BU On the Tube

Yesterday NESN and The CBS College Sports Network released their TV Coverage of College hockey games. BU will have 13 games in all on TV this season, including 8 on NESN and 4 one CBS Sports and one game on Maine's WABI-tv. The Schedule on the side bar, will show you the games that will be covered. Games in Blue are on NESN, Games in Orange are on CBS Sports, and the one game on WABI will be in Pink. 

Hockey East coaches rank BU 4th

David Warsofsky was picked
 to be an all league defenseman

Earlier today was media day for Hockey East and as usual, the coaches ranked the ten teams in the league. BU was ranked fourth, behind BC, Maine, and UNH respectively.

Complete Rankings 

1. Boston College (9 first place votes, 90 points)
2. Maine (1 first place vote, 80 points)
3. New Hampshire (76 pts) 
4. Boston University (59 pts)
5. Northeastern (54 pts) 
6. Vermont (53 pts)
7. Merrimack (48 pts)
8. Lowell (33 pts)
9. Umass (26 pts)
10. Providence (21)

In Other News 

Alex Chiasson and Corey Trivino will be suspended for the season's first 3 games. This includes Saturday's exhibition game against the University of Toronto and both the Icebreaker Tournament games. We reported that Trivino would be suspended back in May, but we did not know for how long. The Chiasson suspension is new. Parker said it was because he had broken a team rule back in May as well. 

BU's head coach Jack Parker, will miss the exhibition game this weekend. Parker states he has yet to get clearance from doctors, post bypass surgery. He also said that he should be good to go for the Icebreaker festivities in St. Louis, but if not, then definitely for the next weekend against Umass.  

"I feel pretty well," Parker said. "Every day is getting better and better. ... I feel 100 percent, but I haven't gotten the OK from the doctor yet to go back to work."- The Boston Hockey Blog

#14

Thats what the Terriers have been ranked in the USA Today poll, that came out yesterday. Thats basically what I said they would ranked in my season preview. The top five reads like this: Boston College, North Dakota, Miami, Yale.

Miami will likely fall out of that slot by mid october, much like the Terriers did last season. The Red Hawks lost a lot of leadership and some very skilled upperclassmen.

BU opens the Icebreaker in ten days and their first opponent in St Louis is Wisconsin, who fell all they way from #2 last year to 13th, one slot better then the Terriers.

So BU is ranked 14th, not bad for a team that did not even break the top 18 all winter long. The Terriers are coming of a down year (to their standards), but unlike last year, this season BU has something to prove. At the start of last season, BU was ranked 3rd in the nation in this same poll. I think some of the voters got it a bit wrong last fall.

In Other News

• The woman's team is ranked 6th in the land after a good, solid 4-1 exhibition win over Windsor University (Canada). USCHO's Melisssa Wade took a whole bunch of great photos from the game and put then m in a slide show on USCHO.

• Boston University coaching legend Jack Parker continues to recover from heart surgery he had over the summer. If he needs a night off behind the Terrier bench this season, associate coachMike Bavis will handle the duties, accompanied by Pertti Hasanen, who is back on Commonwealth Ave. again after pursuing other business. - The Boston Globe, Kevin Dupont 

• BU will unofficially open it's season Saturday night when they take on the University of Toronto at Agganis Arena.  

Change of Plans

BU released it 2010-11 schedule a while back. Since then, there have bean a few changes. Starting with a game that the Terriers were supposed to play the Sweden U20 team in November. That game was taken off the card due to some travel issues.

Today the Boson Hockey Blog has posted some other changes to the schedule. Also they have posted the times of the Icebreaker tournament and the winter break tournament. 

At the Icebreaker in St. Louis,  BU will face Wisconsin in game one at 6:30. Sunday will play host to the Consolation (1pm) and Championship games (4pm). 

The Shillelagh Tournament being played in Chicago over the winter break will see BU face Brown at 4pm in game one. Not Minnesota State as was once planed. The next day the Championship and Consolation games will be held a 3pm and 6pm respectively. 

The seacond Monday in February will see the Beanpot's final day look a little different. The consolation and championship games have been pushed up a half hour from 5 and 8 to 4:30 and 7:30. 

Other changes are:

Dec. 3 vs. Boston College - 7:30 p.m.

Dec. 4 at Boston College - 8:15 p.m.
Jan. 8 at Vermont - 7:30 p.m.
Jan. 21 vs. Boston College - 7:30 p.m.
Feb. 11 at Massachusetts - 7:30 p.m.
Feb. 25 vs. Vermont - 7:30 p.m.
Feb. 26 vs. Vermont - 6 p.m.

                                 -The Boston Hockey Blog 

All changes have been added/fixed on the schedule on the sidebar 

Woman's team ranked #1 in Hockey East by coaches

Last season the lady Terriers won their first ever Hockey East championship. In the Championship game, played in Providence, BU beat Uconn in overtime. With the win the Terrier advanced to their first ever trip to the NCAA tournament, where the lost to #1 Mercyhurst 4-1.

This season the Terriers will looked to repeat as they are ranked, in the eyes of the coaches, number one in the conference.

