BU 8, BC 4
 
    Monday night, BU survived an early assault by BC and took advantage of
    key Eagle defensive lapses to win its 16th Beanpot in 39 tries, 8-4.
    The game was a sellout (14,448) at the Boston Garden, as it has been
    since 1979.  Tony Amonte set a Beanpot record with a hat trick in 5:24
    of the second period to help stake BU to a commanding 7-4 lead and
    was named MVP.  Northeastern defeated Harvard, 5-0, in the consolation
    game; Huskie goalie Tom Cole won the Eberly Award as top goaltender in
    the tournament.  Cole stopped 51 of 56 shots against BC last week, and
    his 35 saves against Harvard gave him a .945 save percentage for the
    two games.
 
    Just 54 seconds into the championship game, BC captain David Emma scored
    his 30th goal of the year to send the Eagle fans into a frenzy and give
    BC a 1-0 lead.  But only 1:03 later, BU captain Mark Krys answered back
    with a shot from the top of the left circle that beat Scott LaGrand.  It
    was the senior defenseman's first collegiate goal - a span of 125 games.
 
    Steve Heinze, playing his first game since an injury had him sidelined
    for a couple of weeks, scored a remarkable goal at 6:08 when he beat
    what seemed like the whole BU team on his way to his 19th goal.  I don't
    know how he was able to get the puck in the net with several players
    hanging off of him, but he did.  Yet, only 1:36 later, Petteri Koskimaki
    answered right back as he took a pass in front from Peter Ahola and beat
    LaGrand.  Quite a few BU goals were to come from that mysteriously
    unprotected area in front of Mr LaGrand.  It was 2-2 already, only 7:44
    into the game, and the national cable tv audience must have been
    enjoying it as much as we were in the balcony.  Shots were 14-7 BC, and
    that's a pretty good indicator of how the play went.
 
    There were no other goals scored in the first period, but one incident of
    note: Amonte was brutally sandwiched by Joe Cleary and Ron Pascucci and
    lay on the ice for a while.  This touched off several fights in the stands
    between Terrier and Eagle fans.  Suddenly, Amonte leaped to his feet,
    winked to the tv cameras (so I am told), and skated away.  BC probably
    wishes he had stayed down.
 
    There was no more scoring until Cleary put BC up 3-2 at 9:25 of the second,
    but then it was time for the Amonte show.  The sophomore scored two goals
    in 45 seconds (record is 18) at 12:18 and 13:03, and just like that BU
    was ahead 4-3.  Both goals came off rebounds that were left sitting out in
    front.  David Franzosa tied it for BC 18 seconds later, but BU got three
    goals in 2:17 at the end of the period to blow it wide open.  Amonte got
    his hat trick at 17:42, #18, when he knocked in another McEachern rebound,
    and the Eagle defense continued to fall apart.  Doug Friedman made it
    6-4 at 18:28, and just as Mark Bavis was allowed to get to yet another
    loose puck and push it by LaGrand, I looked up at the clock: 0:01.  The
    onslaught was over and for all intents and purposes, so was the game.  It
    took until 14:43 of the third for the fans to start heading out, when Chris
    McCann stole the puck, walked in and beat LaGrand to make it 8-4.  The BU
    faithful chanted, "It's all over," and "We got the Beanpot", and when it
    quieted down, I heard someone yell, "Next year send the varsity!"
 
    As Doug pointed out, this was definitely the most goals LaGrand has
    allowed, but I don't see much the guy could have done; he stopped most of
    the initial shots, and his defense just didn't make it to the game.  John
    Bradley got off to a rough start in the BU net but ended up making 34 saves
    as BC outshot the Terriers, 38-33.  The GEM line was noticably silent after
    Emma's goal as it finished with a combined 1-2--3, while BU's Red Line of
    Amonte-McEachern-Tkachuk combined for 3-3--6.  It also didn't help that
    with BC on a power play and down 7-4 halfway through the third, McInnis
    was slapped with a misconduct, hurting his team's chances.  Guerin was
    also awarded one at 17:31, putting 2/3 of the GEM line in the box for the
    remainder of the game.  This was just not a top 5 team that showed up to
    play for a Beanpot Championship.  It was only BC's second championship
    game in five years.  Since 1966, BC has won only two Beanpots, in 1976
    and 1983.
 
    CONSOLATION
 
    Harvard sat seven regulars - first liners Vukonich-Donato-Ciavaglia,
    plus Ted Drury, Kevin Sneddon, Craig Miskovich and Michel Breistroff -
    and played third-string goalie Michael Francis along with three players
    who had never seen varsity action before.  So it wasn't really that
    surprising that they were humiliated by Northeastern, 5-0.  Head coach
    Ronn Tomassoni was quoted, "We've had six games in 10 days and I wanted
    to rest some people.  It's not that we didn't want to win, but this game
    didn't really mean anything to us.  We're in a dogfight for fourth place
    and we want to concentrate on that."
 
    Northeastern coach Don McKenney took this opportunity to move offensive
    defenseman Rob Cowie up to first line left wing.  Cowie, Peter Schure,
    and Derek Edgerly all scored in the first period.  Paul Sacco and Brian
    Sullivan scored in the second and third to close it out.  Tom Cole
    finished with 35 saves; he needed 40 to tie the Beanpot record for
    most tourney saves by a goalie (91).  Cowie's goal was his 15th, which
    would have been an NU record for defensemen, but it looks like Cowie
    will have to wait to get the record since he was at left wing.
 
    Harvard lost all four games it played this season to Hockey East teams
    by a combined score of 19-3.  It was the first time the Crimson had
    ever been blanked in the Beanpot, a span of 77 shutout-less games.
 
    Next year, NU meets BU in the first round, while Harvard plays BC.
 
 
    - mike