Weekend hockey preview

It is time. The biggest game of the weekend - and the only game between two teams in contention for any sort of major hardware - happens tonight, as the BC hockey team takes on Notre Dame in a national championship rematch at Conte Forum. The atmosphere is going to be electric. I can't wait.

Men's Hockey

BOSTON COLLEGE vs. Notre Dame, Friday, 7 PM

The last time Notre Dame was in town, they drank our milkshake, beating us down 7-1. I would not expect that to happen this year. They went on a magical run to make the national title game last year, but let's not forget they were aided by a matchup with the #1 choke team in America, UNH, in the first round. 

This season's Notre Dame team came into the year a bit overrated at preseason #6, but their 4-3 start has them down to no. 12. They are 0-3 against NCAA tournament teams - a loss to Denver, and two losses to Miami. They did successfully sweep Northern Michigan last week, a team with high preseason expectations - but NMU has disappointed as well, starting the season 2-5-1.

Their offensive problems are indicated by the fact that their leading scorer is a defenseman with three goals on the year (Ian Cole). They have one very impressive freshman, Billy Maday, who has a 3-3--6 line on the season, and they also have one other player who was absent during last year's title run, senior forward Erik Condra (2-4--6). Jordan Pearce has been okay in net with a .902 SV% and a 2.35 GAA.

I honestly expect BC to shred Notre Dame tonight. The Irish just can not deal with BC's speed, even without Gerbe; our speed gave them fits in the title game last year, and we seem to be even faster this year. If BC jumps out to an early lead, it could be a long night for the Irish.

PREDICTION: BC 6, Notre Dame 2

BOSTON COLLEGE @ Maine, Sunday, 2 PM

I wish I could attend this one. Games at Alfond Arena are a treat - they have one of the best home crowds in Hockey East. Unfortunately for the Black Bears faithful, their team is not so good. They are off to a 3-3 start, but their wins are against Niagara (x2) and Alaska.

PREDICTION: BC 4, Maine 0

Cornell @ Princeton, Friday, 7 PM

The first big ECAC matchup of the year, between #9 Princeton and #17 Cornell. It's the first game of the year for the Big Red, so I'd expect them to be a bit sloppy.

Last year, the Tigers went 2-0 against Cornell and I'd expect that trend to continue.

PREDICTION: Princeton 2, Cornell 1

Vermont @ Providence, Friday, 7 PM

The Friars are off to a disastrous start (2-4, 0-4 HE) while Vermont remains #16 in the rankings despite taking a major licking from BU last weekend, 7-2. Vermont is the superior team, but I think/hope that PC gets it together tonight at the Coffin.

PREDICTION: Providence 2, Vermont 1, lots of boredom

BU @ Umass-Lowell, Friday, 7 PM

BU is the hottest team in America right now - even the most ardent BC fan can't deny this. They have scored a touchdown in back to back games, once against Michigan and once against defensively stout Vermont. I don't see UMass-Lowell standing in their way.

PREDICTION: BU 5, Lowell 1

North Dakota @ Colorado College, Friday & Saturday at 9 PM

The Tigers seek to defend their #1 national ranking against the roughed up Sioux, 2-4-0 on the year. ND has won 2 of 3 since their 0-3 start, but their most recent game was a 5-2 loss to equally sad Wisconsin.

PREDICTION: CC Sweep!

New Hampshire @ Minnesota, Friday & Saturday at 8 PM

This series gives me a moral dillemma. I love Minnesota, but Hockey East needs to continue its PWR dominance over the WCHA. I'd like to see the two teams split, and that's probably what will happen. Both are off to a very good start to the season. If this game were in March, I'd call Minnesota the favorite - but the Undisputed Kings of October and November will likely perform very well at Mariucci.

PREDICTION: Split.

Vermont @ UMass-Lowell, Saturday, 7 PM

This will be Lowell's chance to bounce back after facing the red-hot Terriers. 

