Midweek Column, Awards, and Bracketology.

Matt Price celebrates the 2010 Hockey East championship win over Maine. 

This weekend, the Eagles will look to be the first team EVER to win three straight Hockey East tournament championships. In the first round, BC will faceoff against the Providence College Friars, a team that the Eagles beat 3-0 and 7-0 just three weekends ago. However, the Friars will add a piece to their team that they did not have on that particular weekend. That piece would be senior forward Tim Schaller who is the leading scorer for PC this season (14 goals). While I do think BC will win this game, I am pretty certain that the score will not be 7-0 like it was last time out vs the Friars. Two weekends ago, the Friars got swept by Lowell in a home and home by a cumulative score of 9-3. The very next weekend, the Friars showed great resiliency and beat the River Hawks in a best of three series. That should tell you right there that this team is not going to back down from any team and with their best player back, they could be dangerous on Friday. In playoff hockey, the hardest thing to do is ending an opponents season. You saw it last weekend versus UMass as the Minutemen didn't back down to anything and even outplayed BC on Friday. The Friars are not as talented of a team as BC is but they have some players like Schaller, Mauerman, and Brown that can produce for them in the offensive end. Don't be expecting another 7-0 blowout.

As you probably know by now, this is award season in Hockey East and three Eagles have already racked up awards for their performances so far this season. Johnny Gaudreau was unanimously voted on the All Freshman team along with Scott Wilson (UML), Ludwig Karlsson (NU), Ross Mauerman (PC), and Kyle Reynolds (UVM). On defense it was Trevor van Riemsdyk (UNH), Alexx Privitera (BU), Zack Kamrass (UML), and Casey DeSmith (UNH) was named the goalie. For the second straight year, Brian Dumoulin took home the "best defensive defenseman" award. This is the first time since the award was started in 1998-1999 that the same player has won it back to back years. The third player to win an award was goalie Parker Milner who took home the goaltending title as he recorded a league best 1.85 GAA and .925 save percentage. Congratulations to all three guys. More awards will be announced tomorrow at the Hockey East awards banquet.

One thing I have not done too much of over the past couple weeks is showing you some of what the experts think will be the NCAA tournament field. I personally am no expert on this stuff but what I do know is if BC can at least make it to the finals this weekend, they should clinch a number one seed and be in Worcester (They probably have a #1 seed locked up already). If BC were to win the whole thing this weekend, odds are that BC would be the #1 overall seed meaning they would get an easier first round opponent. Let's take a look at some brackets...

From US College Hockey Online-

West Regional (St Paul, Minn) 

#4 Michigan State vs #1 Minnesota Duluth

#3 UMass Lowell vs #2 Minnesota


Midwest Regional (Green Bay, Wis) 

#4 Air Force vs #1 Michigan

#3 North Dakota vs #2 Ferris State

East Regional (Bridgeport, Conn) 


#4 Cornell vs #1 Miami

#3 Denver vs #2 BU

Northeast Regional (Worcester, Ma)


#4 Western Michigan vs #1 Boston College 

#3 Maine vs #2 Union.

I like the way that bracket sets up for BC but what would be great is if we could get Air Force instead of Western Michigan. If BC is able to get the #1 overall seed and Western Michigan can do well in the CCHA tournament, BC would most likely get the winner of the Atlantic Hockey Conference.

College Hockey News has a more favorable matchup for BC...

West Regional (St Paul Minn) 

Michigan State vs Minnesota Duluth

Maine vs Minnesota

Midwest Regional (Green Bay, Wisc)


Cornell vs Michigan

Union vs North Dakota

East Regional (Bridgeport, Conn) 

Western Michigan vs BU

Ferris State vs Denver

So there you have it.

Northeast Regional (Worcester)

Air Force vs Boston College

Miami vs Lowell


Until tomorrow, 


GO EAGLES