Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
ED: Well, Dan, one topic for this week is probably unavoidable, so I might as well beat you to the punch and start with it. I’m talking about the fight that happened Friday night between Boston University forward Sacha Boisvert and UMass Lowell forward Connor Eddy.
Both were assessed minors for roughing at 9:10 of the third period. After some words between them in the penalty box, both came out on the ice ready for an NHL-style fight, discarding their helmets and dropping their gloves.
Hockey East officials quickly separated them and sent them off the ice, with Boisvert urging on the BU faithful as he headed up the tunnel.
Each received five-minute majors and game disqualifications, as per the NCAA rulebook. But on Sunday, Hockey East tacked on two more games of supplementary discipline.
Usually news releases about that topic are pretty perfunctory, but Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf said, “What took place on the ice Friday at Agganis Arena was entirely unacceptable and has no place in college hockey.”
Metcalf is right, and the two-game suspensions emphasize that, as well as dissuading future brawls, which I’m told by the league was one of the reasons for the extra time off.
I know not everyone is going to agree with me. And UMass Lowell coach Norm Bazin did have a point that the crowds seem to love it, and was quoted after the game as saying, “I didn’t see anybody leaving their seats.”
Nevertheless, given what we know about head injuries and CTE, I think that sort of fighting needs to be a permanently bygone relic. Am I off base?
DAN: Wait, there was a fight this weekend? I didn’t hear any of this or see anyone mention it on my social media feed at all.
In true Dan Rubin fashion, I’m not going to directly answer the question about fighting because I’m not here to legislate fighting in or out of hockey. I think we’ve done that a good amount over the years, and the ruling, right now, is that fighting has no place in the college game. If you drop the gloves, you’re out of the game and you’re out of the next game, and in this case, you’re also sitting out another weekend.
Let me pose it another way by asking what means more: creating viral moments for social media feeds or creating game atmospheres that fill buildings with the drama and speed of an intense game? I’d be lying if I told you that I skipped watching the fight because I absolutely watched it and scrolled my feeds to see everyone’s reactions. I watched mainstream hockey accounts weigh in on the fight with their own brand of colloquialism, and the novelty of it struck the right chord to spread a viral moment like wildfire. Heck, any time you’ve got BarDown showing off a college hockey highlight, you’re getting eyeballs that just don’t otherwise exist. I’ve watched hockeyfights.com to kill time during a given day, and I definitely got juiced by watching Mathieu Olivier’s tilt with Ryan Reaves.
But is that really what we want from college hockey? It’s a viral moment that broke the Internet because of its novelty, but I can’t see that legalizing fighting would do anything except water down the concept. Also, there’s a trend in hockey to get away from fighting, and Steve Metcalf said that it has no place in his league. The rules are legislating fighting away from hockey because we’re trying, as a sport, to move towards the skills game that creates other viral moments that are a little less dangerous.
My last point about it is that while the rules don’t allow fighting, players have to be smarter about stuff like that. Boston University is No. 17 in the NPI rankings and needs wins. Losing one of its leading scorers for three-plus games damages the team’s offensive output in a way that was self-imposed. I don’t like hammering individual players, but both guys left the box and decided to fight one another. They went into business for themselves. Even losing their mind for a hot second is enough to damage their teams, and if Lowell misses a home game in the Hockey East tournament because of results against UMass this weekend or BU misses the NCAA tournament altogether, it’s a risky move.
What’s ironic is that it’s not the only donnybrook from the weekend. You and I both discussed the fact that Niagara and Mercyhurst had an incident in the first period of Saturday’s game after their Friday game had two penalties only. At the end of the day, it didn’t gain the same type of game-disqualification stuff, but the mess ended with Mercyhurst sweeping the Purple Eagles over the weekend series (by the way, quick shoutout to the Lakers for steaming towards home ice in Atlantic Hockey’s standings with their six-pointer).
I don’t want to overreact, but at the same time, I don’t want to underreact. Convince me here either way?
ED: I agree the NCAA has already decided that fighting of that premeditated, three-ring circus sort of donnybrook doesn’t belong in the game. I’m pretty much OK with protecting the goalie or reacting to a cheap hit on a teammate. That “stick up for your buddy” response usually comes with various levels of penalties and players get to take a seat or an early shower for their efforts. Usually. Anyhow, I’m not advocating just turning the other cheek.