PREDICTION: Lowell 3, Vermont 1

Bentley @ Northeastern, Saturday, 7 PM

Yeah, Bentley has a D1 team. They are having 'pots and pans night' at Northeastern; I fully expect a NU player to get a hat trick and cause pots and pans to rain down on the Matthews ice from the Doghouse. Duck and cover.

PREDICTION: NU 6, Bentley 0

Notre Dame @ Providence, Saturday, 7 PM.

Aww... this isn't fair.

PREDICTION: Notre Dame 4, Providence 0

WOMEN'S HOCKEY

A light slate this weekend due to the Four Nations Cup in Lake Placid.

Rensselaer @ Harvard, Friday, 7 PM > Expect Harvard to roll in this one, even without several key players.

Princeton @ Cornell, Friday, 7 PM > I predicted Cornell (2-1) to be quite good this season, but their loss to Robert Morris last week leaves me scratching my head. They should bounce back tonight against Princeton (1-3).

Maine @ UConn, Saturday, 1 PM > An important Hockey East tilt for UConn; they need to capitalize on a crummy Maine team to keep pace with the top teams in HE. UConn should win easily.

Ohio State @ St. Cloud State, Saturday, 3 PM > Probably the best game of the weekend; showcases two teams that have may have their eye on that volatile #10 spot in the rankings.

Wayne State @ Vermont, Saturday, 4 PM > As much as I'd love to see Jackie Thode et. al. hold down the fort for Hockey East, Wayne State is a pretty solid team and should run them out of the rink.

Maine @ Northeastern, Sunday, 2 PM > Florence Schelling should get the call in net as NU looks to bounce back from being throttled by BC.

BC @ Dartmouth photos

Katelyn Kurth

Restuccia on the power play

This one almost deflected in.

Stock photo of Thompson Arena since Mike is a sieve and didn't take any wide shots:

Courtesy of dartmouth.edu

Thompson Arena truly is one of the best places I've ever watched a hockey game. The crowd is warm and friendly but extremely supportive of their team. The sightlines are perfect from almost anywhere. And the arena has the sort of old timey charm that most of the Ivy League rinks seem to have.

I highly recommend making this road trip when the men's hockey team travels up to Dartmouth on Nov. 30.

Lots of games

	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday
men's hockey	ND 7		at ME 4
w hockey
football		ND 8
men's bball		Scrmg 10	SFX 1
women's bball				Prem 7
men's soccer	at VT 7
women's soccer	UNC 5
volleyball	FSU 8		UM 12

Field Hockey Knocked Out

BC field hockey's season is likely over as they lost to Wake 4-3 in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament. The game was tied 1-1 at halftime. The two teams combined for five goals in a wild second half. Wake scored with six seconds left to get the win.

Today's BC-ND pep rally was canceled due to inclement weather.

Liz McCartney for CNN Hero of the Year

Boston College alum Liz McCartney is one of ten nominees for this year's CNN Hero of the Year award. Voting is open here until Nov. 20.

McCartney is the co-founder of the St. Bernard Project, a non-profit organization aimed toward getting displaced New Orleans-area residents back into their homes. They have done incredible work so far. Read more about the St. Bernard Project.

Things that are good...

