This game was Prime's College Hockey Game of the Week, and since I
saw it, I will make a few comments.
 
First, this game was pretty exciting (at least, about as exciting as
a game can get on TV). It didn't feature fantastic hockey, nor
terrible hockey, but it DID feature what I thought were two pretty
evenly matched teams. I realize the overall records do not support
this, but certainly the weekend's outcomes do.
 
First, both of these teams are pale shadows of the past.
 
Mass Lowell lost more than outstanding goalie Dwayne Roloson from
last year's terrific season. Much of the team play seems to be gone.
Roloson was quite a leader, I understand, and that leadership was
definitely missing, as Mass Lowell skated through this game, but
didn't seem to be clicking. Bullock can only do so much as an
individual in a team sport.
 
Boston College, on the other hand, has lost a lot more for a longer
period of time. They haven't been the same since hockey legend and
coaching great Len Ceglarski left a couple of seasons ago. Maybe
Jerry York will turn that around, but he hasn't done so yet. Add the
loss of Ceglarski to the problems we have been hearing about (e.g.
the whole scholarship debacle), and the team is a few notches down
from its glory years.
 
But that didn't make the game any less exciting. Both teams played
hard, and that made it a good game. The outcome of the game was still
in doubt until late in the third, not because I didn't think either
team would score, as in last week's WMU-LSSU matchup, but I kept
expecting BC to tie the game up. I almost wish I had, just so I could
see my first shootout. :-) The announcers seemed awfully eager about
the possibility, and told about the shootout process in some detail.
 
I had never heard of the rink-switching in the third period before,
and it was interesting that it came back to haunt Crowder. There has
been plenty of talk about the various Hockey East teams to employ
this strategy, but do the other conferences have examples? Which
teams? Which rinks?
 
Mass Lowell's power play looked pretty decent, but BC's looked pretty
pathetic, or so I thought. The announcers disagreed with me. Perhaps
it was Mass Lowell's penalty killing, which also looked better. The
lack of specialty team strength could be a major reason for BC's lack
of success so far this year.
 
Both goalies looked passable, with the nod going toward Taylor, who
looked a little bit better than Fankhouser, who Bob (Norton?) kept
referring to as Frankhouser. Very amusing.
 
All in all, a pretty good game. I look forward to watching the BU-BC
matchup in January!
 
                                                Lee-nerd
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"Violence is the last resort of the incompetent." --Isaac Asimov