In the grand scheme of a college hockey season, the Beanpot means very little — it doesn’t improve a team’s place in the conference standings and it doesn’t ensure a good seed or even a berth in the NCAA tournament. But good luck trying to tell that to players on the Boston College or Boston University teams, as the game presents another layer of intensity to a rivalry that can seemingly not have much more venom.
The Eagles and Terriers, who combined have won three of the last four national championships, will look to add to the rich history of the Beanpot and their rivalry Monday night as they take the ice at TD Garden in the Beanpot championship. The game will mark the 41st time the schools have faced off in the Beanpot and the 21st time they have met in the Beanpot title game. In those championships matchups, BU holds a 12-8 edge.
While the Terriers have the overwhelming advantage in all-time Beanpot titles with 29, they have not won the four-team exhibition tournament since 2009, their longest drought since 1994. To add insult to injury, the team primarily responsible for BU’s drought has been the Terriers’ most bitter rival. BC beat BU 4-3 in the 2010 championship game and eliminated BU in the 2011 semifinals.
The Terriers, ranked No. 2 in this week’s USCHO.com college hockey poll, know that they cannot be considered a great team unless they can win a tournament sometimes referred to as the “BU Invitational.”
‘You judge a team at the end of the year by what they’ve accomplished and by what they’ve won,’ BU coach Jack Parker told the school’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press. ‘BU teams aren’t real good teams unless they win some championships. You could be No. 1 in the nation or the No. 1 seed in your league. You can get to the Beanpot final.
“You can do all those things that make you look like you’re about to win a championship, but if you don’t win something, it’s just an OK year no matter what the record is. This team will be judged on what happens from now until March and April. We’ll see who is going to get a chance to win championships in March and April. This is the first one that is available.’
As should come to be expected from two schools that have combined to win nine national championships, BU and BC enter the game ranked among the top teams in the country this season, as the Terriers are ranked No. 2 by USCHO and the PairWise rankings, and the Eagles are slotted third by USCHO and are tied for fourth in the PairWise rankings.
For BU, its rise to the top of the rankings has been as successful as it was unexpected. In the span of a single week in December, the Terriers lost two of their top players and scorers in forwards Corey Trivino and Charlie Coyle. Trivino was dismissed from the team Dec. 13 after being arrested for three counts of indecent assault and battery, one count of assault to rape, and three counts of breaking and entering. Days later, on Dec. 16, Coyle left the team to play in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
After that turnover, however, the team went on to win or tie eight of its next 11 games, a run that launched the once-middling, underwhelming Terriers into one of the top teams in the ultra-competitive Hockey East. The emergence of sophomore forward Matt Nieto has been central to BU’s success, as he has contributed 29 points on 11 goals and 18 assists. Fellow forwards Alex Chiasson and Chris Connolly have also been important contributors to the BU offense with 29 and 27 points, respectively. After a slow start, goaltender Kieran Millan, a four-year starter, has rebounded to post a 2.42 goals-against average and a career-best 92.5 save percentage.
But even with all of the success, Parker knows that his team has to truly make its mark and end the program’s Beanpot drought.
‘In the ’90s we won eight out of the 10 Beanpots, and in the 2000s we won seven out of the 10 Beanpots,’ Parker told The Daily Free Press. ‘Now we’re in the 2010s and we haven’t won any yet. So there’s a long haul for us to match up [to] that type of standard. Our fans probably think that we’re supposed to win it, but nothing is destiny. The only thing that counts is playing hard [tonight].’
Much like their Green Line rivals, the Eagles have also emerged as one of the nation’s elite teams after the odds initially seemed against them, albeit for entirely different reasons. Having captured two of the last four national championships, BC has established itself as a consistent winner under coach Jerry York, but the team endured an uncharacteristically poor stretch from Nov. 13 to Jan. 21 in which it went 5-8-1.
But from that point, the Eagles have won their last four games, the last two of which they won by a combined 13-2 margin, with the team spurred by a potent offensive attack. Seemingly from the moment he got to Chestnut Hill, junior forward Chris Kreider has been a star for BC and that work continues this season as he leads the team in goals (19) and points (34), both by a considerable margin. Fellow junior forward Pat Mullane has been a catalyst for the BC offense, easily leading the team in assists with 24, and forwards Barry Almedia and Johnny Gaudreau have been significant contributors with both players having recorded 25 points or more.
Much can be made of BU’s desire for revenge in the game, but the Terriers hold a 2-1 season series edge over the Eagles this season. For that reason alone, according to Gaudreau, BC will have some extra motivation Monday night.
“After them coming in here, beating us both times here, in front of our fans, it’s not fun,” Gaudreau told BC’s newspaper, The Heights. “We want to get them back and hopefully bring the Beanpot back here.”
BU and BC rarely ever need any extra fuel to a red-hot fire that’s been burning for years on a four-mile stretch of Commonwealth Avenue. But with the teams separated by a single spot in the major polls and bragging right for a year on the line, it does not get much bigger than it will at the Garden Monday night. For York and the Eagles, it’s a stage that they welcome.
“It’s an important game for us,” York told The Heights. “We’re playing for a trophy, and we’re playing our arch-rival. I think discipline and doing the small things well, because when you do that, generally big things happen.”