• The men's basketball team is hosting a public intra-squad scrimmage on Saturday morning at 10 AM in the Power Gym. This is not quite as cool as, say, Midnight Madness; nor is it qute as cool as an actual exhibition game against another opponent - but at least it's something. I look forward to getting a glimpse of this year's hoops team and getting some insight as to what the rotation is going to look like. I'm sure student attendance will be almost nonexistent, but it's nice of Coach Skinner to open the doors and let us get an early look at this season's squad.
• The women's basketball team also has an exhibition game coming up - a Monday night matchup with a team called "Premier Players" in Conte Forum. I can't attend... night class. Boo.
• The #10 BC women's soccer team defeated #14 Duke yesterday 1-0 in the quarterfinal round of the 2008 ACC Soccer Tournament in Cary, N.C. The Eagles will now face perennial national powerhouse UNC tomorrow evening at 5 PM. The game will be aired live on ACC Select. The winner advances to the championship game, to be televised Sunday afternoon on (I think) NESN. In their last matchup with the 'Heels, BC battled hard in Chapel Hill before being beaten 3-2 by a UNC goal in the final minutes.
• Tomorrow night's BC-Notre Dame men's hockey game will be the first national title rematch in college hockey since the BC-Wisconsin series two autumns ago at the Kohl Center in Madison. In that series, BC swept the Badgers; the Eagles now have three consecutive wins over Wisconsin since falling to Bucky in the '06 NCAA championship game.
• Tomorrow's game also marks Notre Dame's first visit to Conte Forum since their 7-1 beatdown of BC two seasons ago, and the first Notre Dame football/hockey dual weekend in four years. Here's hoping they keep the semi-tradition alive in South Bend next year - I'd love to be able to see hockey and football on the road.
• An anonymous source tells me that Hockey East may be on the verge of establishing higher standards for arena quality - including quality of facilities, seating capacity, and ice quality. The long and short of that nugget is that such a policy would result in the end of Merrimack in Hockey East. Sad anonymous source mentioned that Quinnipiac is considered a favorite to take Merrimack's place, should they ever get the boot; Quinnipiac has a gorgeous facility in Hamden, Conn., a growing program, and a pretty decent fanbase, considering it's in the middle of nowhere. Merrimack-for-Quinnipiac would be an excellent swap for the league, so let's keep our fingers crossed that this source knows what he's talking about.
• Jags is talking about the chance that Ryan Quigley may kick field goals and take kickoffs this weekend against the Irish, depending on who wins the practice battle. Of course, Quigley's one kickoff on Saturday was disastrous, so let's hope that was the exception and not the rule...
• Our traveling party did not hit a moose yesterday on our trip to Hanover, N.H.
• The women's hockey team does not have another game until next Thursday night, at home against UConn; by then, the Four Nations Cup will be over, and Molly Schaus and Kelli Stack will be back in maroon and gold after a quick stint wearing the red, white and blue. Speaking of which, Molly, Kelli and team USA take on Canada tonight at 7 PM in Lake Placid... go America!

I was wrong, it sucked

I said last week that whatever happened tonight, I would be happy, just to return to the site of BC's triumph over Dartmouth in 2007.

I lied. Tonight sucked. 

We had to change our travel plans a zillion times at the last minute and just barely made it to the game on time; we had to listen to Mike and Grant yap at one another and argue like a 90-year-old married couple all the way there and back; my friend who came with us got his car towed; and he threw a hissy fit (rightfully so, I suppose, as he was given bad parking advice) and made me foot the bill for said tow...

and yeah, BC got beat pretty badly by Dartmouth, 4-0.

I'd really like to see these two teams go at it at full strength in the NCAAs - I think it would be a great, even matchup. Tonight's game was mostly even throughout the first and third periods, although BC seemed incapable of getting out of their own way in the second.

Unfortunately - and I don't mean to beat up on Kingston, as it was her first start and it came against a perennial NCAA team - Dartmouth scored three pretty soft goals that probably should have been stopped.

Now, BC didn't light the lamp, so it doesn't matter who the goalie is - when you don't score, you can't win. But the Eagles were in a pretty big hole quickly, and Darmouth is too good a team to blow very many two-goal leads at home.

Allie Thunstrom and Meghan Fardelmann had great games tonight (Thunstrom had at least 5 outstanding chances and dangled through multiple Dartmouth defenders all night), but beyond that, nobody picked up the slack for Stack's absence. Welch, Zavisza and Restuccia were not entirely on their games tonight and BC just couldn't sustain any offensive pressure; they were totally reliant on individual efforts by #9 and #18.

