To start the highly-anticipated tournament, the Eagles routed the Northeastern Huskies in an 8-2 win on Monday, February 3rd. Beginning with Teddy Stiga’s first goal 46 seconds in, 16 Eagles secured a point in the semifinal blowout. The game stands as BC’s most impressive win of the season, with both offense and defense showing little to no faults the entire duration. Six Eagles (Eamon Powell, Teddy Stiga, Lukas Gustafsson, Ryan Leonard, James Hagens, and  Aram Minnetian) recorded at least one goal and one assist. Including three defensemen— Powell, Gustafsson, and Minnetian—in the scoring efforts shows just how dominant the Eagles were in front of the crowd at TD Garden. Overall, the semifinals could not have gone better for the then-ranked No. 1 team in the country.

After seemingly silencing any doubt about their standing, the Eagles hoped to carry that momentum into the championship game on Monday, the 10th. This, however, was not the case. With an intermission between rounds to play the University of New Hampshire (4-2 win), BC had no reason to collapse as they did in the game against BU. The game started well, with BC going up 1-0 in the first period. Regardless, once the second period began in front of the 18,258-person crowd, it was evident that the Eagles were failing to keep up with the Terriers on either side of the puck. BU scored twice in under two minutes to put the Terriers ahead 2-1, and from there, the game appeared to slip out of BC’s hands. The rest of the second period consisted of misses, giveaways, and penalties, but the score difference did not seem entirely unsalvageable. 

Entering the third period, the BC student section expected some sort of comeback from the Eagles. It felt unnatural to see this version of the team just a week after the impressive semifinal win. Unfortunately, BU put up another goal midway through the period, resulting in Coach Greg Brown pulling sophomore goalie Jacob Fowler. The last-ditch effort was rendered meaningless as BU responded with an empty netter to squander any possibility of an Eagle comeback. For such a high-achieving team, it was undoubtedly a disappointing way to conclude the 72nd Beanpot. 

Looking forward, there’s even more pressure to perform well before the Hockey East tournament, set for mid-March. BC currently still holds the top spot in Hockey East but fell to No. 2 in the national rankings after losing back-to-back games against  BU and UMass Amherst. Fans are hoping for a Beanpot title next year. Still, they are understandably disheartened, especially with the assumed departure of top sophomore scorers Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perrault likely leaving for the NHL after this season. However, only time will tell how the Eagles will perform when they next face off in this historic tournament.