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