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

Here we are 10 games into the season and it still feels pretty early in the year. BC’s 9-0-1, and you think “well, that’s a great record, but that’s a small sample size of games.” And yeah, it kind of is, but you want to hear something that will totally blow your mind? As the 11th game of the season, Saturday’s game at UConn will mark 1/3rd of the way through the schedule. WHAT? The hockey season looks long when the schedule comes out, but blink and you’ll miss it.

This also marks the last matchup in BC’s stretch of games to open the season without facing a ranked opponent. It gets much tougher next week, but the Eagles can’t be looking ahead — we’ve had plenty of WTF dropped points at Freitas.

WHO

No. 5 Boston College Eagles (9-0-1, 8-0-1 WHEA)
at UCONN Huskies (5-4-0, 2-2-0 WHEA)

WHAT

A trip to the women’s hockey version of Tropicana Field. Oh yeah; we’re dropping the insults early this week.

WHERE

Freitas Ice Forum
Storrs, CT

WHEN

Saturday, November 9th, 2019
3:00pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

The game will be streaming for free on College Sports Live. Here’s a direct link to the game.

PROJECTIONS

We can finally use our real projections! Everyone has played two different opponents, which means the KRACH and GRaNT rankings calculate correctly. We can use these to give us game odds and score projections.

KRACH sees the Eagles all the way up in 4th place and UCONN down in 24th. Using our handy-dandy calculator, that gives the Eagles a 91.74% chance of winning — that’s roughly BC -1100 with your local bookie.

GRaNT has the teams a bit closer, with the Eagles 6th and UCONN 20th. The score projection works out to 3.39 to 1.54, or something like a 3-1, 3-2, 4-2ish final, something like that.

We have a direct link to all our BC Interruption hockey calculators in the site header. Just hover over “More” at the top of the page to be linked straight to the Pairwise, KRACH, and GRaNT calculators.

LAST TIME OUT

UCONN played one game last week against Brown, who somehow finds themselves in last place in KRACH despite the fact that KRACH also includes the new NEWHA D-I/D-II conference. UCONN killed them by a score of 7-0, which I would say tells us exactly nothing.

Boston College had a great weekend, taking down mid-tier WHEA teams New Hampshire and Providence by the same 5-2 final score.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

DO NOT LOOK AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK I REPEAT *DO NOT* LOOK AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK I BEG OF YOU.

BIG QUESTIONS

Why is our power play bad now? Does Erin Connolly have to pay rent in the penalty box? Once college athletes are able to profit off their name and likeness do you think there’s a sponsorship opportunity for Erin there? Erin Connolly takes a lot of penalties is what I’m saying. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned that enough lately. The team in general also takes a lot of penalties. The team sure does like to support its captain. Those aren’t questions, sorry. Where was I? Why does BC always play so badly at Freitas? Is it because it looks like a community rink that nobody ever goes to but somehow it still stays open despite surely not turning a profit?

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM OUR UCONN’s WIKIPEDIA PAGE

According to Wikipedia, UCONN’s football team is actually part of the FBS. This is why you really can’t trust everything you read on the internet.

GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK

Homemade Pepperoni Pizza

I’ve been making homemade pizza for several years now and in most of that time our go-to toppings were mushrooms and onions. It was really good but the pizza was always super watery on the top and I never made the connection to the fact that the mushrooms from a can were the reason why. This week we changed it up and made it with pepperoni and it was a groundbreaking development over in the Salzano household.

I’m no master chef but I can whip up decent food from time to time, so here are my tips for your homemade pizza this weekend:

• Don’t get the dough from Stop & Shop or whatever, get it from your local pizza joint. They are usually happy to sell you a ball of dough.
• Yeah you can make pizza sauce if you want or you can be lazy and get the good stuff from your aforementioned local pizza joint like I do. I let the pros handle the hard part. Portofino’s in Madison, CT makes an A+ pie and it comes from them having A+ sauce and dough. Heads up though that one time when I lived in another town I asked a pizza place if I could buy some sauce and they acted like I walked in the front door of the Kremlin to ask for some state secrets. Weirdos.
• Get a pizza stone. This is not a suggestion so much as it is an absolute requirement. If you don’t have one then don’t bother.
• I’m a fan of sprinkling basil on top of the cheese before I add my ingredients. You can do this as well if you wish.
• Yeah turns out you shouldn’t use mushrooms from a can because it makes the top of your pie watery. I’m a dummy. Just use pepperoni; it makes the whole thing taste better anyway.

We had a friend visit us from Germany last week and she kept calling it “PIHZ-uh,” so it sounded like she was saying “Wicked Pissah” but with a soft Z. It must be a translation thing. This isn’t relevant but I can’t stop thinking about it.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Hanson — MmmBop (Acoustic)

Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking: “MmmBop?? This frigging guy...”

Now wait, just HEAR ME OUT, okay... Just listen to the new-ish (relatively speaking) acoustic version above that they did a few years ago. I’m serious, listen to it! That’s really effing good, isn’t it?? I mean, musically, that is seriously good stuff!

I DARE you to tell me you didn’t enjoy that. It’s 90s kid nostalgia wrapped up in an all-new grown-up package. You are welcome.

PREDICTION

Freitas, man. I will be going to a wedding party on Saturday that I am very excited to go to, which is great because otherwise I would have been unable to justify not going to this game in my home state. Thank God, because I hate that place. Watching hockey at Freitas is what I imagine working at an Amazon warehouse must be like. You’re there, and it’s a job, but like... isn’t homelessness better?

Anyway, BC doesn’t usually play all that well down in Storrs for whatever reason, though I really can’t argue with how well BC has been playing against the lower-mid tier of Hockey East so far. I think this game will be fine — it won’t be one that’s over by the 2nd period, but I think BC does just enough to make the game not all that uncomfortable. GRaNT knows all — I’m going to go with a 3-1 BC win.