JM = Jake Moscatel
MR = Matt Ronan
Matt, can you talk about your family connection to BU? MR - Absolutely. Ever since I was born, or since before I can remember we were always a BU hockey family. My cousin played here, graduated in 1991. I was born in 1990 so ever since I can remember it was always BU hockey. My brother Dan was actually looking at Princeton for a while, but when that didn’t work out he did a year in the USHL and came here. It’s been an absolute dream for me. I thought I was going to play Division 3 hockey or something because I didn’t have a great year in juniors (in the EJHL). I was actually thinking about playing in British Columbia where Sahir Gill and Garrett Noonan played. But then right in the beginning of the summer before freshman year, I found out (I could walk-on at BU). It was pretty lucky and kind of a miracle.
Another one for you - we saw somewhere that you received the Edward M. Burt Community Service Award at Belmont Hill’s Prize Day Ceremony in 2009 – what was that about?
MR - Honestly, I think that was because my buddies and me always used to volunteer at this retirement home called Meadowbrook. So senior year I was in charge of that. We would go play cards, and one lady could still play scrabble so we would play that with her. We also did this thing called horse races – where we would stand up and they would throw these huge dice on the ground. Nobody was really sure what was going on but there was a lot of cheering and stuff, they were pretty excited about. One time we went in there and Rene Rancourt was singing, so nobody wanted to come and play games with us. It was really actually pretty funny.
JM - It wasn’t really about playing the games to them, as much as it was that they liked seeing the kids. “Oh, you remind me so much of my second grandson. You’re cute, you’re so cute.”
Jake, what’s the deal with your twitter handle? We can’t figure that one out.
JM - Oh, “Whattapsnake”? My buddies on my “Bummies” summer league team call me snake, obviously because my name rhymes with snake. They would always say “What up snake?” and it just kind of stuck. I guess I could have some different ones like Mosky, that’s what all the boys call me.MR – I forgot about the blood drive too – that helped with the community service award. I think that sealed the deal.
JM – I tried to do the blood drive but I passed out the first time I did it.
MR – The best thing is that if you give blood, you get out of school for like a day or something. But if you volunteer, you get out of school for three days.
JM - I think when I passed out I was out of school for a whole week (laughs).
You guys both went to Belmont Hill, which is an all boys’ school. What was that like?
JM – It definitely keeps you bottled up. You kind of explode when you get to college (laughs). You can really kind of be yourself; you don’t have to worry about going to school with girls and worrying about how you look. There were probably weeks where I didn’t shower (laughs).
MR - Classes were almost more fun. It’s almost like being in the locker room atmosphere but in class. You’ll have your buddies in there on the hockey team or football team.
JM - It’s really small, so you get to know everybody in your school. Not just in your grade but throughout the whole school.
MR - As far as girls go, on game days there would be a ton of girls at the facilities and fields. It wasn’t totally like a monastery.
While at Belmont, you guys both played with Connor Brickley (who’s now at UVM and played for the US WJC team). Can you talk about what that was like?
JM – He was a freshman when I was a senior. I think he led our team in points as a freshman. We had a pretty good team my senior year, when Matt was a junior.
MR - That year was the first year I made Belmont Hill, and same with him. He came in and was just unbelievable.
JM - I was actually a captain on that team so I had a hand in who was going to get picked for the team. There were two freshmen on that team – Connor and Brendan McNally who’s now at Dartmouth – and it was between Connor and Matt Kominsky for last guy on the team. Connor got picked obviously and he ended up being our leading goal scorer. I remember coach came in and yelled at him during one of our first games and called him a punk, which got Connor down. But then he went on an absolute tear.
MR – My senior year, Brick and I led the team in penalty minutes. I had 83, he had like 88 in 30 games. I don’t know what we were doing.
JM – Actually, Connor’s older brother was my roommate at UNE, so I’m pretty good friends with their family. He was one of my best friend at my old school.
Speaking of your old school Jake – why did you decide to transfer and how did you end up on the team?
JM - It’s actually probably the quirkiest thing. I had gotten hurt at UNE and I thought my hockey career was over. And we were pretty bad so I figured I should get myself a good education since I’m not going to be playing hockey anymore. So obviously being on the team now is the weirdest thing.
MR - Last year actually I saw Brickley on a road trip and he was the first one to tell me that Mosky was coming to BU.
JM – (laughs) I knew Rosey (Ben Rosen) through Brendan Brickley in juniors and stuff, so I used to hang out with him. I hung out with a lot of the guys, I got to know a bunch of them through Rosey and Matt. And in the fall I took a class with Matt, (Chris) Connolly and (Max) Nicastro. I was already friends with Max because he’s roommates with Rosen, and I got to know Conno because we would study together and goof off in class. So after everything went down with the team, Rosey told me to try and get a meeting with coach. I talked to Chris and told him that if they needed an extra body I would be willing to help them out. I had skated with them over the summer and once in the fall, so Chris knew I wasn’t a huge bender or anything. I had actually been hounding Coach for a tryout all fall and never got one, so I was really rattled. But once this opportunity came up I told Chris that I didn’t want to step on any toes but that I’d be willing to join the team. After our history final (on the Friday of finals week) I was at the gym and got a call from Chris saying that I needed to set up a meeting with Coach. So instead of calling him or whatever I went straight from the gym and went right to the office all in my workout gear. Coach happened to be there, and he told me that he wanted to set up an interview for that following Monday. He sent me downstairs to see the trainer to verify that I had had a physical. When I came back upstairs to set up the meeting, Coach just said you know what you’re on the team. He sent me to see the equipment manager and to get hooked up. So I’m down in the equipment room all sweaty and I’m getting my locker and gear and stuff. It all happened in two seconds but it was pretty sweet. Still haven’t gotten that tryout.
