He’s Boston University’s starting centerman. He’s the Icedogs’ leading active scorer, just nine shy of the century mark for his four-year career. He’s scored a Beanpot hat trick before, two years ago against Northeastern University.
And now he’s Brian Collins, defensive specialist.
‘Collins played real well covering Ben Eaves,’ BU coach Jack Parker said of his assistant captain’s effort on Boston College’s leading scorer. ‘He kept him off the board in five-on-five situations and did a great job doing it.’
One play in the middle of the second period typified Collins’s defensive effort last night. With BU protecting a 1-0 lead, Eagle forward Tony Voce took a pass to the right of Sean Fields and tried to shift to his forehand where the net was empty.
As he did, however, Collins came banging into the play, lifting Voce’s stick away from the puck and jarring it loose. Play then moved to the other end of the ice, where BU earned a power play as the result of an odd-man rush.
TOURNEY TESTED
Not only did last night’s win give BU its 25th Beanpot championship, it also gave the Icedogs their third tournament title this season.
The first came to open play in October, when BU beat Northern Michigan and Rensselaer to capture the Ice Breaker crown. Then, in December, the Terriers traveled to Michigan for the Great Lakes Invitational, pounding national powers Michigan State and Michigan en route to a championship there.
Fields was the Most Valuable Player in Detroit, first, and now in Boston. Jekabs Redlihs won the MVP for his efforts in Wisconsin.
The tourney success only adds to Parker’s legend, which now includes 38 tournament titles: 16 Beanpots, five Hockey East tourneys, four ECAC tourneys and a pair of NCAA championships.
‘Real good or great BU hockey teams win big things,’ Parker said. ‘Sometimes it’s just the Beanpot, other times it’s something big at the end of the year.’
RABID HUSKIES
Northeastern may not have brought its A-Game, but its fans sure did. As the game opened and the Dog Pound serenaded their charges before a sparse consolation game crowd with a ‘Let’s go Huskies’ chant, one fan loudly suggested ‘Let’s go home.’ Clearly, he knew how the game was going to turn out.
With such a small crowd, it seemed like everybody could see everybody, and the Dog Pound yelled for one fan in possession of a plastic horn to ‘Blow your horn.’
He consented and provided the Northeastern fans with what may have been the highlight of their night.
JACK-ERWOCKY
When he sat down for the post game press conference and BU sports information director Ed Carpenter wasn’t present, Parker jokingly said that Carpenter wasn’t needed anyway, and then said he would make his ‘opening statement’ as one writer put it to him, without Carpenter’s prompting.
Tongue-firmly-in-cheek, Parker said, ‘I have never, ever been a member of the Communist party.’
Later, as Fields scarfed down a piece of pizza while he answered a reporter’s question, Parker did his best imitation of Fields’ mother.
‘Don’t speak with your mouth full.’
Parker also gave a nice little dig to his triumphant sophomore pair of Justin Maiser and Brian McConnell, both of whom had been benched for taking stupid penalties in recent games.
‘You guys been in the lineup lately?’ he asked.
ODDS AND ENDS
Although he wasn’t present this week, former BU video coordinator and all-around great guy Brant Berglund took in the first round of the Beanpot. When the Boston Bruins lost their video coordinator, Berglund a former team manager when he attended BU was recommended by Parker and before he knew it, he was on the beaches of Miami when the B’s traveled to the Sunshine State to take on the Florida Panthers. … The Icedogs lost one of their top penalty killers in sophomore forward Matt Radoslovich to a concussion sustained against the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on Friday night. ‘We didn’t use the fourth line as much [last night], because he’s a great defensive player, Rado, and I was concerned about that.’ … Fields’s Eberly Trophy was because of his .950 save percentage, the result of stopping 59 of the 62 shots he faced against Harvard and BC.
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