The defensemen made a number of pretty costly turnovers tonight, and let Dartmouth get three pretty clear breakaway chances (including one that Kingston made a very nice pad save on). Taverna fell down untouched a number of times... actually, come to think of it, a lot of players were falling all over the place on both teams - I wonder if there's something up with the ice? [it's slippery, har har har]

I really do think the game was, generally speaking, more even than the scoreboard would indicate, but I also think it's true that BC probably can't beat Dartmouth without Stack and Schaus.

I'm glad they'll only be missing the one game.

Feeling good

I'm feeling pretty good this morning. My preferred presidential candidate won the election last night [I won't spoil it for you in case you havent checked ;)]. People in France, Korea, Kenya, and Australia were dancing in the streets, waving American flags... what's next, a performance of "For Boston" at Agganis Arena? Oh, already happened...

The US defeated Sweden last night in the women's Four Nations Cup, 4-1. Kelli Stack didn't get on the scoresheet, but reportedly had two great chances and generally made her presence felt. Molly Schaus did not play.

The ACC women's soccer tournament begins this afternoon in N.C.

And, of course, we leave for Dartmouth today at 3 PM.

BUMP: Less than one week.---make that: Less than one day.

Next Wednesday, Nov. 5, is going to be a good day. I'll wake up in the morning, and we'll have a new President-elect - most likely, hopefully, Barack Obama - but even if it's not, it won't be anyone with the last name 'Bush'. I'll slog my way through class. And then when 3:30 comes, we will hit the road, driving up to the BC women's hockey game against Dartmouth.

I don't think I can begin to convey to you the power that that one word - Dartmouth - has to me and Grant and Mike and the others who made the trip up to Thompson Arena on March 10

, 2007, to see the BC women's hockey team upset the Big Green and qualify for the Frozen Four. Just hearing the word Dartmouth, or seeing someone wearing a Dartmouth shirt, can throw me into a dream-like state, where I wander back to that March afternoon.

It was the scene of BC women's hockey's greatest all-time triumph, and the scene of the most fun road trip I've ever been a part of.













It was this game, I think, that made me want to start a blog like this one. I wanted a place to record what I saw and how I felt about things in the moment, so that I could go back in six months, a year, four years, and live through it all over again.

It's impossible to convey how much fun this was without giving at least a little bit of context. First of all, following a relatively unknown team in a relatively unknown sport can be, at its best, far more rewarding than following a bigger team. And throughout our first year of following BC women's hockey, the team developed the identity of a plucky underdog, a team that grinded out seemingly-impossible victories even when they were being outplayed.

Still, when the last weekend of the season came, BC was on the bubble to make NCAAs, and nothing was guaranteed. When the Eagles stunningly lost to Providence in the semifinal round of the Hockey East tournament, hope looked all but lost. But thanks to a) favorable results in conference tournaments, in which all of the favorites won, and b) the vagaries of the pairwise rankings, it became evident by late afternoon on "Selection Sunday" that BC would, in fact, be one of the eight teams playing for a national championship.

The only problem? #8 would, in theory, be paired off with #1 --- Wisconsin. In Wisconsin. That means no go for Grant, Mike and Joe. There was, however, one glimmer of hope. #6 was Harvard and #3 was Dartmouth - two ECAC teams - and the committee has been known to bend around the bracket to avoid intra-conference matchups in the first round. And there was a case for swapping BC with Harvard, as BC edged HU in their only head-to-head matchup of the year. In spite of this, however, it appeared BC was destined to go West - most likely futilely, as Wisconsin was an absolute buzzsaw that year, capable of shredding any opponent.

Then, at around 8 PM, the posting went up on USCHO.com - BC would face #3 Dartmouth at Thompson Arena. This prompted the first celebration of the week; not only did this give BC a better chance to win, it meant we could go to the game! [You have to realize that being a fan is, for the most part, a selfish activity. Fans don't try to share in or be happy for the accomplishments of the team, for the most part; we're happy for - or miserable for - ourselves. Is this logical? Not really. But that's how it is.]

