With the Boston College-Notre Dame rivalry weekend finally at hand, the men's hockey team looked to start the playing off right when it took the ice against the Fighting Irish on Friday night. The match-up was the first time since the national championship game last April that the two teams met, with BC handily defeating ND, 4-1, to take the crown.
Friday's showdown was a much different story. The Irish out-muscled, out-skated, and overall outplayed the Eagles en route to a 4-1 victory of their own in front of a soldout crowd in the Conte Forum.
The Eagles came out of the gate fired up, giving good pressure and fight against the Irish and their goalie, Jordan Pearce. It was not long, however, before Notre Dame got hold of the puck and began a game plan of its own with Pearce standing tall against everything BC threw at him.
"I thought two really good college hockey teams played tonight," said BC head coach Jerry York after the loss. "Notre Dame impressed me in a number of ways; I thought their penalty killing was outstanding. Their goaltender, I've seen him play a number of times last year but this was clearly the best I've seen him play."
Pearce was clearly the star on the ice for Notre Dame, making 27 saves on 28 shots during the night but, most importantly, always finding a way to squash BC's hopes as soon as they got a chance to score. Three different times during the course of the game there were, so called, "scrums" in front of the Irish net. The Eagles would take a shot, find the rebound, and keep firing it at Pearce until it seemed that all 10 skaters were huddled around the crease, half looking to shove it in the net, the others seeking it to fire it down the ice. All three of these incidents resulted in Pearce standing tall and blocking away every shot before his teammates were able to clear it out of the zone.
"There were maybe a half dozen remarkable saves he made and that was clearly a catalyst for ND and their penalty kill," York said. "We got some good chances … but I thought he played very, very well."
Spring Break
