Breaking Down Some Northeastern Envy

Sunday, Husky Hockey News came out with an article reviewing our Banner Night game, and we were left scratching our heads a bit. Husky Hockey News is usually pretty solid. But someone downed a bit of Crazy Juice and wrote an article without letting the initial frustration from the game wear off. The result was something that Legendary Bad Sports Journalism Critic Ken Tremendous would have been salivating at to pick apart.

Well, he's retired, so we broke it down in his place.

Without further ado, I give you True Husky Envy:

Conte Forum was understandably packed for the Banner Night, but unlike the usual Conte crowd, there was a massive student turnout by BC.

Well it certainly helps that athletics expanded the student section this year, doesn't it? You can only have a student section as big as the seats allotted for it. And need we point out, again, how comparably smaller our student body is to the other comparable schools in the conference?

You would think the perennial top team in the conference would be well supported among its students. but in recent years that hasn't been the case.

You would think we'd be well-supported by out students, because we are. For the last 3-4 years student attendance and support has steadily grown. Steadily. We're now at the point where both student sections behind the nets are full regardless of the opponent. When you consider the fact that athletics expanded the student section, and oversold those student sections weeks before the start of the season... yeah, our student support is just fine, thanks.

Vermeersch’s penalty would be followed up quickly by a cross-checking call on Colton Saucerman helped out by the type of theatrics the Eagles have become known for in recent years.

I'm sorry, who was it that got the diving penalty in this game?

It's weird. Gaudreau is obviously a very special player, but the fawning over him among BC fans is beyond over the top. Guys like Bill Arnold and Pat Mullane are every bit as talented as Gaudreau, but they don’t even get 1/10th of the love he does.

Look, I'm not going to get into an argument here over which of the many BC players who are more talented than any Huskies is the most talented, but did you hear the cheers Mullane got during intros? Dude's a wildly respected captain.

Maybe its because they love that they stole him from Northeastern, I don’t know.

What? Who? How? Can? Make? Dumb? Point??

Yeah, no, totally. Has nothing to do with this or this or these. It's totally because we "stole him from Northeastern." We enjoy the fact that the best player you would have had in decades peaced out when Cronin jumped for greener pastures, but he left -- we didn't take him. He just chose to play for Coach Champion over a few other schools is all.

But I can tell you this: as full as Conte was last night, there were two things that brought the crowd far more enjoyment than anything else: 1) any mention, appearance or good play by Gaudreau

I will once again refer you to this. People go nuts when he touches the puck, because, again, look at that thing he did! It was the same thing when Gerbe was here. If the puck was on his stick, there was a decent chance of something awesome happening.

and 2) the out of town scoreboard showing that BU was losing to UNH.

Come on. You know your gigantic student section at Conte cheered just as loudly when the UNH/BU score came up on the scoreboard. Not even a mention of some good ol' fashioned, BU hatin' brotherly love?

Other than that, the crowd was pretty average. The banner raising drew some applause and the Eagles goals brought celebrations, but for a building that was packed full of Eagles fans and students, it was pretty quiet, except when Gaudreau was involved.

"Other than this thing that was awesome and everyone was loud, and this thing that was also awesome where people were also loud, it was pretty quiet, except for these other times that were also awesome which were also rather frequent, because we mentioned earlier that it happened all the time in this game, which were also, by the way, loud."

It's only a matter of weeks before he is more revered than Jerry York over there.

Let's not get carried away. Jerry York is your God and #GaudreaubeyBaker is his prophet.

Dax Lauwers stepped up and made a tremendous hit along the boards to break up an Eagles attack. Unfortunately for Lauwers and the Huskies, the hit was deemed too big and he was called for a rough.

If I remember this hit correctly, and I'm almost sure I do, that was an awful hit. It was contact to the head if there ever was contact to the head. But we can argue whether a hit is a good or bad hit until we're blue in the face and never agree.

The Hockey East special is when a penalty is called, with an embellishment called on the "victim" of the penalty. Like in the second period when BC’s Mike Matheson was called for Hooking and NU’s Joe Manno was called for embellishment. Amazingly, in the history of Hockey East, no one was ever embellished a non-penalty, they only embellish actual penalties in the hopes of drawing a super penalty.

This just smacks of complete and total ignorance. I know you're upset about losing, but you know exactly why people embellish penalties. It's not to draw the elusive "super penalty" (though I do like the concept!), it's to persuade a ref who may be on the fence about a call that it was, in fact, a penalty. I can't believe I'm explaining this to you right now. So, yes, embellishment is necessarily called with a corresponding "actual" penalty. There is a penalty, and you overact in order to make a call more likely. A dive, on the other hand, is more likely to be called on its own.

Head-->Desk. Honestly. I can't believe I'm explaining this.

Vinny Saponari was given a 10 minute misconduct for Unsportmanslike Conduct after complaining to the officials, who had been the subject of Northeastern ire for much of the night. With their captain in the box...

...for probably like nine and a half minutes longer than he was in April 2009, amirite??...

...any hope of a comeback seemed to die. Cody Ferriero let his frustration boil over with a hit from behind penalty in the closing minutes, but unlike the Eagles a week ago, the Huskies refrained from throwing punches at the final whistle.

They refrained from throwing punches at the final whistle by making an illegal hit before the final whistle that is more likely to injure someone than some scuffle at the end of the game.

Feel free to read the rest. There's some real "delirious fan" talk in there. My favorite part was actually on twitter after the post:

RT @HuskyHockeyNews: @Salzano14 @bchockeyblog1 it's not jealousy. You guys just act like crazed fanboys squealing whenever Gaudreau touches the puck

Ah, yes, "crazed fanboys squealing." I love it. What can you do, though. Gaudreaters Gonna Hate.