Whippersnappers
By: Connor Lenahan
“I think you’re becoming a hockey fan” is what my brother Chase said to me tonight. I did not disagree. I was texting him from the inside of Agganis Arena where tonight the BU Men’s Ice Hockey team defeated their exhibition opponents. No, this was no scrub team. No random small school cupcake. This was something much larger.
We beat the United States Under-18 National Team. We, Boston University, took on and defeated the best players in the country that do not comply with the age requirement for voting. This is no messing around awesome. It also was a no messing around game. Things got fairly violent. For those that are unaware (Read: Me until my third collegiate game), there are no fights in college hockey. They got pretty close tonight. Things were heated. It was awesome.
BU ended up winning the game 6-4 over the whippersnappers. It would be a blatant lie for me to claim I didn’t love every second of this despite the fact that these opponents cannot but cigarettes while half our team can grow full, majestic, magical beards. That’s semantics. What’s real is that W. What’s real is that BU has now won its first three games this season by a combined score of 26-6. Note that it took a mega team of prodigious talent to get four of those goals. UMass managed one, as did St. Thomas.
Two weeks ago I posted about how we may be in for a “Slap Puck Dynasty” here in Boston. Tonight did nothing but help back that claim. Not only is this team clearly talented to someone that has no idea what he’s talking about like me, but there are some truly unbelievable things happening with the team that make it an extreme amount of fun. Jack Eichel moves faster than every other player by a clear margin. He’s a blur. He also sends shots to the back of the net in the time it takes to blink. He was the captain of the team we defeated tonight in 2013 for good reason. He proceeded to torch his former teammates for two goals and an assist. Just look at his even more impressive game at UMass a week ago.
I fully admit to learning hockey on the fly as I attend the games and announce some, but even I can see the clear talent that this BU team has. On top of that they are fun. I barely know what “icing” is and I’m screaming my head off on every Eichel breakaway and every Ahti Oksanen scoring chance. That is indicative that there is something really fun going on in Agganis this reason.
So, yeah, my brother was right – I am becoming a hockey fan.