A weekend in Denver

On the Heights, we know there’s at least one team on which we can count, and that would be your national champion Boston College Eagles men’s hockey team. Already sitting at 1-0 (2 pts. in Hockey East), BC will change their focus from a lousy local team to a very good national team in the Denver Pioneers. While the Eagles are ranked #1, the Pioneers are #8, and could have easily been a Frozen Four competitor for BC were it not for a spunky upstart RIT team in April.

Of course, these teams have some recent history regardless of the fact that their date in Detroit got cancelled. Last season, BC went out to Denver for the “Denver Cup” and lost on the Pioneers’ home ice, 4-3. This year, they will match up twice in the regular season – once on Friday night, and again on Saturday night. The first game will be televised on FSN Rocky Mountain (DirecTV 683 for the Sports Pack people) at 9:30pm Eastern tonight. Tomorrow’s will not be aired.

In their early games, Denver was on our side of the country playing the Catamounts of UVM. In the first game, the Pioneers won 5-3 as Drew Shore and Matt Donovan scored two goals each. The Pioneers got outshot by Vermont 30-20 but secured the win with 27 saves by sophomore goalie Adam Murray. The following night, however, they tied Vermont by a score of 1-1. Drew Shore picked up his third goal of the season, which was the only one Denver scored. The Pioneers started a different goalie in this game, freshman Sam Brittain, who saved 28 shots but was not able to win. Both teams took 29 shots on goal.

In a likely irrelevant oddity, Denver actually lost one of their exhibition games. The University of Lethbridge, out of Alberta, went onto Denver’s home ice and beat Brittain and the Pioneers, 5-2. Lethbridge was outshot 36-22 in the game but goalie Reese St. Goddard was very good. The game was meaningless, but I guess that’s what happens when you try to beat the Canadians in hockey, eh?

We know what Boston College achieved in getting to 1-0 on the season: two-time national champion goalie John Muse pitched a shutout of the Northeastern Huskies on their ice. What makes it more impressive is the fact that he had 35 saves, but his Northeastern counterpart had 33 of his own (yet, of course, the two he let in were two more than Muse did). The Eagles committed six penalties in the second period, and gave Northeastern six power play chances during the game, but BC swatted them all down. The Eagles were tied for 14th last year in penalty killing, but are off to a strong start this year.

Looking at the schedule, this may be the best team aside from Maine and/or New Hampshire that BC will face until tournament time, should they be fortunate enough to get there once again. I would, of course, be pleased if they were to win, but they lost to Denver last year, and that didn’t come back to haunt them at all. It’s a different season, however, and we all want to see our Eagles strike against another top team. Like I said in my hockey preview article, BC’s not the team that should be frightened of what’s on their schedule – those other teams should be scared of playing BC. I think the Eagles will have a fine weekend in Colorado.