FADEM: It all comes down to this

This is it. This is what it all comes down to. I’ve dreamt of this for three years. And after those three years of hopefully watching, the Terriers have arrived at the Mecca of college hockey: the Frozen Four.

Year to year, the hockey team is one of the only teams at this school with real national championship aspirations. In most sports at BU, it’s good enough to win the conference, but in hockey, sights are set much higher.

Because of these high expectations, most of the BU hockey teams since 1995 have been considered failures only because they didn’t bring home the ultimate hardware. Now, none of them are actually failures. A failure is a team like Merrimack’s, which hasn’t played postseason hockey in six years, or UNH, which has never won a national champion. Also, any of the teams in the Futile Four would certainly qualify as failures.

BU hasn’t failed ‘-‘- they’ve had some very memorable teams and players pass through in the last 14 years, but never have any of these teams had the potential this year’s team does. If this team does go on to play and win on Saturday, there is no doubt that it will go down in BU history as the greatest team to ever play at this school. Simply put, here is why:

With two more wins, this BU hockey squad will become the winningest BU team in school history with a would-be 35 wins. Kieran Millan has already become the single-season winningest goalie with his 27th win of the season against UNH last Sunday. On top of that, Millan has never lost a game away from Agganis Arena. I like knowing that as I pack my bags for a different city.

This team has 11 20-point scorers, four of whom are defensemen. The other Frozen Four teams compare as such: Miami ‘-‘- nine 20-point scorers, Bemidji State ‘-‘- four 20-point scorers, and Vermont ‘-‘- five 20-point scorers.

The Terriers were 4-7 in one-goal games last year. What a difference a year makes: this season BU has a solid 8-3 record in such contests. This also means half the losses have only been by a goal. I don’t like losing, but if we’re going to lose, at least it’s not so ugly I have to look away most of the third period.

BU has put 301 more shots on target than its opponents. Obviously, when you shoot that many more times, you’re going to score much more than the teams you play. Sure enough, that must be why BU has scored an outrageous 168 goals to its opponents measly 84. Strangely, despite all this, the Terriers are undefeated when their opponents outshoot them. They’re also undefeated when leading after two periods. Remember these things come Thursday night ‘-‘- if BU is winning and has posted less shots than UVM, it’s a very, very good sign.

The only question remaining is: what will happen if there is an overtime game? BU has tied in all four of its overtime games this year. At this stage in the season, if a game is forced to continue past regulation, it’s sudden death until someone wins or a player actually has a sudden death (I can’t remember that happening anytime recently, though). I’m afraid that BU will keep playing overtimes, reminiscent of the 1991 heartbreaking NCAA championship game in which BU lost 8-7 in a triple-overtime thriller to Northern Michigan.

You can see all these statistics and whatever other ones I haven’t included, and you’ll understand this BU team is superb. They’ve been the No. 1 team for most of the season and are heading to D.C. for a reason.

All that this stuff means is that you shouldn’t be missing out on anything that happens Thursday and, potentially, Saturday. If you don’t have a ticket to the games, figure out a way to get one ‘-‘- there are plenty of people selling extras; StubHub.com is loaded with them and there will be scalpers a-plenty in front of the Verizon Center.

Can’t figure out a way to get to the nation’s capital? Chinatown bus it ‘-‘- it’s cheap and goes from city to city, and, even better, it occasionally flips. Spend the money ‘-‘- take a train. Hell, fly: JetBlue is legit and relatively inexpensive, and if you do a little crying at the ticket desk you might even get a discount.

The bottom line is that you need to get there ‘-‘- you need to be a part of this. I don’t care how old you are, or where you live, or even how many games you’ve even been to this season or in your life. BU is playing in the Frozen Four. No one knows when or if this will ever happen again.

You don’t want to look back 10, 20 or, God forbid, 50 years from now and say, ‘I wish I had gone to D.C.’ Screw class, screw responsibility, screw it all: this is Frozen Four hockey.