BC Women’s Hockey vs. Syracuse: Final Thoughts & Predictions

A week ago, the BC Women’s Hockey Hype Meter was at a THIRTEEN OUT OF TEN, with prognosticators (mostly me) saying that on paper, the Eagles probably had their best team in program history. BC promptly went out and got swept against Minnesota-Duluth of the WCHA, lost Caitrin Lonergan to an undisclosed non-contact injury for an indeterminate length of time, fell to 6th in the USCHO poll, and extended their losing streak dating back to last season to a whopping four games.

NOT GOOD, JIM.

There’s a whole lot of season left, but the Eagles are going to have quite a Pairwise hole to dig out of now that they’re locked into having an 0-2 record against the WCHA for the season.

WHO

Syracuse Orange (0-0-0, 0-0-0 CHA)
at No. 6 Boston College Eagles (0-2-0, 0-0-0 WHEA)

WHAT

The ACC Championship Game! Kind of.

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Saturday, October 6th, 2018
2:00pm EDT

HOW TO WATCH

This week’s game, like all BC men’s and women’s hockey home games, will be streamed live on ESPN3. You can watch the game on TV as well if you have Xfinity. Just say “ESPN3” into your voice remote and select the game from the menu.

LAST TIME OUT

Syracuse started off its season with an exhibition against the University of Montreal (excusé moi, “L’UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL”) and fell by a score of 6-3. Losing to Canadian teams in the preseason is not a good look, so hopefully this means Syracuse is bad! That would be nice. Nobody likes Syracuse.

We won’t talk about what happened last time out for Boston College. I’ve puked enough.

BIG QUESTIONS

What the HELL was last weekend all about? Did Boston College forget how to hockey? Was it really that much of a detriment to not play a preseason game? Will playing Syracuse after playing a ranked (and apparently good?) team be like swinging a baseball bat after using a hitting donut? Is Caitrin Lonergan okay? Will Syracuse survive both physically and spiritually after playing a probably very angry BC team? Are the Syracuse Orange an orange like the fruit or orange like the color? Are they both? Seriously, are we going to win finally or what?

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM SYRACUSE’S WIKIPEDIA PAGE

Syracuse’s motto is “Suos Cultores Scientia Coronat,” which is Latin for “If we lose to Syracuse I will have a ****ing coronary.”

ICE CREAM OF THE GAME

We do ice cream of the game because hell yeah, ice cream.

Pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. The entire pint.

Can you think of a more self-destructive way to deal with getting swept in your season opener after entering the season with *all of the hype* than downing an entire pint of ice cream and raw cookie batter all in one sitting? I sure can’t!

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Blake Shelton — Bringing Back The Sunshine

Okay, no more doom and gloom. THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS.

PREDICTION

The Eagles have plenty of time to right the ship after last week’s disaster, and with Syracuse being just kind of meh talent-wise (they were 13-21-2 and 25th out of 40 in KRACH last year), at least BC has a punching bag coming to Conte for the home opener with whom they can let out a little bit of pent-up frustration.

BC’s too good to lose to Syracuse, especially at home where they’ve been almost unbeatable for the last several years. The question is going to be if BC is going to continue to struggle to put together any flow and wins a yawner 4-2, or if the Orange are going to be launched into the sun by a team that now feels like they have something to prove. I’ll go with the latter, because Happy Thoughts, and because there will be no consequences if I’m wrong, and I’ll say BC wins 6-0.