Thursday, February 18, 2016

This Week In '06: Beanpot Champions

BU was entering their 12th straight Beanpot final and on Monday March 13th faced off with Boston college looking to win back to back titles.

Peter Herald got BC on the board late in the first with a power play goal. BU responded with two goals in about five minutes in the second fame. First, Boomer Ewing struck at 4:07 and then Jason Lawrence put BU in the lead at 9:52.

Stephen Gionta leveled the game early in the third for the Eagles and it looked like it was going to be another nail-bighting finish to the Beanpot... It took BU less than a minute to retake the lead on the power play.

“After they scored to tie it up, they took that penalty almost right away, and Pete [MacArthur] came up to me,” Terrier goalie John Curry said. “He never does this, but he goes, ‘We’re going to score here.’ And I said, ‘Okay: I’ll take it.’ -From USCHO

MacArthur batted a puck out of mid air at the top of the crease. The goal held up and proved to be the eventual game winner.

“And sure enough. He had a good opportunity right before [the goal], and I thought, ‘Wow, he’s really going for it.’ And then he was able to bury that one. So that was pretty cool: I couldn’t believe he actually pulled it off.”

John Curry had a relatively easy night in the cage. He turned aside 18 shots.

“I thought it was a great college hockey game,” Parker said. “I thought Boston College played extremely well in the first period, and we were back on our heels a little bit. I thought we played kind of tentative in the first period. We really clamped down pretty good in the second and third periods, didn’t give up a lot of grade ‘A’ chances. The second period was one of our best periods of college hockey in a long, long time. And it has to be that good to hold BC to the number of shots that we held them to.”

“Another thing that stood out to me is that you couldn’t possibly overestimate the answer that Peter MacArthur had after they made it 2-2,” Parker said. “That just took the wind right out of their sails. They’ve got momentum and they’re going pretty well, and bang, it took us right back to the top of our game again.

The Beanpot championship brought the win streak to 11 straight games. 

Following the Beanpot, BU faced UNH in a home in home series. 

Friday February 17, 2006 
BU could not have gotten off to a hotter start in this one and it seemed that they were absolutely going to steamroll UNH right out of Agganis. David Van Der Gulik, Jekabs Redlihs and Brad Zancanaro all scored within the games first 6:32. 

UNH answered 32 seconds later. It was 3-1 in less than seven minutes played. The Wildcats chipped away at the lead and by the end of the second, it was 4-3 BU. Zancanaro scored a power play goal sandwiched between two UNH tallies. 

The Wildcats took off in the third. They scored four goals in four different scenarios: 4 on 4, power play, penalty shot and an empty net goal to seal the deal. The win streak came crashing down around BU in a game that they really should have had. 

“We were not thorough out there, then we got less thorough,” said BU coach Jack Parker. “We were not smart, and then we got less smart.”

“You are always worried how the players are going to react in a situation like that,” said Parker about the Beanpot win. “But I thought, since we were playing against UNH, we wouldn’t have that problem. They knew how big a game this is.

“I liked the first six minutes, and I think my team liked it too much. I think the worst thing that could have happened to us was getting up 3-0. They thought it was going to be easy.” - From USCHO

The next night, BU got back on track and won a huge game up at the Whitt. They again jumped out to an early lead. Van Der Gulik got BU on the board 6:28 in and John Laliberte made it 2-0 later in the frame. 

Less than five minutes into the second, Boomer Ewing put BU in an uncomfortable 3-0. UNH again came back. Gregg Collins scored before the second period ended and Brett Hemingway notched a power play goal midway through the third to make it a one goal game. 

Thankfully, the Terriers held on and picked up two points. Curry finished with 25 saves. 

Curent Record: 19-9-2
Current Ranking: 4th, up one slot from 5. 

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