Most observers of the women's game - including myself - predicted that Dartmouth would win the game, fairly handily; they were loaded with 5th-year seniors who had taken a year off in 2006 to play in the Olympics. This was "their year" to go bring the national title eastward. And many other observers felt that BC did not belong in the NCAAs - instead, another western team, such as Ohio State, was more deserving of the honor. The 'disrespect card' may be the most over-used cliche in sports, but it's always effective at making the experience more memorable for fans and players alike.

We rounded up [read: harrassed] as many people as we possibly could find into making the road trip with us to Dartmouth on Saturday, and much to our surprise, we got the biggest traveling party of the year - around eleven students - to make the trip. [Yes, this is a big deal to us, as usual crowds in the 'student section' that year were 3-4.] We made the long, long, long haul in a pair of ramshackle old vans, listening to an endless loop of the Murphys and the BC Marching Band, 'sieve'ing every college or university we passed on the way [especially UNH], and preparing to be loud - very loud - for two hours. At least.

Our vans pulled into Hanover around ninety minutes before game time, and there were already lots of fans in the arena lot wearing green and white; this came as a pretty big shock to us, coming from BC, where it's a 'friends-and-family' crowd, admission is free, and most people don't even know there's a women's hockey team. We had pizza in some crummy college establishment and watched UNC thump BC in the ACC men's basketball tournament. Not the best start to the day.

Once we were settled into our seats - the last few rows in the left corner behind the Dartmouth goalie, I'll never forget it - we resolved to be loud, support the team, and have a blast, no matter what happened during the game. So the fun began, with oh-so-clever "Safety School" and "UMass-Dartmouth" chants, along with anything we could think of to razz their keeper or cheer on BC. Even if Dartmouth clobbers us, we thought, we would at least have a good time.

It took about 3 minutes before the 'let's be carefree and not worry too much about the result' thing wore off. Kelli Stack intercepted a wayward Big Green pass near the red line and broke in 2-on-1 with Meghan Fardelmann. She slipped a perfect pass to Fards, who stuffed it in to shockingly put BC on top. We were beside ourselves with some combination of excitement and disbelief. Game on.

I kept waiting for the Dartmouth avalance, but through the first period and into the second, it never came. I assumed the buckle would happen during a Dartmouth power play; instead, it was another moment of magic. See that first video up above? Watch it. It would be impossible to describe how sick this goal was. Stack and Thunstrom put on a 2-on-1 clinic, and suddenly it's 2-0 Eagles, and even I'm thinking BC could win this game.

So by this point, we're making quite a ruckus, jumping up and down, singing For Boston, sieving, chanting, cheering, and doing the noise-thing during penalty kills [is there a name for this?]. This drew the attention of [cue Jaws music]: little kids.

At first, it was maybe four or five of them, all girls, around 11 years old, although the ringleader looked to be around 14 and was very unfortunate looking. They began trying to shout us down, yelling over our BC chants. I thought it was awesome and encouraged them to cheer.

But for some reason, the BC corner became a magnet for kids. I am not in any way, shape, or form exaggerating when I say we ended up being surrounded by a ring of at least 40 kids. They were everywhere, and they apparently suffered from a woeful lack of parenting. Swearing, hitting, stealing things; I felt like I was at UConn, not Dartmouth. The chants came from our corner: "past your bedtime," "Eagle Daycare," "Where's your parents?" [The answer: two sections away looking amused, that's where; I'll never understand the mentality of parents who think sporting events are places where their kids should be allowed to run around unsupervised. They do realize there are people trying to watch the game, right?]

The strangest thing was the amount of trash-talk coming from these kids, ranging from age 7-14; they clearly followed the team closely [what? a team with fans? this is possible?] and extolled the virtues of their various Olympians.