What I am saying is that Hockey East was not out of line in adding the two games. If that fight had happened in the moment instead of after a couple of minutes of coordination, I’d be all for the five-and-DQ and nothing more.
Let’s leave the ring, dojo, or gym and get back to the ice. The players made their statement, and as you pointed out, may very well have hurt their teams.
The biggest hockey statement of the past weekend might have been made by Michigan State. The Spartans went to Madison looking to avenge two losses in East Lansing in November and brought home six Big Ten points — which counted as 1.2 wins a piece in the NPI — plus some healthy bonus points for beating Wisconsin.
Some had been questioning whether MSU really was all they were cracked up to be, which seems crazy for a team that was 15-5-0 coming into the weekend. I suppose when there are expectations that your team is elite, being just “very good” is a disappointment.
On our Weekend Review podcast Monday, and on Wednesday’s upcoming Upon Further Review episode, we talked about whether this is the year that the Big Ten finally wins a national championship. Four of the top seven in the NPI are from that conference, and the regular-season title remains up for grabs. Penn State is just six points behind first-place Michigan with a pair of games in hand, and Michigan State and Wisconsin aren’t far behind.
I wouldn’t count the NCHC out even if only one team makes it to Vegas, and there are four teams with really good chances, I think. Even so, if I had to make a prediction, I wouldn’t be afraid to say it’s time for one of those four from the B1G to take home the trophy.
Are you willing to go out on a limb on this one? Is it a Big Ten natty finally?
DAN: Paula Weston and I alluded to this conversation when we paired for last week’s TMQ column because I made the point that we’d witnessed a very B1G stranglehold on those top three positions in the weekly poll. I’d mentioned specifically that Michigan State’s series against Wisconsin included two teams consistently slotted into one of those spots since Thanksgiving break, largely because I wasn’t sure if there was a time when the three best schools from one conference remained so highly regarded among the voting body.
Major differences separate the entirety of a regular season with the postseason, and the Big Ten is actually the conference that best describes the point because every Frozen Four since 2021 (when UMass won it all in the pandemic year) featured at least one Big Ten program. The tournaments in 2022 and 2023 had two Big Ten teams in the Frozen Four field, and the 2023 edition advanced Minnesota to the national championship game.
That said, it’s been two years since the Big Ten produced a winning record in the NCAA Tournament, and the only two teams that advanced to the Frozen Four were either Minnesota or Michigan until Penn State broke through with last year’s run to St. Louis. An asterisk belongs on 2024 because Michigan’s win over Michigan State produced Big Ten-on-Big Ten crime, but last year’s losses to Cornell and Boston University represented an exceptionally painful tournament that alternatively saw Minnesota drop an overtime loss to UMass. In that instance, Penn State was the last at-large team and benefitted from a hosted regional in Allentown, but I guess that’s splitting even more hairs than it’s worth.
That’s a bit harsh on the Big Ten, but Paula and I later talked about how the perceived dominance by one conference often runs into college hockey’s parity. Having two Atlantic Hockey America guys in this week’s edition is probably the more unique vantage point because we’ve seen the league knock on the Frozen Four door for a number of years. We’ve seen the upsets in the first round, and you’re the unique AHA outlier with the rare first hand experience of RIT’s run to the Frozen Four. I’d argue that Bentley outskated Boston College on that Manchester ice surface in 2025 but ran into a last second goof that cost a trip to the regional final.
At the risk of being complete AHA homers here, what about this year’s top teams — Bentley, RIT, Sacred Heart and Holy Cross, for example — make the league perhaps the most dangerous for a potential run at a Cinderella story?
ED: You’re going to make me pick? That’s a no-win situation for me (as it would be for you).
I agree with you about Bentley last year at the regional semis vs. Boston College. But three of those teams would not really be Cinderella stories.
