Let’s start with the bad news: Boston College Women’s Hockey had itself an absolutely brutal two months. The Eagles went 1-8-1 in an utterly forgettable mid-season stretch against their toughest opponents on the schedule. Their current 6 game losing streak all came against teams ranked in the top ten, and after earning a tie to #1 Minnesota, the team completely fell apart with some blowout losses thrown in.
The good news, though, is that things lighten up quite a bit over the next couple weeks. Sure, wins against unranked teams won’t exactly vault the Eagles back into the top ten. But right now, what the pollsters think isn’t what’s important. What’s important is that the Eagles can regain some confidence inside their own locker room and build some momentum so that when they get to trophy season, they can give themselves a shot at some hardware. While the results the last few weeks don’t look good, BC has played plenty of good games against top teams earlier this season. There’s enough talent that the Northeasterns and Boston Universitys and Harvards of the world won’t be excited for BC to take another shot at them.
WHO
Vermont Catamounts (9-9-5, 6-7-3 WHEA)
at Boston College Eagles (11-9-2, 10-7-1 WHEA)
WHAT
A get-right opportunity at home against — for once — an unranked team
WHERE
Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA
WHEN
Friday, January 17th, 2020
6:00pm EST
Saturday, January 18th, 2020
2:00pm EST
HOW TO WATCH
Both games will stream for free on CollegeSportsLive.com. Here are direct links to Friday and Saturday afternoon’s games.
PROJECTIONS
KRACH (used for odds) has the Eagles down in 15th place and Vermont further down in 23rd — with the Catamounts holding the distinction of being the nation’s most average team with a rating of 101.58 (100 being exactly average). Those rankings have BC at 65.66% odds to win, or BC -191 with your local bookie (for entertainment purposes only, of course). That also works out to a 43.11% chance of a BC sweep.
GRaNT (used for scores) has BC a little higher — up slightly to 13th — and the Catamounts in 23rd as in KRACH. Those work out to BC being favored by a 2.99 to 2.14 score, or something like a 3-2 final.
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 Live Pairwise, Projected Pairwise, KRACH, and GRaNT calculators.
LAST TIME OUT
Vermont had a one-gamer weekend last week against Merrimack where they took a 4-2 win at home.
Boston College was dominated handily by league-leader Northeastern in which the Eagles were shut out by 6-0 and 3-0 scores. It was not the best.
These two teams faced off earlier in the season when the Eagles took a 3-2 win on the road up in Burlington. Freshman Hannah Bilka scored twice for BC in the victory.
THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE
God, just get back in the win column. The Eagles haven’t won a game since November 23rd (!!), and they haven’t won at home since November 2nd, a game that capped off a brilliant 9-0-1 start. Vermont is not a bad team, so BC can’t go in here hoping to coast to a couple wins to get back on track, but after playing the nation’s best teams for the last 7 games, hopefully it’ll be like going up to bat after taking off the donut.
THE BIG QUESTION
Can BC get all of their units back up and running? The offense, defense, goaltending, and special teams have all been just terrible in this losing stretch. It makes sense that one or two parts of their game would stumble at some point, but it’s amazing that everything has gone off the rails all at once. Part of it could be that BC’s confidence is shot after playing all these great teams, so it would be nice to see them get their mojo back and piece their game back together.
RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM VERMONT’s WIKIPEDIA PAGE
The eldest child of the von Trapps (the family from “The Sound of Music”) went to UVM. That’s definitely random and almost certainly incorrect.
GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK
Doner Kebab
The sultan of street foods. Usually I make this weekly meal section something I had recently or am planning to have soon, but in this case it’s just something I wish I could eat right this very moment. Shaved meat and veggies in pita bread. So good. And not the most unhealthy thing in the world, either! But I don’t know of any place nearby that makes them. Sad.
What made me think of this is that while visiting family in Germany a couple weeks back, we were planning on going out and getting kebabs for dinner one night only to find that the place was closed for New Years. DAMN IT. I still regret not being able to get that kebab.
GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK
Lizzo — Good As Hell
Boss up and change your life
You can have it all, no sacrifice
I know he did you wrong, we can make it right
So go and let it all hang out tonight
I went into this week’s search for a Song Of The Week by going to the current Top 40 charts, though I was almost certain that as a certified #OldPerson I wouldn’t recognize a thing. But who’s right there at the top of the charts — nay, atop the world itself — but Lizzo! Of course Lizzo’s still on top of the charts! I’m an idiot!
Lizzo is too good for this world. I hope the women’s hockey team listens to some Lizzo before the games this weekend. You cannot fail in your endeavors if you have just listened to Lizzo. She will not allow it.
PREDICTIONS
Let’s be real, I’m not going to sit here and say that BC Women’s Hockey has done anything in the last few weeks to warrant me saying they’re going to sweep somebody. But this is the perfect opportunity to get back on the wagon. There’s still so much to play for this season, and with the Beanpot and conference tournament on the horizon — both of which BC could absolutely go on a mini-run to win — it’s not like the team is going to just pack it in the rest of the way. Plus, look, man, I just listened to some Lizzo. BC sweeps 4-1, 3-0. Come at me.