Boston College Men’s Hockey vs. UMass Minutemen: Frozen Fenway Preview

We’re headed outdoors! After spending the end of 2022 earning a split against Arizona State University in the warm desert, the Eagles return to weirdly-warm-in-January Massachusetts, where they’ll take on the UMass Minutemen at Fenway Park. The Eagles have the late game in the doubleheader, taking the ice after UConn and Northeastern face off.

WHO:

Boston College Eagles (7-6-4, 5-3-3 HEA) vs #15 UMass Minutemen (9-7-3, 3-6-1 HEA)

WHERE:

Fenway Park, Boston, MA

WHEN:

Saturday, January 7. Puck drops at 6PM.

HOW TO WATCH:

The game will be live on NESN.

FOLLOW ALONG:

@bcinterruption and @bc_mhockey on Twitter.

PREVIEW:

The Minutemen are having an… interesting season. After starting the year 5-1-1 in October, they went 2-4-1 in November, following up with a 1-2-1 performance in December. In league play, the Minutemen are 3-6-1, earning wins against Merrimack, UNH, and UMass-Lowell. Heading into Frozen Fenway, UMass is coming off a 3-0 shutout of Brown.

Freshman forward Kenny Connors leads the Minutemen in points with 17 in 16 games, followed by sophomore defenseman Scott Morrow, who has 16 points in 19 games. In net, sophomore Luke Pavicich seems to have grabbed the starting position, boasting a .931 save percentage and a 2.30 GAA.

Last time out, the Eagles split a weekend with Arizona State, earning a 5-2 win in the first game before dropping a 2-1 decision in the second game despite outshooting the Sun Devils handily — Sun Devils goalie TJ Semptimphelter had a .976 save percentage against the Eagles that night. BC was also without Cutter Gauthier, their leading scorer that weekend, so seeing the offense put up that many shots and earn a split was fairly promising.

Gauthier, along with Connors and UMass sophomore Ryan Ufko, just finished representing the United States at the 2023 World Juniors tournament, where they came away with the bronze medal after defeating Sweden. It remains to be seen if they’ll suit up for the game this Saturday — if so, each team will be at full strength.

While every game is a good test for the Eagles, it’ll be interesting to see how they fare 1) outdoors and 2) against a team that has had a tough conference schedule to begin the season. The last time the Eagles played at Fenway was in 2017, where they came away with a 3-1 win against the Providence Friars.

If there’s anything the NHL Winter Classic this past weekend taught us, it’s that a game at Fenway should be pretty fun! Go Eagles!