This year I think the actual Cinderella story — should they make it — would be RIT. The Tigers have had their streaks, including nine wins in a row after an 0-2 start, and some good wins, including Clarkson, two against Colgate, and a shutout of Penn State. I think first-year head coach Matt Thomas would have to admit that the team’s improvement has been better than expected given his arrival as the new bench boss and all that comes with it. But the reason I say they would be the actual Cinderella is that they are not yet where they need (or would like) to be.
The other three teams you mentioned wouldn’t be a surprise as the belle of the ball from Atlantic Hockey. Bentley has picked up where it left off and Andy Jones’ charges can play with any team. Holy Cross has been the league championship game runner-up two of the past three seasons and continues to be a well-oiled machine under Bill Riga. C.J. Marottolo’s Pioneers have been a disappointment in the postseason over the past few seasons despite some great regular campaign success and the Pioneers just nabbed four of six points from Bentley last weekend.
Where any of those teams could fall short is in not having a couple of elite blue chip players on their rosters. Don’t get me wrong; each has some gifted players who could find a spot with just about any team in college hockey. But none has the NHL first-round caliber talent that can completely mesmerize a defense. Each team would need to execute nearly flawlessly to make it to Vegas. But each is also capable of doing that.
A bigger story is in the CCHA, sort of the western counterpart to AHA vs. the Big Three (or Four). That league is in position to maybe put two teams into the NCAA tournament, with St. Thomas and Augustana inside the bubble and a resurgent Michigan Tech and perennial Minnesota State just outside. Who among them could fit the glass slipper?
DAN: This is going to be a tough one because I admittedly don’t watch as much Western-based college hockey as I should. There’s also that pesky mistake from a few years back where I referred to St. Cloud as the Saints because I had St. Lawrence on my brain, and I’m pretty sure my brain just called Lake Superior State by the same name for reasons that aren’t clear.
Also, shoutout to my wife for reminding me that Lake State doesn’t even have the same colors as St. Cloud or St. Lawrence. It’s been a long day, and my 4-year-old daughter threw a toy at me while I was driving.
I suppose I’m giving away the punchline by referencing Lake Superior, but I have some logical reasons behind my selection. I don’t think either St. Thomas or Augustana are surprises at this point, especially with the Tommies gaining some traction behind the success of their FCS-level football program (7-5 with a near-upset over Idaho), their Summit League-leading men’s basketball program, or a hockey program that’s heading for the NCHC with one of the nicest and most glittery new arenas in the country. Augustana likewise is a consistent presence in the poll and a fast case study in how to build a successful team.
Minnesota State is hockey’s answer to Gonzaga, and Michigan Tech has a tournament pedigree that won the CCHA in 2024 before battling BC in the first round of the Providence regional in a game that was closer than the 6-1 final score indicated. In short, none of those teams scream Cinderella to me.
Lake Superior is a more interesting evaluation because I admittedly didn’t watch that team ahead of its trip to Milwaukee for the tournament involving Western Michigan, Boston College and Wisconsin. Coming out of that bracket, even with the two losses, I thought that the Lakers had a much higher ceiling than the numbers indicated, and I liked specifically how they could stop a team with a defensive effort.
Fast forward to present day, and the team that was once 6-11-1 with three wins in 12 conference games is quickly gaining traction. Getting five points from Northern Michigan, even with the dire straits of a one-win season hanging over the Wildcats, was a step in the right direction, and a road split with Bowling Green followed the formula of a team that’s capable of pressuring the upper part of the standings (my theory: win five or six points at home, take three points on the road). Facing St. Thomas and Augustana the next two weekends will either boost or burst that hope’s next level for the second half of the season, but I’m seeing some similarities to the infamous Robert Morris turnaround from the 2013-2014 season — strong goaltending, stingy defense, timely depth scoring, and a leading scorer in Calem Mangone who can revive his scoring column if the rest of the team starts playing well from the back.
Yes, it’s an Atlantic Hockey reference, but it’s often forgotten how the Colonials were 2-12-2 after getting swept in their Three Rivers Classic tournament before they went 11-4-3 in the second half of the season. They hosted a first round series, got the right quarterfinal matchup, and later advanced to the NCAA Tournament by winning the conference championship.
Sorry for being long-winded, but sign me up for Lake Superior, pending results over the next two weeks.