In a two minute span halfway through the third period, said Olympians finally roared to life, scoring a pair of goals to tie the game. It's over now, I figured; We had our chance, but Dartmouth finally wore us out. Good effort.

I wasn't all that bothered by the probability of the season ending, but having insults and popcorn and juiceboxes (really) thrown at us by bratty little kids with crappy obnoxious Ivy League parents made things a bit unpleasant. Still, every few minutes, we looked around, and thought: this is freaking hilarious. As annoying as the kids were, it was a lot of fun... well, except for the time one of them spit on me. But other than that, I couldn't really complain.

First overtime was disaster after disaster after disaster waiting to happen. Dartmouth outshot BC by something like a 14-2 margin. Essentially, they carried the play the way people thought they might for the entire game. They even got a 5-on-3 power play, but coach T*m M***h [I don't remember any such person] wisely called timeout to rest up his best penalty killers, and BC survived.

Double overtime was a lot more even, but Dartmouth still had the slight edge. By this point we were all pretty tired and our voices hoarse, and we knew that even if BC lost, this was a game and an effort to be proud of. Then out of the corner of my eye, BC bounced it off the boards and into the zone, got a shot on goal, and Meghan Fardelmann was there, and.... the red light went on, but I couldn't really see what happened, because my friend Trevor - who I had to con into going because he said he wasn't interested - nearly crushed my esophagus with a hug; and two of my other friends piled on me, and the wild celebration was on. To a man, each person on the trip said that they wanted to go to Lake Placid to see the Frozen Four, even though only six of them had even followed the women's hockey team previously.

Grant finally busted out his trumpet and played For Boston, although he had been told it would be against arena policy to do so during the game [what were they going to do now, kick us out?]. We cheered, we hugged, we chanted "FROZEN FOUR" and "LAKE PLACID" and stood around in general disbelief for a while.

And the kids? A few of them tried jumping around and cheering with us for a while - welcome to the BC wagon, kids :). The rest scattered by the time I even looked up, as their parents bolted toward the exits in disbelief.

We stayed around for a while to hug the BC parents and ask one another about a zillion times "can you believe this?" "how great was that game?" "how sick was Allie's goal?"

I realized then how proud I was of every single member of the team. Yeah, being a fan is a selfish thing like I said earlier, and the initial happiness was pretty much all about the self - ohmygod I'm a part of this experience, my team just won, your team sucks, rah rah rah. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how happy I was for so many individual players - Molly Schaus, whose heroics essentially kept BC in NCAA contention all year - without her 76 saves against Harvard, BC probably wouldn't have even been in the tournament; Fards, of course, who scored the goal, and also set the standard for hard-nosed two way play; Allie Thunstrom and Kelli Stack, BC's freshman dynamos, who bursted onto the scene just as we started paying attention; Lauren Wiedmeier, the diminuitive, hard-working 'checking line' forward who is about as nice a person as you could ever imagine meeting in your entire life; the list goes on and on, really, and I reflected on that as I sat in the corner at Thompson, not yet wanting to leave the rink.

The ride back was euphoric. It was, needless to say, the quickest 2.5 hour drive ever. We bowed down to the "Entering: Natick" sign, as Natick's Molly Schaus joined Natick's Doug Flutie on our list of favorite BC athletes.

One small hiccup: We were pulled over about 15 minutes south of the arena due to Grant's broken headlight. It was pretty comical: "Where are you guys headed?" "Massachusetts." "What are you doing here? "Watching women's hockey."

As it turns out, the cop's kid was a high school senior and badly wanted to attend BC. He even asked us for admissions tips.

In a way, I've never really come down from the high of that game. BC's loss to Minnesota-Duluth in the Frozen Four rolled off my back pretty quickly; I was just happy to be in Placid, happy to have the Dartmouth experience in my back pocket.

