So unless you live under rock, you know that the NCAA Frozen Four was this past weekend at the Garden. All three games were top-notch, and in the end, the Providence Friars pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season, defeating my beloved Boston University Terriers 4-3 in the Championship game.
However, I want to make it clear that this blog is not focusing on that game. I don’t want to. I really don’t. I honestly don’t want to hear the name Matt O’Connor for a few more weeks.
Instead, we might as well focus on how much of a turnaround this season was after last year’s debacle. Last year the Terriers won ten games. TEN. This year we had ten wins before December rolled around.
We catapulted from ninth in the Hockey East standings to first. We destroyed the Hockey East tournament, winning each game by like 32 goals. We also won the Beanpot for the first time since 2009, finally knocking off BC.
We also had arguably one of the best college hockey players ever, my good friend Jack. This kid from Chelmsford, Ma. routinely made defenders look stupid, as he totaled 71 points for the year, leading the nation. He won the Hobey Baker award no contest and made the First Team East All-American squad along with Captain Grzelcyk. He had one of the best freshman seasons in college and I can’t wait to see him wearing a Bruins jersey. Don’t cry because it’s over, Jack, smile because it happened.
My good pal Jack wasn’t even the only really great player. The scoring trio of Eichel, Rodrigues and O’Regan was as lethal as a scoring trio can be. Grzelcyk dominated on defense with help from Hickey, Fortunato, and MacLeod. Oksanen and Hohmann also were dangerous when they had the puck. This team was an absolute joy to watch, and will continue to be so next year. We will miss Hohmann, Rodrigues, Carrabino, and Eichel, but we’ll absolutely be right back in the mix next year. If you disagree, you’re either stupid or a BC fan (not that there’s much of a difference anyway).
Should we have won the National Championship? Yes. We were in position to. Even if the game went into overtime, we had Jack Eichel and the other team did not. But sometimes, the Sports Gods have other things in mind, and the game takes an unexpected turn. Whatever. The Terriers still had an incredible turnaround from last year, as BU won 18 games more than last season. Helluva year.
To quote BU coach David Quinn at the postgame interview on Saturday, “We’ll be back.”
The Beantown Buzz 