BU Hockey 2010-11?: The Forecast is Suck

Just got on today and realized that I haven't updated the blog here in a while; needless to say, midterms, papers, and other business have made posting more of a once-in-a-while activity for me, especially since hardly anyone even reads this thing. I know for a fact that two of our four "official followers" are frauds: one's my girlfriend just trying to be nice and the other one's my boy from back home who's at Georgetown. He, too, is trying to be nice, meaning I'm the biggest charity case around.

Anyhow, the men's college hockey season came to what most BU fans would consider to be the worst end possible, with Jerry York & Company hoisting the national championship trophy after throttling Miami and Wisconsin both by a combined 11 goals in a three day span.

This is not a time for me to hate. Do I like BC hockey? No. But do I respect them? Yes. That's what truly makes a rivalry a flat-out hate-fest for me- if you don't respect your opponent.

I'll compare this to Kentucky basketball. I've basically been genetically predisposed to hate UK hoops, but for the longest time I couldn't hate them too much because they were led by Tubby Smith, a well-respected man who's a hell of a guy from all I hear. Tubby won them a championship in his first season and would consistently pile up 20 win seasons and SEC titles, but never another Final Four. Never bothered me too much because UK was still among the elite programs in the sport, and as I said, Tubby was a good guy who recruited good kids.

Then after the 2006-2007 season came to a close, the news broke in Lexington that Tubby wasn't a heavily-tanned white man as most of the Wildcat faithful were led to believe, but is in fact an African-American male. Obviously, this wouldn't stand for that fan base, so Tubby was exiled to coach at Minnesota and they brought Billy Gillispie in from Texas A&M.

Again, my respect for the program waned a bit because- let's be serious here- Gillispie's a drunken fool. However, Kentucky sucked under him, so I more than lived with that.

After this epic mistake, Kentucky brought in the biggest scumbag in perhaps the dirtiest of college sports, John Calipari, who I have about as much respect for as Joseph Stalin. Actually, Stalin, despite being an evil bastard, had an awesome 'stache, so he gets the nod over Cal. Thus, I now hate Kentucky basketball more than I ever have, not because they're really good again, but because they're run by a man who's abandoned two Final Fours, a man who clearly has no respect for NCAA rules, and a man who stockpiles goons and punks like DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe on his teams.

Now realizing that this UK basketball analogy's more than run its course, the point is that the hatred that you have for a place inevitably diminishes a bit if you have respect for said opponent. I respect BC hockey, especially Jerry York; in fact, I'll come right out and admit it: I really like Jerry York, he's no horse's ass. Anyone who shows their grandchildren the opening sequence from Alaska-Fairbanks games thinking it will entertain them is someone I can always be a fan of.



Anyhow, what BC's win may do for all of us on campus is make us realize that much more how bad we're going to be next year, having lost Shattenkirk, Colby Cohen, ZC (to graduation, in all fairness) and Nick Bonino.

It's clearly going to be a team centered around Warsofsky playing solid D and making plays, Millan holding it down in net, and continued improvement from the likes of Saponari, Trivino, and all the freshman from last year.

Expectations are going to be low, so brace yourselves, but hopefully this team turns out to be a pleasant surprise and finishes, say, fifth in Hockey East.

Sure doesn't seem like the championship parade was a year ago...