BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

GIFs, highlights, recap from Friday:

http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston...e-unh-wildcats

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

...and Saturday:

http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston...shire-wildcats

That was a chore to watch. I wanted to take a nap.

[wwhyte]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

The Northeastern game was a lot of fun. I only got there for the end of the second and all of the third; I understand the start was less compelling, but what we got in the third period in particular was fine hockey. I thought BC were clearly the better team at puck possession and movement, but in a callback to last year's power play seemed to prefer passing to shooting and didn't generate as many top quality chances as you might expect. Northeastern seemed to be more willing to take a shot on goal and throw bodies at the crease, and there were a number of plays that seemed to go on forever where the puck was somewhere in a scrum in front of the BC net and everything looked very dangerous. The BC forecheck was also less aggressive than usual, in part because they held D-men back to cover any possible breakaway.

The lines were swapped around so last year's first line of Carp-Skarupa-Kent was back on. Kent has developed her own personality as a player now, a little bulldog like Trivigno, chippy and athletic. Carp was shut down effectively, but more than that seemed to be low-energy by her standards; she wasn't putting out the sheer amount of wattage that you usually see. Hopefully just a temporary blip. Skarupa was fantastic, probably player of the game, certainly best player of the game to get zero points. Great on the backcheck, enormously creative getting the puck up the ice, plenty of hard shots on the pads where a linemate in the right place to get a rebound could have been dangerous. In general the linemates weren't there to the usual extent or she would definitely have been on the board.

Second (I suppose) line was Grieves-Anastos-Sullivan. Weirdly, for a player with two goals, Sullivan was almost invisible for a lot of the period, and I say that as a big fan of her hard-working game. Anastos played as smart as ever but looked very tired. Grieves was great as always, an absolute torpedo in a straight line, and her goal to go 2-1 up was well deserved and came in the middle of a five-minute stretch where she was the most explosive player on the ice.

Third line was Capizzano-Trivigno-Newkirk. Capizzano was fantastic in the corners but was beaten in foot races more often than you usually see. Trivigno anchored the line solidly. Newkirk didn't get any points but the more the season goes on the clearer it is that she's an elite talent, not afraid to get physical and with a ton of strength and creativity.

Fourth line got the night off...

Among the defensemen, the most defensive-minded of them stood out: Johnson was a complete star, doing what she usually does at our end of the ice but bringing the puck forward with strength as well. Her goal that turned out to be the GWG was a great capper to an excellent night. Miano was also her usual excellent self, willing to do anything to stop the puck going in. Keller keeps getting better every game; she wins the puck in the corner, she takes it over the blue line, she makes an excellent pass, she does it again.

On the Northeastern side, Coyne was good but was contained well, and Scamurra and Krisova lived up to their billing. I was very impressed by Kasidy Anderson, who was very strong on the puck and well positioned in the neutral zone to take advantage of passes or turnovers. Bugalski was good -- she wasn't called on to make extraordinary saves but was in general in the right place, though on the Youtube highlights it seems like she lost her focus and got tempted way too far out of the net on the first period goal and perhaps overcompensated by staying very tight in in the later part of the game.

Some of the BC choices seemed a little defensive. There was one time where the SUPERLINE was put out against a non-Coyne NU line and the defensemen were Miano and Johnson, our most stay-at-home pairing. There was another time when Johnson was out with Bender, our highest-scoring D, and Johnson was the one up front and Bender was the one behind. To be honest I felt that NU was good but not on the same plane as BC and that we were being perhaps too scared of a Kendall Coyne who had failed to do us any significant damage last season. But I'm not the coach and we did get the W.

On a different note: it was alumni weekend, the band was there, the turnout was good for BC WIH at at least 300 (and I'm sure it will be reported as 600+) and, although it takes a lot of people to make Conte feel full, the atmosphere was much more electric than for most regular season games. The Alumni weekend resulted in a huge turnout of Eagles WIH alumni, including people who'd obviously come out of town to be there, so that was nice, and my D was able to get Molly Schaus to stand by the cardboard cut-out of Molly Schaus in the entrance and thereby prove that she was in fact Molly Schaus.

[ManBehindTheCurtain]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

On a different note: it was alumni weekend, the band was there, the turnout was good for BC WIH at at least 300 (and I'm sure it will be reported as 600+) and, although it takes a lot of people to make Conte feel full, the atmosphere was much more electric than for most regular season games. The Alumni weekend resulted in a huge turnout of Eagles WIH alumni, including people who'd obviously come out of town to be there, so that was nice, and my D was able to get Molly Schaus to stand by the cardboard cut-out of Molly Schaus in the entrance and thereby prove that she was in fact Molly Schaus.

Sounds like a really nice atmosphere for a college hockey game.

The official box score reports attendance as 706.

[wwhyte]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

The official box score reports attendance as 706.

Hah! Of course it would.

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

Whyte post above was really excellent. Read it.

Mine has moving pictures but his was a better synopsis imo

http://www.bcinterruption.com/2015/1...penter-skarupa

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

The official box score reports attendance as 706.

That's gotta be the highest (alleged) non-postseason, non-Beanpot game attendance we've ever had.

