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

Welcome back to hockey! It’s Hate Week here on the Heights, with the BC men’s and women’s teams both setting up for a home-and-home against the Terriers. Unfortunately, everything has gone straight to hell.

There is good news, though! Despite the men’s hockey team being bad and the women’s hockey team managing to trip over themselves at seemingly every opportunity, Boston University is having a pretty bad year themselves! Their men’s team sits at 33rd in KRACH and their women’s team is still trying to figure out how to score goals after losing a lot to graduation.

What the hell happened to Boston hockey?

Arthur Bailin has your men’s hockey preview right here. Now let’s get you up to speed on the women’s team.

WHO

Boston University Terriers (4-4-4, 3-4-4 WHEA)
at No. 4 Boston College Eagles (12-4-0, 9-2-0 WHEA)

No. 4 Boston College Eagles (12-4-0, 9-2-0 WHEA)
at Boston University Terriers (4-4-4, 3-4-4 WHEA)

WHAT

HATE WEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

Walter Brown Arena
Boston, MA

WHEN

Friday, 11/30/18, 6pm EST
Saturday, 12/1/18, 3pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

BU at BC on Friday, 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 at BU on Saturday is on actual, honest to goodness TV, with NESN picking up the game.

Lots of TV games for the Eagles this year.

PROJECTIONS

KRACH likes BC over BU with 71.92% odds. That’s roughly 50/50 chances (51.7%) for a sweep, or a bit less when you consider that KRACH doesn’t account for ties.

GRaNT gives us a score projection of 2.82 to 1.70.

LAST TIME OUT

BU handled Brown 5-2 last weekend. Good for them. Though the game was much closer than it looks as Brown had the game tied at two more than halfway through the 3rd period.

This is actually the first game in BC Women’s Hockey history and there is definitely no “Last Time Out” to report.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

It’s all about Hate Week. All about rubbing BU’s faces in the dirt and laughing as we head back home afterward. BC beat BU 4-3 a couple weeks ago in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as it was on the scoreboard, so the Terriers will fight back, but the Eagles really should handle BU.

There isn’t really anything BC can do this weekend to overcome the feeling that they can’t win big games — BU is not a tournament-level team — but all we can do now is stay the course and hope for further development.

BIG QUESTIONS

Are the Eagles angry? Will the Eagles respond to their choke against Northeastern (we’re not going to mince words here — it was a choke) by not letting BU get the game within reach or will it be more of the same? Can the Eagles get back on track defensively after allowing 9 goals in their last two non-Holy Cross games? Can the Eagles figure out what’s missing from their game in time for trophy season? Will Coach Crowley continue to roll four lines for the foreseeable future or will we see some condensing of the top players? Will we see line shuffling this weekend regardless?

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM BU’s WIKIPEDIA PAGE

The university is nonsectarian, but has been historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

I honestly had no clue about this.

ICE CREAM OF THE WEEK

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

Chocolate

That’s it. Just straight-up chocolate ice cream. Terriers can’t eat chocolate ice cream. Sorry you don’t get any ice cream, BU. What a shame.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Bug A Boo — Destiny’s Child

You make me wanna throw my pager out the window
Tell MCI to cut the phone calls
Break my lease so I can move
Cause you a bug a boo, a bug a boo

I wanna put your number on the call block
Have AOL make my email stop
Cause you a bug a boo
You buggin’ what? You buggin’ who? You buggin’ me!
And don’t you see it ain’t cool

Holy crap, that’s a lot of dated references.

PREDICTION

Anyone who’s seen my Twitter in the past week knows I’m pretty down on BC’s trophy prospects. In the immediate aftermath of the collapse against Northeastern, I said the team was not good enough to win on talent alone and that they don’t have what it takes to win a title. A week later, after having some time to simmer down, my opinion has not changed. As currently constituted, as they are currently playing, as they currently respond to the pressure of a big game, they aren’t good enough to just “talent away” those issues.

But that doesn’t mean that they won’t get there. There’s a lot of season left and brutal losses can either galvanize a team or make them throw in the towel. In 2015, the Eagles massacred Harvard 10-2 (!!!) in the regular season only to have the Crimson respond by beating BC in the Beanpot final and in the Frozen Four. So perhaps BC has it in them and they just haven’t dug it out yet. We’re almost halfway through the season and they haven’t yet shown that they can... but that doesn’t mean they won’t.

BU’s not a team that the Eagles can prove anything against, but they can at least stop the bleeding. I’m not optimistic for a weekend party, but I do think the Eagles will respond pretty well in the home game. BC will win at home 4-1 on Friday before winning a frustrating 3-2 squeaker at Walter Brown on Saturday.