GAME FACTS

Who:
Boston College Eagles (0-0-0, 0-0-0 HEA) vs.
Carleton University Ravens (3-1-0, 0-0-0 CIS)

What:
Exhibition men’s hockey game

When:
Sunday, October 2, 2016
2:30 PM

Where:
Warrior Ice Arena (Boston Bruins Practice Facility)
Brighton, MA

Why:
You’ll have to ask yourself that question.

How to Follow:
TBD. Given the venue, it’s doubtful there will be anything more involved than live stats posted. So your best bet is to follow @bcinterruption on Twitter.

BC STORYLINES

We’re back! And by we, I mean, like, the fans. And the coaching staff. Not so much all the players, as BC brings what feels like a brand new team in to the 2016-17 season. With a whopping thirteen freshmen on the roster this fall, this year’s exhibition is an intriguing opportunity to get a first look at the new faces that will reshape BC hockey in the next few years.

The Eagles are going to need freshmen to contribute right away to fill holes that were left by graduation and early departure - particularly on the blue line, where BC is incredibly young. Only Scott Savage, Casey Fitzgerald and Michael Kim return from last year’s blue line, and the latter two have a combined three semesters of experience between them. It’s going to be a learning curve.

Up front, we’ll be looking to see if Colin White and Chris Calnan are back to full health after finishing up last season banged up. If they are, both should be huge factors in a BC offense that should still be able to put up a lot of points returning White, Calnan, Ryan Fitzgerald and Austin Cangelosi.

GETTING TO KNOW THE OPPONENT

Carleton University, located in Ottawa, is a pretty solid team in CIS play. Last year, the Ravens went 20-7, en route to the CIS national quarterfinals. In the quarterfinal, Carleton lost 3-2 to Saskatchewan in QUADRUPLE OVERTIME, so hey, maybe they're still tired.

If they are, they’ve showed no signs of it, starting exhibition play against their fellow Canuck institutions with a 3-1-0 record. This exhibition slate included a win over always solid McGill, and a 4-1 loss to Waterloo, a team which beat Notre Dame last season. Carleton plays Holy Cross on Saturday night before taking on BC Sunday.

Last year, Carleton played one NCAA team, St. Lawrence, losing 5-3. The year before, Carleton dropped a pair of contests against Cornell and St. Lawrence.

THE NUMBERS GAME

$1 USD = $1.31 CAD

THE EXPECTATIONS GAME

There’s really no reasonable way to set expectations for a team with so many newcomers. It’s fair to say that whenever an NCAA team plays one of these CIS teams, the NCAA team expects to win, but the gap has been tightening between the NCAA and CIS in recent years (as evidenced by New Brunswick’s victories over very good Boston College teams).

Given that Carleton is a solid team that has played competitive games against NCAA schools in recent years, I wouldn’t expect the kind of 8-goal romp that we sometimes see in exhibitions, but BC will probably expect to win.

RANDOM FACT ABOUT CARLETON

BCI’s own Laura Berestecki once took an actual, honest-to-goodness tour of Carleton when she was looking for places to apply to college, and visited the hockey rink, because she’s secretly Canadian.

OBLIGATORY GIF OF THE WEEK

Yes, you all requested it, and here it is, the Carl(e)ton dancing GIF.

CAT PREDICTIONS

They’re back! Cat predictions, brought to you by the adoptable cats of the Gifford Cat Shelter, the nation’s oldest cageless, no-kill shelter - located near BC on Undine Road in Brighton. Last year, Gifford’s Cats won our seasonwide prediction contest. We don’t want to talk about it.

Midnight Sky of Gifford Cats is our official Feline Hockey Analyst this season and he will be making predictions until he gets adopted. Midnight is a 10 year old cat with a big personality that has been living at the Gifford Cat Shelter (right across for BC) for a year. You may recognize him from his starring role in the 2016 Meowstern Bias special filmed by Eastern Bias at Gifford.

Midnight took some time to think about his prediction - he's had some experience making BC predictions before, but didn't know much about Carleton. Ultimately he decided that BC's youth is going to keep them from winning this game - he expects the team will need to play a few games before they settle into a rhythm. Midnight is predicting that Carleton will win by a score of 3-2.

HUMAN PREDICTIONS

Joe Gravellese - Boston College 4, Carleton 2: This will be a tight game but I think we’ll see some positive signs out of the freshmen (admittedly, more based on hope than any knowledge). I’m really pumped to see the Matilla brothers.

Grant Salzano - BC 3, Carleton 1

Laura Berestecki - BC 5 , Carleton 2

AJ Black - BC 6, Carleton 2

Arthur Bailin - BC 7, Carleton 2

John Fidler - BC 3, Carleton 2

LEAVE US YOUR THOUGHTS

Heading to Warrior on Sunday to check out the Eagles? Excited to see the Bruins’ new facility? Leave us your thoughts and predictions below. Go Eagles!