When the Eagles played Dartmouth last year at home, I made a sign: March 10, 2007 - Thanks for the Memories. I didn't even mean it in a mocking "haha-you-lost-to-us" way, I was actually sincerely thankful to see the Big Green, and to be reminded of that game.

Traveling up to Dartmouth next week is going to be a thrill, regardless of the outcome. BC could lose 15-0, there could be no annoying little kids, there may only be 3 or 4 of us; but walking into Thompson Arena and reliving that day and that trip and that goal will be worth the 5 hours of total driving. No matter how many times I go to Thompson Arena in my life, in my mind, I will always be standing in the left corner behind the Dartmouth goal, surrounded by 40 little kids, looking on in stunned and proud disbelief as Meghan Fardelmann knocks home a rebound goal to send BC to Lake Placid.

Next Wednesday can't come soon enough.

Election Day

This is the time when I'm probably supposed to make some sort of happy non-partisan post about how we should all make sure we exercise our right to vote, regardless of who we vote for. 

But screw that. In all honesty, if you're a Republican, it would be fine by me if you just stay home. 

Go catch a movie, take your family out to dinner, or check out what's good on TV tonight. There's an interesting hockey game going on in Cambridge between Harvard and RPI... check it out! Tickets are only $8! Your vote isn't going to matter anyway, so why bother? :)

I kid (kind of). Obviously, whoever you are, you should get out there and vote. Your vote will matter, even in Massachusetts, because we face three very important ballot questions.

I have honestly been on the fence about all three, because the proponents and opponents of each have all made very convincing arguments and I can understand the logic behind voting either way on all three questions. I may even change my mind between now and the time I cast my vote.

For now, however, I'm pretty confident with my three choices: No, Yes, Yes. I think that when all is said and done, the winners will be No, Yes, No.

What do you think?

Poll out... and more

-BC checks in at #2 in this week's men's hockey poll, just behind Colorado College. BU, Minnesota and UNH round out the top 5. Northeastern chimes in at #10, giving Hockey East four teams in the top ten.

-In the women's poll, BC is #4, trailing Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Harvard. UNH is at #6, BU is #7, and Northeastern is tied for 10th.  Full polls.

-The men's hockey team's 5-1 start to the season is BC's most successful start since 2002-03, if you can believe that.

-Kelli Stack is second in the country in scoring with 18 points - and an astonishing, D-1 leading 2.25 points per game. She is likely to be named Hockey East Player of the Month for October.

-Stack will join BC teammate Molly Schaus on the US national team competing at this week's Four Nations Cup in Lake Placid, N.Y. The US, Sweden, Finland, and Canada will battle it out for the hardware. The US's first game is tomorrow afternoon at 4 PM against Sweden.

-The ACC women's soccer tournament kicks off on Wednesday. BC plays in the second game of the day, a 2:30 PM matchup with Duke.  BC's one matchup with Duke this year was not very telling - a 0-0 draw on October 25 in Durham.

College Hockey fan polls

The real polls should come out in the next few hours. Here's my take. After this weekend's big CC-DU series, in which the two teams tied on Friday, and CC edged DU 3-2 yesterday (but were outshot 40-22), it looks like CC has the slight edge as the #1 team in America - but not by much.

Men

1. Colorado College

2. Boston College

3. Boston University

4. Denver University

5. Minnesota

6. Princeton

7. Minnesota State

8. New Hampshire

9. Michigan

10. Northeastern

11. Notre Dame

12. Michigan State

13. UMass-Lowell

14. Air Force

15. Miami

Women

1. Wisconsin

2. Minnesota

3. Harvard

4. Boston College

5. New Hampshire

6. Minnesota-Duluth

7. Dartmouth

8. Boston University

9. St. Lawrence

10. North Dakota

I know it's been a cruddy couple of weeks, but whaddya say we beat the Irish this week, eh? On the ice and on the gridiron. Make it happen.