Tonight from Conte Forum:
 
UMass/Amherst    5
Boston College   4
 
 
This means BC's season is over while UMass survives to face Maine in Orono
this Saturday.
 
 
It was a very exciting game to watch with BC scoring first, UMass second, BC
next, then UMass, BC, UMass, BC, UMass... and finally UMass broke the 4-4
tie with under 3 minutes left to go in the game.
 
 
In the humor/superstitious dept...  (with smiley's)
 
Early in the third period, with the game tied up, Mike Machnik almost cost
UMass the game when he commented to us (Adam, myself, and other BU fans) that
"UMass's defense seems to be playing really well now..."
 
From that moment... for the next five minutes UMass had to endure bad defensive
play after bad defensive play.  BC came close on many occassions to taking
another lead and possibly putting the game away.
 
Luckily, much intense woofing on how well BC was playing quickly evened things
off and UMass was able to recover.
 
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
 
 
OTHER NOTES:
 
The crowd was pretty tiny, made to appear even worse by the large size of the
arena.  On the positive side, UMass fans made a descent showing considering
they were following the last place team in the league 2+ hours on a weeknight.
 
In BC's defense, they are on spring break, playing a preliminary round game on
a weeknight, but I could only spot 2 student fans making any noise.
 
To emphasize... We shared our section (upper) with 3 other *BU* fans while
two sections over to our right was owned by ast coaches from NU, BU and Shawn
McDonough (ESPN baseball announcer and hockey-lover).
 
 
 
 
ON THE REALLY NICE SIDE:
 
The UMass celebration after the final horn sounded was as if they had just
won Hockey East.  For a young team with so few wins all year, this was big
and really seems to have made their season.  They're probably going to get
killed by Maine, but I don't think they'll care.  They saluted the UMass
crowd (after BC said their good-bye's) with real glee.  Even after the game,
the euphoria of the UMass players and fans had to make you smile.
 
 
 
Overall, it was a hard-fought game, even if it was not the most skillful game
ever played.  It was fun to watch and it didn't get out of control.
 
 
Bottom line:  I'm glad I went.
 
 
Tony  BU'92'93
Former Ogre
 
 
 
PS - Congrats UMass on your first Hockey East tourney victory.