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

Last week, we kicked off our Final Thoughts & Predictions post with a mention about how the Eagles’ offense is down year over year, but the defense has improved. The weekend played out pretty much how we expected, although BC put up a painfully unimpressive 5-1 win (as far as 5-1 wins go) against Holy Cross and continued to be so-so on offense with a 4-1 (ENG) win over Maine. So even though BC is now on a 7 game winning streak, and even though you look at the 5-1, 4-1 weekend and think “that was pretty good, right?”, BC still hasn’t found that offensive magic.

This weekend is going to be a pretty interesting one, though. Read on to find out more.

WHO

UCONN Huskies (5-3-1, 2-2-1 WHEA)
at No. 5 Boston College Eagles (7-2-0, 4-0-0 WHEA)

No. 5 Boston College Eagles (3-2-0, 0-0-0 WHEA)
at Providence College Friars (5-2-0, 2-1-0 WHEA)

WHAT

One average BC Women’s Hockey game, and one very not average BC Women’s Hockey game.

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

Schneider Arena
Providence, MA

WHEN

BC vs. UCONN: Thursday, 11/1/18, 7pm EDT

BC @ Providence: Saturday, 11/3/18, 3pm EDT

HOW TO WATCH

BC vs. UCONN, 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.

BC vs. Providence will be streamed on Friars.com, but unfortunately it’ll cost you $9.99 for a monthly CBS All-Access pass.

LAST TIME OUT

After a brutal weekend two weeks ago where the Huskies lost a game each to formerly-terrible Merrimack and Brown (though both seem to have made some strides this year), UCONN rebounded with a big 7-0 blowout win against formerly-terrible and still-definitely-terrible Union, who currently sits at 37th out of 40 (which includes a handful of D-II teams) in KRACH.

Providence didn’t have the best weekend. Somehow their 2-0 loss to apparently-quite-good Northeastern might look a little better than their 1-0 win over apparently-awful UNH, a team that sits at 1-6-1 and 30th in KRACH.

Boston College, as we mentioned earlier, skated to a surprisingly uninspiring 5-1 win over DFL-in-KRACH Holy Cross before playing much better and taking a not-too-much-to-complain-about 4-1 win on the road against Maine, who is one of the real pleasant surprises in NCAA women’s hockey this year.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

This really should have been one of the first things mentioned in this preview article, but it’s not, so if you’ve come this far, you will be rewarded with INFORMATION.

Boston College vs. UCONN is about as unremarkable a run-of-the-mill league game as you’ll get, with the Huskies an impressively not-good-not-bad-shockingly-average team. So average, in fact, that they sit 20th out of 40th in KRACH with a rating of almost exactly 100! That’s truly impressive averageness!

The Providence game, though, is one of the biggest games of the season for the Eagles. The Friars aren’t notably good — 16th in KRACH, with a nice 5-2-0 record in the young season — but the Eagles are going to have a decimated roster thanks to Team USA’s early practice for the upcoming Four Nations tournament. All three Olympic defenders — Cayla Barnes, Kali Flanagan, and Megan Keller — plus forward and certified bionic woman Caitrin Lonergan, will be away from the team for Saturday’s game against the Friars.

That’s going to make for a painfully shorthanded BC roster on the road against a league opponent in a game that the Eagles really can’t afford to lose if they want to keep climbing toward a top 4 spot in the Pairwise.

BIG QUESTIONS

Will UCONN’s new goalie Morgan Fisher continue a long-running tradition of UCONN goalies making BC fans want to put their head through a concrete wall? Will the hockey gods lift their curse on Daryl Watts, who continues to look like a woman possessed on the ice but who has not gotten the bounces? Will Caitrin Lonergan score an entire weekend’s worth of goals on Thursday before heading off to practice with Team USA? Who will step up on defense to lock things down with half of our 6-deep playing for America? How angry does Coach Crowley need to be at a ref before she actually jumps off the bench and strangles someone, because sometimes it looks like she’s getting pretty close?

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACTS FROM UCONN’S & PROVIDENCE’S WIKIPEDIA PAGES

UCONN is actually an accredited university.

Providence is most well known for having a mascot that is universally described as “f****** terrifying,” but apparently they used to have a live Dalmation mascot named Friar Boy. What the hell, man? Where’s Friar Boy? Why didn’t I know about this? Why don’t you still do this?

ICE CREAM OF THE WEEK

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

Frozen Yogurt topped with every candy imaginable

Hey, Halloween was yesterday! So take the bags and bags of the extra goods you have left over from giving out candy to trick or treaters, head to your FroYo joint of choice, and cover your FroYo with way, way too much candy. That’s the only way to do FroYo, IMHO.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

The Fratellis — Halloween Blues

Happy Day After Halloween! The goal is to make UCONN and Providence sad this week. Here’s hoping!

PREDICTIONS

I’m going to give up on predicting big blow-out wins for BC this year until the offense proves they can do it. They’re getting there, but they aren’t quite where they need to be still. I think we’ll get a perfectly average 4-1 win (ENG) over a perfectly average UCONN team, but Saturday is going to be scary. I’ll say the short-staffed Eagles hold off a Providence team that sees an opportunity to knock off a top team, with BC hanging on 3-2.