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

Here’s the bad news: the game before the Beanpot is always a DEFCON 1 level trap game. Everyone’s naturally looking ahead to the first game of Trophy Season and at the Division 1 level, any loss of focus can sink you to a surprise defeat.

The good news is that BC’s Beanpot warm-up this year is Holy Cross, a team playing just their second season of full-time D-1 hockey. The Crusaders have struggled mightily since joining Hockey East, and their best result against the Eagles so far in the last two seasons has been a 5-1 loss (once this season and once last season). Surely, even a BC team that is not firing on all cylinders and looking ahead to the Beanpot can coast through a home game against one of the lowest ranked teams in women’s hockey.

WHO

Holy Cross Crusaders (3-19-4, 3-16-1 WHEA)
at Boston College Eagles (13-10-3, 12-8-2 WHEA)

WHAT

Surely, if there is a just and willing God, an opportunity for BC to get a comfortable victory

WHERE

Conte Forum
Chestnut Hill, MA

WHEN

Friday, January 31st, 2020
6:00pm EST

HOW TO WATCH

The game will stream for free on CollegeSportsLive.com. You can find a direct link to the broadcast here.

PROJECTIONS

KRACH (used for odds) has BC in 15th and Holy Cross way down in 32nd out of 41 teams. That big gap has BC at 90.28% odds to win, or BC -929 with your local bookie (for entertainment purposes only, of course).

GRaNT (used for scores) has roughly the same rankings with BC in 15th as in KRACH and Holy Cross in 34th. Those work out to BC being favored by a 4.11 to 0.84 score, or something like a 4-1 BC win.

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

Holy Cross is struggling big time here in their sophomore season in Hockey East. They are in the middle of an 0-8-1 stretch including a 0-3, 2-5 home-and-home sweep at the hands of New Hampshire. Their only wins on the season have come against Merrimack, the only team below them in the Hockey East standings — though the Crusaders are in their own world at the bottom of the conference in goal differential.

Boston College had another not-ideal weekend, starting off in thrilling fashion by taking a 2-1 win in overtime but then falling in a disappointing 5-2 loss in game number two, both against Providence.

The Eagles and Crusaders have faced off twice earlier in the season, with the Eagles dominating both games in October with 6-0, 5-1 scores.

THIS WEEK’S STORYLINE

BC went yet another weekend without picking up four points last week against Providence, but the losing streak is at least pretty far in the rear view mirror with BC going 2-1-1 in their last four. The Beanpot is next, and it’ll be hard for BC to not look ahead to that, but it’s important that the Eagles take these two points against Holy Cross to keep themselves from getting too close to that 4th/5th place line in the league.

THE BIG QUESTION

Can BC win the game comfortably? Early in the season when the Eagles were facing so many bad teams, BC was cruising and looking good. That’s to be expected against the bad teams, but it feels like a distant memory now with the Eagles struggling to put together good games lately. Playing Holy Cross is a good opportunity to at least regain the feeling that they can still put a hurtin’ on someone.

RANDOM, POSSIBLY INCORRECT FACT FROM HOLY CROSS’ WIKIPEDIA PAGE

Holy Cross’ campus is “a registered arboretum,” which the best I gather just means it has trees. Hey, that’s great. You guys enjoy those trees.

GAME TIME MEAL OF THE WEEK

Pasta Fagioli

My name ends in a vowel, so if you assume I’m going to tell you that my grandmother was the world’s best cook, you’d be right. By far the most famous dish in her repertoire was pasta fagioli, a pasta with a cannellini bean base that is surprisingly filling and good anytime but fantastic in the winter. Ask anyone in the family what Grandma Rose’s specialty was and this is what they’ll tell you.

My grandmother passed away years ago and like many Italian grandmothers didn’t have her recipes written down, by my twin sister cooked this alongside her enough that her brain is now the sole holder of the family recipe. I’m not at liberty to divulge family secrets, but I’m sure you can find one of several recipes online that will pique your interest.

Most Italians will tell you that their grandmother is the best cook. What’s interesting, though, is that all those people are right.

GAME TIME SONG OF THE WEEK

Tones and I — Dance Monkey

You, you make me, make me, make me wanna cry
And now I beg to see you dance just one more time

I’m late to the party on a lot of songs, so, whatever. This one was top ten in the charts by mid-December, so I’m only like a month and a half late. That’s progress for me!

Anyway, this song is fun, and the lyrics quoted above describe my relationship with this year’s BC Women’s Hockey season perfectly. They break my heart, but I love them all the same.

PREDICTION

Holy Cross won one single game all last season, their first as a full-time D-I program in Hockey East. That win was against #5 Northeastern. That’s right — they went 1-29-3 and beat a top 5 team. Mind-boggling stuff. A borderline sports miracle.

Holy Cross has three wins this season, but all against Merrimack. Despite BC not being the team they were the last few seasons, there is still a talent gulf between the two rosters, and I can’t see BC not skating to an easy win even with the Beanpot to look ahead to. Plus, Holy Cross already used up their one alotted sports miracle last season. I think we’ll see another 5-1 BC win sending the Eagles into the Beanpot on a high note.