6 games--4 of which are against Maine and UNH--to qualify for the NCAAs without having to win the HEA tournament.

I like our chances.

Based on the second and third periods of the Beanpot final, these guys have finally woken up. They've realized that they're not going to get into the NCAAs purely on the virtue of having "Boston College" written on the front of their jerseys. They took the postseason for granted, and now it's been taken away from them--but they still have a chance to get it back.

Maine comes into town tied with BC at 25 points in the Hockey East standings, fresh off a sweep of Vermont with freshman goalie Dave Wilson having come up huge in relief of injured netminder Ben Bishop. The Black Bears are tough, have no doubt about it. And I fucking hate them, more than any other team in the country save BU. When you consider that Keith Johnson tried to hook up on the internet with what he thought was a girl almost exactly half the age of his star teammate Michael Leveille, it's easy to.

This is gut-check time for BC. We need to get it done.

I think we will. But even if we don't, at least our players don't try to fuck 13-year-olds over the internet.

(I tried to put the infamous Keith Johnson towel picture here, but unfortunately Perverted Justice has archived it and it is no longer accessible. For shame.)

Prediction (Thursday): BC 2, Maine 0

0-6

Another brutal Beanpot loss last night.

A couple thoughts:

-Midway through the 2nd period, I turned to my friend and said we were going to tie it up in the 3rd period then lose in OT. I hate being right. The good news is that at least it ended fairly quickly, I envisioned BU waiting until about midway through a second OT before putting the dagger in our hearts

-BC actually played with a lot of intensity last night and didn't put in a bad performance, particularly on the defensive end; we had our chances and outshot BU 38-26, we just couldn't put them away

-Spectacular game from Andrew Orpik, who had several great hits and also did a lot of good things offensively. Carl Sneep, Anthony Aiello, and (not surprisingly) Nate Gerbe and Cory Schneider also put in superb performances for BC

-Did the ice seem really slow to anyone else?? It seemed to me that both teams' players as well as the puck were going a lot slower than normal, and BU did a much better job of adjusting particularly in the opening minutes

-Here's the good news, folks: We have seen the last of John Curry in Beanpot action

-Anyone else notice that BU was dropping a guy back on their power play whenever Gerbe (and occasionally Joe Rooney) was on the ice, essentially nullifying their own advantage to prevent the short-handed goal?? That is fear, my friends

-This game reminded me a TON of the 2004 final...except for the result, of course

-The refereeing was absolutely criminal, but being BC-BU in the Beanpot this surprised no-one


Anyway, as Eurabia Tech's athletic department will now shut down until October, BC still has some more hockey to play (not to mention a pair of basketball games against Duke tomorrow and UNC on Saturday). Maine comes to town for a pair of games on Thursday and Friday, and it is absolutely vital that at the very least BC takes 3 points from this series. The following weekend brings a home-and-home with Lowell, and we close out the regular season with a home-and-home against UNH. BC probably needs at least 10 points from the remaining games in order to secure an NCAA tournament bid; 8-9 could do the trick, but would require at least a semifinal and maybe even a championship appearance in the Hockey East tournament. Any fewer than 8, and we'll probably need to win the tournament in order to make the dance. It's doable, but the time to sack up is now.

I forgot to mention in my last post that Taft goalie Andrew Margolin has committed to BC. It is currently unknown whether he will arrive in 2007 or 2008, a decision that likely depends on whether or not Cory Schneider decides to return for his senior year. If he does, the staff will have 2 goalie commits in Margolin and John Muse; one would likely be brought in immediately (ideally to give Schneider some much-needed rest every now and then) with the other spending a year developing in the USHL. Word is that Margolin and Muse are approximately equal right now but that Muse is considered the slightly better long-term prospect, so if this is accurate then one would expect Margolin to be brought in right away.

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering, the thread title refers to BC's record in games against BU at the TD Banknorth Garden that I have personally attended. BC's record against all other teams in games I have seen live at the Garden is 4-0 (or 5-0, if you count the 2005 Hockey East 2OT semifinal win over Maine from which I was ejected 20 minutes prior to faceoff; I wish I was kidding). I have seen BC defeat BU in 4 different buildings, and the Garden is not one of them despite having seen more BC-BU games there than anyplace other than Conte. If we happen to run into the Ratdogs in the Hockey East tournament this year, e-mail me if you need a ticket. If I'm jinxing the Eagles by being in the building, I'd rather see us win on TV than lose in person.

Great win; better week

First things first--HUGE win for the hoops team yesterday down in Tallahassee. I'll say that I've been talking up Tyrelle Blair all along, and while he isn't Sean Williams he seems to be doing a pretty good impression of him. I've liked Blair defensively all season, but he was the last guy I expected to take the game-winning shot. Honestly, how can John Oates see more than 5-8 minutes a game from here on out?? It simply makes no sense to me. And Jared Dudley comes through with one of the biggest games of his BC career, including the 4-point play that gave us a shot to win. Great to see, and this team has to be considered an NCAA tournament lock at this point.

But the FSU game was just the beginning of one of the biggest weeks in BC sports history. It continues tonight at the TD Banknorth Garden as the hockey team takes on BU for the 4th time this season in the Beanpot final, holding a 2-1 edge over the hated Terriers currently. Pinhead Nation, as usual, offers their unique take on the game. As for a prediction?? I'm actually going to break from tradition and decline to give one. BC is, in my opinion, the more talented team; but we have been woefully inconsistent and this is, after all, the Beanpot. Jack Parker will harass and intimidate the refs, John Curry will stand on his head, Eric Gryba will attempt to injure BC players. We CAN overcome all of these things, but WILL we?? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to finding out. And hey, win or lose, I'll be able to celebrate/not think about it by watching 2 hours of DVR'd Jack Bauer after the game.

