I really felt this game was men against boys,” said Northeastern University coach Greg Cronin after Monday’s 4-0 loss to the Boston University Terriers.

Even if I could have said it better myself, I might not have tried. As it has been every year I’ve attended BU, the Terriers are heading to the Beanpot championship.

It is an eye-popping stat – in the past 13 years, the Terriers have appeared in the Beanpot Finals every single time.

Some teams rise to certain occasions no matter the season or quality of the players. When the first week of February rolls around every year, you can set your watch to this – the scarlet and white will morph into man-beasts and leave the boys at home.

The way things went on Monday night, it seemed BU was simply meant to win the game. John Curry played out of his mind and earned himself a beautiful shutout with 27 saves, never allowing a persistent Husky attack to penetrate the goal.

At one point in the third period, NU goalie Brad Thiessen unintentionally shot the puck into his own net, giving the Terriers a 3-0 lead.

Given the way things went, it seemed as if the Terriers were a significantly better video game team than the Huskies and NCAA Hockey ’07 wouldn’t let the Huskies win even if they played a better game. Anyone who watched the game had to get the impression the Huskies never had a chance.

Watching the Terriers at the Garden, I almost felt like I was at a bar. While there was chaos all over the ice, I only clearly saw the highlights. The rest of the game blended together like 30 barely-legal BU seniors at T’s pub.

Unlike a night of 10 beers and poorly timed tequila shots, however, I had a pretty good idea of how the first round would end up. Lately, the Terriers are just not supposed to lose until the finals — and they’re not supposed to lose in the finals unless they play the evildoers of Boston College.

It’s the ultimate sports paradox. Every fan feels this indecision in some form or another for at least one of their teams. I mean, sure, as BU students, we’d always like BC to lose. But after the Terriers’ victory in round one, I find myself actually hoping the Eagles would win against Harvard University.

Blasphemy? It’s hard to say.

The Red Sox needed to beat the Yankees to win the World Series. Peyton Manning needed to dissect the Patriots to win the Super Bowl.

And let’s be frank for a second — while winning the ‘Pot is wonderful no matter the opponent, it is always more satisfying to crush our buddies from Chestnut Hill.

With the way the Huskies played coming into the first-round game against the Terriers, last night’s contest was up for grabs. Considering our embarrassing tie against the University of Massachusetts-Lowell on Friday and Northeastern’s recent 6-2-2 run, anything could have happened.

But it didn’t. Because the rules, percentages and all logic just don’t apply in the Beanpot. For better or worse, this is BU’s tournament to defend and always its tournament to win.

I mean, let’s be serious — would anyone from BU object if we punted the Huskies and the Crimson into Somerville and just let the grown-ups play at the big arena in one enormous balls-to-the-wall yearly event?

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never really seen the importance of the tournament. All four teams play competitive schedules and get a chance to see each other during the regular season, anyway.

In the grand scheme of things, the Beanpot is sort of like the MLB All-Star Game. It counts, but it doesn’t really matter that much. Sure, the winning team gets a sign at the TD Banknorth Garden showing the winner and a nice little pride-booster. But that’s about it.

Nevertheless, because this event is played at a bigger arena with more media coverage, there is the potential to create some momentum for whomever wins the tournament.

And that, Terrier Nation, is exactly what the team needs.

For a team with all the ups and downs of a cartoon mountain range, the Beanpot can represent the trampoline that launches a squad into continued excellence.

So while I may not put a lot of relevance into a Beanpot title, I do put more than enough importance into an NCAA championship. Thus, our victory tonight — and hopefully one next week — might have our players starting to identify themselves as champions.

I also understand I am in the minority opinion regarding my feelings about the tournament. To some of the BU faithful, winning the Beanpot is as important as the Hockey East playoffs.

Additionally, it has become apparent to me that this event means more to our school than perhaps any of the other three. To scream, “Where’s your Beanpot?” at T’s Pub to any member of the Superfan community is a moment of complete euphoria for any Terrier diehard.

Let’s just hope, for our season’s sake, that we get another chance to rub our meaningless victory into the faces of those other three teams.

Anthony Flum, a senior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].