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Hockey season is here! The Hockey East media at large set BU as the overwhelming favorite to win the league this season, while BC came in third in the media poll. Do BCI writers (and friends) agree?
We asked our panel:
BC Interruption hockey writers-
Joe Gravellese
Grant Salzano
Laura Berestecki
Arthur Bailin
Eastern Bias imports to keep us honest-
Shep Hayes (noted BU fan; terrible person)
Chris Boulay (noted person from Connecticut; watches ECAC hockey a lot; therefore, judgement is questionable)
Here’s what we came up with:
| Ranking | TEAM | Joe | Grant | Laura | Arthur | Shep | Chris | Average |
| 1 | BU | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.00 |
| 2 | Notre Dame | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2.50 |
| 3 | Lowell | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2.67 |
| T4 | BC | 4 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4.50 |
| T4 | Northeastern | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4.50 |
| 6 | Providence | 7 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6.00 |
| 7 | Uconn | 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6.83 |
| 8 | Merrimack | 10 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8.67 |
| 9 | Vermont | 8 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 8.83 |
| 10 | UNH | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 9.50 |
| 11 | Umass-Amherst | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11.00 |
| 12 | Maine | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12.00 |
Observations:
-Our panel was unanimous on three fronts: BU as #1; UMass as #11, moving up a spot in year one of Coach Ice Cream Man; and Maine in dead last.
-It still feels a little weird, as old timers, to look at everyone's predictions and see UNH and Maine bringing up the rear.
-Our panel is not as high on BC as the national media appears to be.
-There's a pretty clear Top Seven, both among our group and among the media at large.
-BC is the team with the widest range of predicted finishes, anywhere from 3rd to 6th. Make of that what you will.
-Shep and Chris had the same exact gosh darn ballot.
-Laura was the only one to put BC over Notre Dame. The hero we need.
-Not a ton of huge outliers, and lots of general agreement, though Joe had a bit of an outlier dropping Providence to #7 and being the only one to predict Uconn cracks in to last year's dominant top six.
-The expectations for BU are very high right off the bat.
We'll check back in after a few weeks' worth of games to see how they shape our opinions. Hockey, soon!