And it only gets better from there. Duke comes to the Heights on Wednesday night. Maine heads down on Thursday and Friday for a pair of huge Hockey East games. And the culmination of the week will be on Saturday, when North Carolina makes its first trip to Chestnut Hill for an ACC contest and the ESPN GameDay cameras will be filming in Conte Forum.

We need fans to be loud, wearing maroon and gold, on time, and fucking LOUD for all 5 of these games. Let's show, once and for all, that the days of poor fan support at BC are over.

I won't be at the basketball games but will definitely be at the Thursday Maine game and am trying to acquire a ticket for the Friday game as well (can't make it down to the Garden tonight unfortunately). I also may try to get on set for GameDay on Saturday morning. See you all there.

It wasn't pretty, but...

We get the W tonight after a very shaky start that included Harvard taking a 1-0 lead midway through the first stanza. BC looked absolutely dreadful in the first 5 minutes or so of the game, but thankfully we were able to overcome the early Crimson surge and control most of the rest of the game's play. Benn Ferriero and Nate Gerbe led the way for the Eagles, who will square off against BU in the tournament's final for the 6th time in 8 years (the other two times both coming when BC and BU met in the first round; neither school has lost in the tournament's opening round to Northeastern or Harvard since 1998).

Unfortunately, Brett Motherwell continued his run of poor play, turning in an absolutely awful performance in the first period, although he settled down and played better as the game went on. Brian Boyle (who along with Joe Rooney received his captain's letter back for the game) notched his first career Beanpot goal, albeit an empty netter. Biggest positive for BC in this game had to be the penalty kill, which completely shut down Harvard's red-hot power play unit (6 of its last 12 heading into tonight) and even got a shorthanded goal of its own from Nate Gerbe.

BC returns to the Garden a week from tonight for the fourth game of the season against BU, but first must head to Providence to take on a struggling Friars team that has split the season series so far with BC.

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More news today on the football recruiting front as 2-star QB Dominique Davis of Lakeland, Florida today announced that he will be attending BC. Davis is viewed as a sleeper; a very athletic, strong-armed but very raw QB with questionable mechanics, very similar to BC's other QB commit, New Jersey's Chris Johnson. The hope is that Steve Logan, who has a long history of working with dual-threat QBs, can work with these guys and turn them into true studs. We'll still need to bring in a 4- or 5-star guy next year, but it never hurts to have too many capable QBs around.

Finally, although it hasn't been announced yet, word is that former Michigan State RBs coach Ben Sirmans will come to BC in the same capacity (Mike Siravo will switch to DBs, a move I have been calling for ever since his hire). Sirmans is a young, minority coach with New England and New Jersey ties who comes from a program with a traditionally strong running game, so I welcome the hire. The new WRs coach has also apparently been hired, but also not yet announced; despite some rumors, it is not Rob Ianello of Notre Dame. Presumably one of the assistants will also take on the Assistant Head Coach label.

Beanpot

The 2007 Beanpot starts in just under 2 hours with BU and Northeastern squaring off at the TD Banknorth Garden (or whatever the fuck they're calling it nowdays), with BC set to take on Harvard in the 8 pm game. My gut feeling is that BC's 4-0 loss at Harvard earlier this year was an aberration. The Crimson simply don't have that strong of a team this year, and while BC is also woefully inconsistent we should be able to take care of business tonight. I'll predict a 3-1 victory for the Eagles.

I guest-blogged a piece over at ATLEagle talking about the Beanpot, so be sure to check that out. Also, today's Salem News has a nice interview with Corey Schneider.

Finally, rumor has it that Jerry York will soon return the "C" and "A" to Brian Boyle and Joe Rooney respectively, possibly even as early as tonight. That could hopefully provide a shot in the arm to the team.

Tonight's Game

BC hosts a surprising UMass team tonight, the 19th-ranked Minutemen coming into Conte Forum after a recent run of impressive play including a 3-3 tie against BU and a home win over UNH. UMass is playing great hockey right now, but unfortunately for them BC finally seems to be rounding into form. I think this one will be close, but BC will pull out the W. Prediction: BC 3, UMass 1.

Roundup

First off, congrats to ATLEagle on winning the ACC Blogger of the Year Award. Although some people (aka my jackass friends) have compared my blog to his, there really is no comparison; he runs a house of legitimate journalism peppered with opinion and excellent football and basketball insight, whereas I know next to nothing strategically about the game of basketball and try to offer a more emotional commentary on things, along with some analysis of the two revenue sports I actually know, the one played on turf and the one played on ice (particularly hockey, because no-one else really goes into BC hockey on a game-by-game basis). This blog would not exist without Bill's example and it was a great honor to me when some dude awhile back (can't remember who exactly, I think it was an NC State blog talking about the coaching change but I can't find the reference anywhere) called his blog and mine "the two pre-eminent BC blogs". Kudos and well deserved, my friend.

Second off, great win over Hartford on Wednesday. Especially the 12-point performance from Tyler Roche. News flash, we can't go the rest of the season on 7 guys. It boils down to, we need to either trust Roche and Daye Kaba in ACC play or we need to watch helplessly as our guys burn out and can't handle the rigors of February and March. Roche has proven he can contribute, and Kaba has the skills to contribute. Give them a shot, Al.

Third off, well, you'll have to wait for that. UMass preview tomorrow and Beanpot preview in the next few days.