The #7 BU Terriers mens ice hockey team lost in a classic trap game 5-4 to the College of Holy Cross at Agganis Arena Saturday night. It marked the Terriers first ever loss to an Atlantic Hockey team and has caused alot of backlash from fans. I have read fans on various websites blaming Coach Parker, Kieran Millan, Charlie Coyle to the band. Now let's not go turn into the Red Sox here. Was the game ugly? Of course. I was beyond angry walking out of the rink Saturday night. There is a reason I waited over 24 hours to post something. It is because it is just ticking me off and it is tough to put a positive spin on anything that happened. The Terriers got outworked and simply didn't execute hard enough to win the game in front of a fairly full Agganis Arena due to parents' weekend.
Wade Megan was thrown out of the game in the third for a hit from behind which was a penalty but I can't blame Megan for playing hard. He was skating around hitting guys trying to wake up his team the whole third period. I won't get into how the call was changed based on the injury to the opposing player. It is always scary when a guy gets hurt but don't make it a major penalty because of it or guys will be milking injuries all over the country to get a call.
Now to begin, there is plenty of blame to go around here but it doesn't all fall on Coach Parker. He does need to find a way to motivate better and mentally prepare the team for games against lower ranked opponents such as PC and Holy Cross. We will see first hand if he can do it this week against UMASS who has one win this year, against Bentley. Some of the blame falls on the coaching staff's shoulders but certainly not all of it.
Next, sophomore first round pick Charlie Coyle has been singled out along with other forwards for not producing. Let's take a look at the top two lines this year shall we?(through 4 game splayed)
Alex Chiasson- 4g,3a,+7- 7 points
Charlie Coyle- 0g, 5a +6, 5 points
Matt Nieto- 4g, 1a, +5, 5 points
Chris Connolly- 0g, 3a, +0, 3 points
Sahir Gil, 1g, 4a, +0, 5 points
Corey Trivino 3g, 2a, 5 points +1
These top two lines of forwards are dominating when they are on the ice. The 3rd and 4th lines are struggling but the third line is two freshman with Cason Hohmann and Evan Rodrigues(both who have showed signs of catching up with the college game so far). The defensmen are struggling at times and leaving Kieran Millan out to dry. These problems will get less apparent with hard work and the return of injured players Ryan Ruikka and Yasin Cisse. Cisse can bring another scoring touch to the 3rd or 4th line while Ruikka will create competition among defenseman as one of the four lower defenseman: Escobedo, Nicastro Clendening, or Privaterra will need to sit every game once Ruikka returns and is 100%.
Kieran Millan needs to get a game off this weekend to give Grant "Rollie" Rollheiser a chance to play well and push Millan to raise his level of play as well. Then again, we are only four games into the season. Last year this team began 6-0-4 and rose to be #1 in the country and then fell from there. The positive spin to this year is that problems are being diagnosed earlier in the year with more time for them to be addressed by the coaching staff and veteran leaders on the club. They could go unanswered and BU could miss the tournament for the 3rd year in a row or the questions will be answered and this team will be stronger because of it. So don't jump off that bridge yet and leave the fucking band alone.
As a member of the band, I want to know how absolutely desperate you have to be to begin to blame us for a loss. We're only here to show nothing but support for our athletic teams, and if anyone thinks otherwise, then that's just sad.
ReplyDeletehey we hear you, we don't understand it either
ReplyDeleteyeah i think we all stand together as bloggers on the bs(r)sb in saying that the band is one of the best parts of the agganis atmosphere, is the best band in college hockey and that its a ridiculous thing to start knocking the band especially in the context of saying that it in any way contributes to a poor performance by the team. that just lets the coaches, players and dare i say more fairweather fans off the hook. but hey, that's pretty much the sort of stuff you expect from the anonymous commenters on the BHB.
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