Of the guys who do have girlfriends, who is the most whipped?
JM – Oh man…
MR – Don’t say me…Ross Gaudet? (laughs).
JM – Yeah definitely Ross. We see his girlfriend out at the bar having a good time and he’s never anywhere to be found.
MR – Yeah, we’re going with Ross.
MR – Just has too much heart, on and off the ice.
Jake, we saw on goterriers.com that your grandfather was the head of BU photo services – any cool stories from that?
JM – John Silber was actually best friends with my grandfather – he did my grandfather’s eulogy. If you’ve ever been in our locker room, there’s a lot of old athletic photos. And my Grandfather used to take a lot of those. Also, my dad graduated from BU in 1980 or 1979.
Matt, we found an old video from your Belmont Hill days that says your nickname was Roni. What’s that about? (video here - fast forward to 4:00 mark)
MR - Yeah I think that was just a play on my last name. I don’t think it really meant anything. Roni, Rones, that kind of thing. Our goalie’s name was Condon and thanks to Jake he used to call us Condi-bear and Roni-bear. But Roni was faster to say on the ice I guess. You guys really did your homework huh?
BSRS – Yeah, we really don’t want to do real work yet.
Do you guys have any good Coach Parker stories?
JM – Just in general, I like when Scoobs jokes around with coaches. He likes to use “Hey coach, did you get dressed in the dark today?” sometimes. And he likes to take stuff that coach says and say it to other guys. Like “Oh are your ears painted on?”
MR – I’m not sure how much more we can even say.
JM – I think it’s funny sometimes when Coach will divide the team into groups by numbers, and at the end he’ll always be missing 14, which is me.
It’s too bad we forgot to ask this while Cisse was still here – but we wanted to get your opinion on that ridiculous crowd down at PC back in October.
MR - I remember there was this old guy chirping us, probably in his 40s or 50s. There was a kid who was probably a student but there was this old guy. It was like, what are you doing? Those guys were just clowns.
BSRS – When we looked over it looked like Cisse wanted to knock those guys out.
MR – Yeah he always looks like that (laughs).
BSRS – Did you see the kid jump on the ice at the end of the game?
MR – Yeah, that was hilarious. I thought that was funny. That old guy was actually saying we were going to lose to Holy Cross and stuff, which is actually pretty funny now looking back.
BSRS – We heard that NESN won’t go back to PC anymore after their students were chanting stuff like “F*** BU” You expect that out of UMass or something but not PC.
MR- The first game there (at Amherst) last year they had a girl rocking only a bra on the jumbotron. It was like, would this ever happen at BU? (with our security).
JM - Some of the players are pretty bad too. I played on a summer league team with some older guys from UNH and they were telling me that they hated going down to Amherst. I guess there used to be some huge mongoloid that would stand in the middle of the ice at warm-ups and just chirp at guys. Wouldn’t do anything else – would just stand there and flick pucks at guys.
JM – (opens fortune cookie) Let’s see what we’ve got for a fortune here…
MR – I got a good one. “A great day lies ahead in the not too distant future” Am I in the lineup this weekend? (laughs) If my lucky number (on the cookie) was 20 I would say I’m definitely in the lineup this weekend.
BSRS - Try adding in bed to the end of any fortune cookie
JM - “The best way to get rid of an enemy is to make a friend” (laughs).
Getting back to what we were talking about before – what’s your favorite barn in Hockey East?
MR - I think Maine probably. Maine is sick. UMass would be sick if they filled more than half the rink. But Maine’s rink is so close and on top of you.
JM - Same with Northeastern (Matthews)
MR - I also like how at Maine and even UNH the older people do the chants too.
JM - At UNH, it’s the whole rink and 80-year-old women are chanting “Sieve, you suck”.
MR - We sit way up in the middle part at Maine and even the people up there are doing it too.
BSRS – A few years ago some kids at Matthews were throwing stuff – not even at the players, but at us.
MR - Yeah, those NU kids were throwing trash on the ice at the end of last year. As far as throwing stuff, at Maine they throw a foam puck out during warm-ups. I think they got Giller last time we were there. Their fans would also walk by and punch me and Gilroy while we were sitting in the stands. We were like what is going on? By the way, I have to give a shout-out to my sensei Kevin Gilroy. I’m his young grasshopper.
We’ve got one from twitter for you now – Are you guys single?
JM - It’s kind of funny cause first semester I wasn’t on the team and I tried talking to this girl and she wouldn’t even give me the time of day. Wouldn’t give me a sniff. Then the other day at the bar she knew I was on the team so she came up to me and acted like she was my best friend all of a sudden.
MR – I actually currently have a girlfriend.
BSRS – Shout out?
MR – I’ll give her first name – Mary - but the rest I’ll keep quiet so no one goes out and tries to kill her or whatever (laughs). Been official for a month or so.
JM- I try to stay single December through February to avoid buying presents. That’s a vet move.
Last one for you guys – you both played in the EJHL, what were your experiences there?
MR- I wasn’t in love with the EJ. The whole atmosphere of it… it was like I was back in peewee. It was pretty dusty. Road trips were pretty good though.
JM - I wish I fought more. You just get kicked out of that game. If you fight again you get kicked out of the next game too. I only had one fight.
BSRS - Don’t you have to wear cages though?
JM – Oh yeah. It’s pretty dusty because you have to remove the cage but you got to do what you got to do.
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