Sometimes even the most exciting of events become boring by virtue of ritualistic repetition.
Over the last 86 years, the hockey teams of Boston University and Boston College have met on the ice 214 times, including three BC wins earlier this season. Thirty-two of those games have taken place on one of the first two Monday nights in February, the annual occasion when Boston’s big four meet in the Beanpot Tournament.
The Terriers have been to the tournament final 42 times in the tournament’s 51 years. That run includes each of the past nine seasons, as well as 19 of the past 20 and 36 of the past 40. And when they’ve reached the winner’s game, 16 times it’s been the Eagles across the ice.
Ho-hum? Not exactly. What does not become mundane becomes the matter that molds tradition and makes heroes out of habit.
Tonight’s Beanpot championship is one of those instances, as it has been for the past 51 winters. BU and BC faceoff in the FleetCenter at 8 p.m., with the Terriers looking to defend the title they took from the Eagles last February.
Defending its ‘Pot ownership is nothing new for the Icedogs, who have 24 times worn the title of Boston’s best. The Eagles have been the next most successful team, with 12 titles, including the 2001 trophy they earned with a 5-3 finals win over BU.
Last year the Icedogs exacted a measure of revenge, knocking the Eagles out of the tournament in the opening round. This year, though, things have not gone so well for BU, which has showed spurts of the capability to beat BC, only to be swept in the Hockey East regular season series.
No. 6 BC is led by All-America candidate and January’s National Player of the Month, forward Ben Eaves, who racked up 19 points in just eight games and is averaging 1.75 points per game for the season. Eaves, along with linemate Tony Voce, comprise the heart of an Eagle offense averaging more than four goals per game and featuring five players with more points than the Terriers’ top scorer, Frantisek Skladany.
Along with its potent offense, the Eagles also have the stingiest defense in Hockey East, surrendering less than two goals per game. They’ve put it all together recently after a midseason lull, posting back-to-back 5-2 wins over Northeastern University (Beanpot first round) and No. 2 University of Maine.
The Terriers, too, have been playing well recently, winning three of four and allowing only one goal in their last three games. That single score came in last week’s first-round, 2-1, win over Harvard University. BU shutout the University of Massachusetts on Friday in a game many considered to be a between-Beanpot trap game.
But the idea of a trap game seems to be little more than an ugly urban legend circulating through Boston’s city streets. The Terriers have won 13 of their last 14 games in the week between the Beanpot, and are 15-1-1 in the last 17 games.
‘In everyone’s mind, we’re thinking about the Beanpot and so it’s really tough to get up for a game like [Massachusetts] in between the Beanpot games,’ said senior defenseman Mike Bussoli. ‘But we have to do it, and I think we had enough focus to come out with a win. We didn’t have our best game, but we played well enough to win. 2-0, that’s great.’
It was a huge win for BU, which is fighting with Massachusetts and Providence College for the final home playoff spot in the league’s postseason tourney. Providence knocked off the University of New Hampshire last night to pull within a point of BU for fourth place, while Massachusetts lost to its sister school in Lowell and fell to sixth.
‘Coach has been preaching all week that this is the game he wants,’ said BU goalie Sean Fields. ”We can’t think ahead to the Beanpot; UMass is right behind us in points, and this is a four-point game for us. We’ve got to come out prepared and focus on them.”
The Terriers’ preparation for the game belongs to head coach Jack Parker, a veteran of 33 Beanpots as both a coach and a player.
‘All we do is harp on that,’ Parker said of maintaining focus on the mid-tournament games as a way to retain momentum. ‘You can’t be talking about Beanpot. Get out of the ticket business. You’re not involved with tickets. If anybody calls you, you don’t have any tickets. You’re not going to get any tickets. If anybody says, ‘Good luck Monday,’ say, ‘No, we’re playing Friday. That’s a huge game.’
‘I think it’s very easy to look by these games, and it’s real important not to. I think if you assume that because we’re on a roll and we’re playing pretty well, it’s going to happen, we’re going to get stung. I’m surprised at that stat, to tell you the truth, because I think historically a lot of teams have been stuck between Beanpots. Maybe we’ve been doing it a little bit better than other people, but I was real concerned about that this year as I am every year.
‘It’s nice to be on a roll: you’re going into the Beanpot final, you’ve got a big game. You won a big game last week, but you had to get this one. In reality, if you told me, ‘The season’s over, which game would you rather have, this one or Monday’s?’ This one is more important right now. This one is so much more important. We separate ourselves from UMass by four points in the home-ice advantage, and we have two games in hand on them. This is a huge game for us that way, and now we have Providence sneaking up on us.’