Here are the complete rankings

1. Boston University (55 points, 6 first place votes)
2. Boston College (49 points, 2 first place votes) 
3. Providence (42 points)
4. New Hampshire (35 points)
5. Northeastern (34 points)
6. Connecticut (31 points)
7. Vermont (20 points)
8. Maine (14 points) 

In Other News

Penn State made it official that they will field a D-1 hockey team starting in 2013. For their first two season they will play as an independent squad and then in 2015 will join an un known conference.

My 2011 Hockey East Predictions

With The preseason rankings coming out shortly, I thought I would see how my rankings stack up against the coaches. So here they are:

1. Boston College (38 points)
2. Boston University (35 points)
3. University of Maine (34 points)
4. University of New Hampshire (30 points) 
5. Merrimack College (28 points)
6. University of Vermont (26 points)
7. Northeastern University (21 points)
8. Umass Lowell (18 points) 
9. University of Massachusetts (16 points)
10. Providence College (12 points) 

*Top 8 teams make the playoffs 


Tournament predictions 
Quarterfinals, best 2 out of 3
#1 Boston College sweeps #8 Lowell 2-0
#2 Boston University beats #7 Northeastern 2-1
#3 Maine sweeps #6 Vermont 2-0
#5 Merrimack beats #4 New Hampshire 2-1

Semi finals, winner goes on 
#1 Boston College beats # 5 Merrimack 5-3
#2 Boston University beats #3 Maine 2-1(ot)

Championship game
Hard to say this but: Boston College wins 4-3 in overtime over the Terriers

When Penn State Joins, Where Do You Put Them?

Yesterday an article form USCHO and Inside College Hockey stated Penn State was near the announcement of a D1 hockey program. Last month I put up the Nittany Lions would expand to the WCHA or the CCHA.  Now it looks as if they would spend a four year stint in either of the two leagues. Then in 2015 a Big Ten hockey conference would form.  The idea was a key part of a WCHA meeting. The other teams that are in the Big Ten (for every sport but hockey) as of right now are Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. With the addition of Penn State would make a six team conference.

So what do you do with the schools already in the WCHA and the CCHA? One bloger in Alaska proposed to form a super conference of perennial powers, Denver, North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth, Miami (Ohio) Notre Dame, BC, BU and UNH. There is only one problem Mr Alaska: Where are these school's going to come up with the money to cover all the travel costs?

My idea is to keep the Hockey East schools where they are. The Big Ten Conference would work and Denver and many of the western schools would be the pioneers of the new WCHA. Both Alaska schools, Colorado College, North Dakota, Bemidji State, St Cloud, Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota State and Air Force would make up the teams

In the center of the College hockey world a new CCHA would come together. Miami, Notre Dame, Lake State, Bowling Green, Ferris State and current Atlantic Hockey attendee, RIT would make up the new CCHA.

Nothing is set in stone and these are just my thoughts.

A new Conference is not a new thing. Back in 1984 BU BC, Northeastern, UNH, Providence and Lowell formed Hockey East. Five teams (BU, BC, NU, UNH, and Providence) broke away from the ECAC, due to the lack of games the Ivy League schools wanted to play. Looking for an even number of teams, the league looked to one of the better teams in Division II hockey, Lowell, forming Hockey East. The League has now expanded to 10 teams since.

In 2003 the formation of the CHA (now broken up) and the Atlantic Hockey conference,  took place. The idea was to add teams in to the NCAA and to expand the NCAA tournament from 12 teams to 16.

2011 Season Preview

With a little less than a month before the Terriers pack their bags and head to St. Louis to play Wisconsin in the  Ice Breaker Invitational, I thought that it would be good to give you the season preview.

In the middle of last season it was clear that the team was not going to repeat as national champs so I started looked toward this season. On paper the Terriers were really not going to lose that many key parts of the team. There were only three seniors on the squad, Eric Gryba, Luke Popko, and Zach Cohen. Captain, Kevin Shattenkirk was likely going to leave for Colorado even though he was only a junior, and he did.

Days after the season ended fellow junior, Nick Bonino left for the Anaheim Ducks. Following in the foot steps of Shattenkirk, Colby Cohen left for the Aves too. Then the Saponari brothers were dismissed from the team for several reasons.

Before all the offseason departures took place, I was thinking that BU would have a top five or better team this year. Now expectation's have dropped a little but with the third best recruit class in the nation I still see the team in the top ten in most national poles. The national rankings have yet to come out, but when they do I see the Terriers around 15. In Hockey East I think think they finish 2 or 3 and could have a good shot at the tournament championship.

Getting to the NCAA tournament is something that the Terriers were almost a lock to do last season. Everyone knows what happened. This year i think that will make the tournament and end up in the North East Regional in Manchester New Hampshire as maybe a 2 or 3 seed. BC will be the 1seed and the two will duke it out to see who will go to St. Paul for the Frozen Four.

Captains this year were picked by head coach Jack Parker and not the team. This is first time ever that parker pick them. Chris Connolly and Joe Pereira wear the "C" and David Warsofsky will be the assistant captain.

Alex Chiasson will be looked on to lead the young Terrier offense and Goalies Kieran Millan and Grant Rollheiser will likely rotate games for the start of the season.