[BCeagle]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

I saw the whole game and thought BC played OK but for most of the game, the timing and passing was off.

They played better in the 3rd and pulled it out and added an ENG to make it 4-2 but it was a close game and thought BC struggled.

I agree they kind of overpass a lot and not get pucks on net on the PP. For it to improve they have to move the puck better and faster to break the box. If I was playing defense I would be happy just to stand there in the box and let BC pass it back and forth all day while the penalty clock runs down. They have to make the box move and make the defense come out of the box. It kind of reminds me of last year's mens team, where they keep passing it back and forth and not get any shots on net. They have to skate quickly and make quicker decisions with the puck and force the defense to come out their box and allow someone to get into the slot when the defense vacates their spot in the slot.

For most of the first 2 periods BC was off on many of their passes and it was just not clicking.

Give NU credit for disrupting the BC offense as they gave BC all they could handle as it 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2 for most of the game. The rematch at Matthews will be interesting. The mens team is doing quite badly in comparison and NU is ranked #5.

The 2nd NU goal was stoppable but it hit Burt initially and popped behind her into the net. I'm sure she would like that back as the shot came from her right in the circle area. She had the angle but the shot was a terrific hard shot that hit the goalie, maybe her glove, and had enough momentum to float behind her.

Keller uses her size and reach well @ 5' 11"

I didn't see 300, it looked more like 100 on both sides of the rink not including the band in the corner.

Didn't know who was sitting behind me but obviously these girls were BC biased and were whining and *****ing about the refs too much. I thought the refs were ok and let the girls play.

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

If I was playing defense I would be happy just to stand there in the box and let BC pass it back and forth all day while the penalty clock runs down.

I have to say, BC didn't really do this that much on their first couple power plays (they should know, it was their problem last year). Their last one they really did, but I'm pretty sure it was by design. They were up by 1 with 2:05 left when the penalty was called so if NU was going to stand there and let us dink around at the blue line we were going to take it.

Didn't know who was sitting behind me but obviously these girls were BC biased and were whining and *****ing about the refs too much. I thought the refs were ok and let the girls play.

They did let the girls play but a couple of the penalties called on BC shouldn't have been called if they were going to put away the whistles like they did. It was really a nonissue though.

Nice to see some of the men's fans like yourself coming out to watch a game!

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

Really nice win today

http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston...lege-pc-friars

[Blackbeard]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

Really nice win today

http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston...lege-pc-friars

"Those Friars get knotted up like a rope at a Boy Scout convention"...now, this was funny...read it last night and still laughing this morning because it's so graphic and accurate.

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

Ahaha thank you ... yeah it's pretty much exactly what happened!

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

GIFs and highlights for the NU game

http://www.bcinterruption.com/boston...astern-huskies

[wwhyte]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

I haven't had time to write about the NU game, but it was very different from the standard BC finesse game, an ill-tempered chippy affair with 43 minutes of penalties called and many many more not called. Tori Sullivan got a five-minute major, Katie Burt got a minor for hitting after the whistle after two NU and a BC player human centipeded into her, and Kendall Coyne managed some Sidney-Crosby level whining that could be heard on the upper gallery when she got called late in the third period. Northeastern did very well getting possession and disrupting our possession plays, but the BC defense was well up to the task, not just Burt with her career-high save number but all the D, especially Megan Keller who is justifying the hype more with every passing game, stepping up with some big blocks and backchecks. I've never seen BC outshot by such a wide margin and never seen them win by such a wide margin despite being outshot. Partly this is due to Northeastern's problems in net if Bugalski is out -- Foss is really not a bad goalie but wasn't on her game this weekend. But beyond that it seems like BC is willing to do what it takes to win the ugly games. Hopefully this carries on to the postseason. We've had tough games now against NU twice, BU once, UMD and arguably St Lawrence; I hope we're hardened in a way we weren't last season and can come through on the big games this time.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: BC Women's Hockey, 2015-2016: Embrace The Cupcake Diet

I haven't had time to write about the NU game, but it was very different from the standard BC finesse game, an ill-tempered chippy affair with 43 minutes of penalties called and many many more not called. Tori Sullivan got a five-minute major, Katie Burt got a minor for hitting after the whistle after two NU and a BC player human centipeded into her, and Kendall Coyne managed some Sidney-Crosby level whining that could be heard on the upper gallery when she got called late in the third period. Northeastern did very well getting possession and disrupting our possession plays, but the BC defense was well up to the task, not just Burt with her career-high save number but all the D, especially Megan Keller who is justifying the hype more with every passing game, stepping up with some big blocks and backchecks. I've never seen BC outshot by such a wide margin and never seen them win by such a wide margin despite being outshot. Partly this is due to Northeastern's problems in net if Bugalski is out -- Foss is really not a bad goalie but wasn't on her game this weekend. But beyond that it seems like BC is willing to do what it takes to win the ugly games. Hopefully this carries on to the postseason. We've had tough games now against NU twice, BU once, UMD and arguably St Lawrence; I hope we're hardened in a way we weren't last season and can come through on the big games this time.

Having a non-rooting interest in what happens out east, I appreciate you taking the time to put into a post your thoughts on the game. Well done.