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The Boston College-Northeastern game on Saturday night was marred (or enhanced?) by a pair of scrums that were about as close to line brawls as you’ll get in college hockey - one in the first period, and one right at the end of the game.
For their role in the end of game scrum, Northeastern defenseman Jayden Struble and Boston College d-man Cade Alami both received game disqualification penalties, which means they are automatically suspended for the next game.
Alami will miss BC’s Tuesday night tilt against UMass-Lowell, while NU will be without Struble, a stalwart veteran defenseman, for their game on Friday night at BU.
They weren’t the first players to get tossed during the contentious series. BC defenseman Charlie Leddy was the only player kicked out of the game during the first period scuffle after grabbing the facemask of a Northeastern player.
On Friday night at Matthews Arena, Northeastern’s Matt Choupani also got the gate on a controversial butt-ending call, which was pretty hard to detect on video:
I think this is the best view of the Choupani butt-ending call that went against Northeastern. He's adjusting his stick and jabs it backwards, Gauthier had crept up behind him, and he hits him in the leg/groin area. Doesn't look intentional to me, but he does make contact. pic.twitter.com/tcKpZcLNZQ
— Mike Puzzanghera (@mpuzzanghera) November 12, 2022
The suspensions to Alami and Struble may not close the book on discipline from this series, as it’s hard to imagine the league won’t also be reviewing the high, late hit by Aidan McDonough that helped trigger the end of game fight.
Here’s a clip, right in front of the the Hood ad on the boards. That looks bad. pic.twitter.com/OVLfjid6Em
— Arthur Bailin (@arthurbailin) November 13, 2022
To be fair, the BC player (pretty sure it’s Trevor Kuntar) gave McDonough a shove right before the final horn, so McDonough was retaliating rather than coming out of nowhere.
But then, the final horn sounded and the game was very much over, with BC players starting to celebrate (other than the BC player in question - who, again, to be fair, was seemingly saying something to McDonough),
McDonough came in with the contact to the head — generally an automatic 5 if the ref sees it - and very much after the final whistle.
Certainly not the most brutal hit anyone’s ever seen, and probably only intended to be a shove rather than a hit to the head, but ultimately McDonough did catch him up in the head area after the game was clearly over - so it wouldn’t be surprising to see a one game suspension for this one. We’ll see what the league says.
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