For those of you who have never been to Walter Brown Arena - it's a small old arena with a very low ceiling which used to be the home of the BU men's team up until the Agganis was built in 2005. I have a love-hate relationship with the place. It's a frigging dump, period. The seats are uncomfortable, the sight lines are iffy.
But on the good side, even a small crowd of 212 makes that place LOUD AS HELL. Also, the place is dripping with history. Whenever I'm there I close my eyes and try to picture what it was like for BC-BU men's games back in the day. So I guess there are ups and downs.
My game breakdown from USCHO:
"Well, that was not good. It's always crappy to lose to BU, whether it be in the men's Beanpot final or in women's lacrosse.
The NCAA prospects officially look to be on the dim side at the moment. BU played really hard tonight, but I just don't think they're that talented-- not talented enough to basically boss an NCAA-tourney bound team around for a majority of the game.
I'll just (steal an idea from ATLEagle) break it down into things I liked and disliked:
Likes:
-The play of Deb Spillane. She was awesome tonight, and her goal in the 3rd period is the early leader for goal of the year.
-The play of most of the defensemen. I thought Tracy Johnson in particular made a number of good plays.
-Stack's 'moves.' She really had her trademark agility and speed back tonight - it was just like last year.
-Molly Schaus. She bailed BC out with 6 or 7 very good saves.
-BC's ability to crank it up and get a goal when trailing.
-Walter Brown. Place is a dump, but it's very very loud.
-BU pep band. I think they put a little too much percussion into everything (especially Don't Stop Believin') but they do a very good job.
-The BU fans in section 8. We had a really good back and forth with those guys and had a good time with it. No bitterness, no nastiness, just a lot of fun. To me, that's what these games are all about.
Dislikes
-The BC power play. It was very poor tonight. 0-for-5 with very few real dangerous chances. There was also way too much indecision with the puck.
-Stack playing the point on the power play. Poor personnel decision, Coach King. She is too small, she doesn't really have a hard slap shot, and I don't think she's a strong enough passer to play the point. Deb Spillane, Erin Blood and Maggie Taverna are all good choices - not Stack. She's best used along the boards, I think -- at least, that's what it seemed to me all through last year.
-More line shuffling (and this included the PP units)
-Absolutely boneheaded too many men on the ice penalty basically gave the game away. It wasn't like they even got messed up changing lines, they went out there and skated for a good 3, 4 seconds with 6 people on the ice. Very frustrating. BC had to start OT in a shell and never got it into BU's zone in OT, all because of that dumb penalty.
-Not giving 60:00. It's easy for me to say from up in the stands, but it seemed to me that whenever BU scored, BC turned it on and dominated play for a few minutes. They went out, flew around, scored, and tested Wilcox a few additional times. Then they would go back to being sloppy. BU brought it for a full 60:00 and played like it was their title game (hard not to do in that place, **** is it loud, even with 212 people); BC needed to match the intensity.
-BC penalty kill collapsed in too much and gave BU way too much room to work with, and way too many passing lanes. BU I think went 2-for-6 on the PP and they did everything BUT score in their last PP in OT.
-BC constantly let one of BU's forwards sneak behind the d-men, pick up a long pass just past the red line, and go in on a breakaway; then two BC defenders would chase her into the corner, leaving another BU player open out front; BU player #1 would slide it across to the open player for a shot on goal. This play happened at least six times tonight and BC was lucky not to get burned by it.
-BC got pushed around tonight physically. BU definitely did as much throwing the body around as was legally possible and set the tone in this one from the very start (I think SOG was 7-2 at some point in the first period)
-The scorekeeper at BU. Tons of phantom shots on goal. It doesn't really matter, but shots on goal were really probably closer to 30-25. BC would have it down in the BU end and 4 shots on goal would appear for BU. BU would make a crappy dump in that Schaus came out of the net to pick up and it would go on the board as a shot. BC would get three shots on Wilcox and they'd go up on the board as one shot (5 minutes later). Shots would disappear from the scoreboard. This happened last year, too. Absolutely mind-boggling.
-The mongoloid sitting in section 4 below us who screamed 'BC sucks' at us when we were applauding the BU starting lineup. Oh, some people
Way more dislikes than likes, unfortunately. Such is life."
Next up: Saturday at NU, an old arena that I really, really like.
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