Photo by: Meg Kelly
Conte Forum History On Tap As No. 14 Western Michigan Enters Town
October 26, 2024 | Men's Hockey, #ForBoston Files
In a program teeming with history, it's the rare case of a first-ever matchup for the No. 2 Eagles.
Saturday night's matchup between No. 2 Boston College and No. 14 Western Michigan is one of those early season games that's only possible within the confines of a college hockey season. It won't feel as important as a February standings battle against Northeastern or Boston University, but the October matchup against the third-best or fourth-best team in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference carries trappings towards the later-season doors holding back the mathematical algorithm that's linked to the national tournament hunt. It's not for a trophy, but any head-to-head matchup between Hockey East and the dueling and powerful western hockey leagues is worth noting for its foothold towards unbalancing the Pairwise Rankings bell curve.
We won't know its importance until the season nears its completion, but fans of both teams are easily taking stock of its lasting impact. Staring strictly at face value, two nationally-ranked teams battling one another is a critical litmus test brought under a hotter microscope by its rarity. A one game series, BC and Western enter Conte Forum on Saturday with the understanding of a possible postseason atmosphere, and how they perform under the bright spotlight determines much of how hockey looks at both teams as they both draw nearer to conference play.
Western Michigan doesn't carry the same history as either of its Midwest comparisons. The Broncos lack the state-based history of Michigan or Michigan State and haven't advanced to a Frozen Four like the Upper Peninsula schools or Ferris State, and they similarly don't carry national banners like their NCHC brethren at North Dakota or Denver. Their first 25 years in college hockey produced all of three qualifications to a bracket featuring reduced participation compared to the more-swollen, 16-team affair of the modern day, and they didn't accomplish more than two conference championships before the old WCHA and CCHA leagues realigned and collapsed under the NCHC's formation.
Yet what Western brings to the table is an undeniable piece of the modern college hockey fabric. Its consecutive NCAA Tournament bids over the past three seasons outpaced several major national powerhouse brands at North Dakota and Wisconsin, and even traditional eastern powers like Boston College and Boston University failed to capture the consistency in Kalamazoo. Former head coach Andy Murray had been to the NHL playoffs with both Los Angeles and St. Louis before handing building the Broncos into a top-tier CCHA program, and he was widely credited with keeping Western at a level commensurate with the expectations required to achieve the NCHC invitation before Pat Ferschwiler, a Detroit Red Wings assistant coach, returned to his alma mater as an associate head coach and, finally, head coach.
Western ultimately became one of college hockey's more successful upstart programs, but the Broncos only toured east for limited engagements ahead of Saturday's game at Conte Forum. The 2023-2024 team hosted St. Lawrence but didn't travel further east than Bowling Green for a non-conference game, and no Western Michigan roster has played east of Ohio since the 2021-2022 team visited Colgate for a two-game sweep. The team hasn't played in New England since its 5-4 loss to Air Force in the 2017 NCAA East Regional Semifinal in Providence and haven't competed in a true road game in New England since a 2002 trip to Maine.
The Broncos have never played Boston College, which itself is a decided contrast for the Eagles and their reputational penchant for crossing the invisible divide between the eastern and western college hockey spheres. This is one of the last programs that have never played BC outside of the new teams like Lindenwood, and it's the last power conference program from either the Big Ten or NCHC to draw a first matchup against the preeminent eastern college hockey powerhouse. It's also the first team in five years to play its first-ever game against the Eagles, who last achieved the feat when Bentley visited Conte Forum in 2019.
Owing to BC's history, it's a unique cross-section that pairs nicely with the previous matchups against Michigan State and American International. That the Spartans offered a Frozen Four-caliber program for two games in East Lansing at the start of the season was a stroke of coincidental luck considering either team's more recent history outside the top-5, and AIC offered an odd glimpse against an older team with a history of knocking bigger programs out of the national tournament. The given history against the Yellow Jackets predated anyone on the ice and stretched back to five games from college hockey's earliest days, which is why Western looks so different on BC's home schedule in Chestnut Hill.
None of that, of course, links into the hockey component, and it's worth noting that beyond the historical context of a new team, Western enters Saturday with a fast-paced offense and stingy defense. Its 15-goal outburst over the first three games specifically targeted breakouts against Ferris State and Bowling Green for pull-away wins, but each game featured stingy first periods before the Broncos ultimately dusted past opponents in either the second or third frame.
That contrasts differently with BC, which ran away from Michigan State and AIC in its two victories. The two shutout wins were byproducts of a full-sheet brand of hockey that featured varied goal scoring and stingy defense, and in the last appearance against the Yellow Jackets, Jacob Fowler didn't require more than 20 stops to post a 5-0 shutout that featured five different goal scorers.
"AIC kept us on our toes, especially in the first period," said head coach Greg Brown. "They did a great job of winning faceoffs and winning puck battles. They were heavy, especially early on, and they got a lot of pucks in our zone. We did a great job of getting pucks out, and I thought our faceoffs got better as the game went on. I thought we got better each period."
Eight players now have at least one goal for the BC roster, and a dozen different skaters recorded one assist during the 2-1 start to the season. Heavy shot advantages, particularly early on, have built a situation where the Eagles haven't scored in the third period but hold plus-3 advantages in both the first and second individual periods, with a 7-3 differential caressing the second.
"[Fowler's] consistency is really great for a young player," noted Brown. "He showed us that last year, and he doesn't really have off nights. His ability to play at a high level day-in and day-out requires him to take a lot of shots in practice, and he keeps his compete level high. By working so hard in practice, he's able to sustain that consistency in games."
BC and Western Michigan drop the puck at 7 p.m. tonight from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Broadcast for the game is available through the ESPN-Plus streaming platform available through ESPN's family of Internet and mobile device apps.
We won't know its importance until the season nears its completion, but fans of both teams are easily taking stock of its lasting impact. Staring strictly at face value, two nationally-ranked teams battling one another is a critical litmus test brought under a hotter microscope by its rarity. A one game series, BC and Western enter Conte Forum on Saturday with the understanding of a possible postseason atmosphere, and how they perform under the bright spotlight determines much of how hockey looks at both teams as they both draw nearer to conference play.
Western Michigan doesn't carry the same history as either of its Midwest comparisons. The Broncos lack the state-based history of Michigan or Michigan State and haven't advanced to a Frozen Four like the Upper Peninsula schools or Ferris State, and they similarly don't carry national banners like their NCHC brethren at North Dakota or Denver. Their first 25 years in college hockey produced all of three qualifications to a bracket featuring reduced participation compared to the more-swollen, 16-team affair of the modern day, and they didn't accomplish more than two conference championships before the old WCHA and CCHA leagues realigned and collapsed under the NCHC's formation.
Yet what Western brings to the table is an undeniable piece of the modern college hockey fabric. Its consecutive NCAA Tournament bids over the past three seasons outpaced several major national powerhouse brands at North Dakota and Wisconsin, and even traditional eastern powers like Boston College and Boston University failed to capture the consistency in Kalamazoo. Former head coach Andy Murray had been to the NHL playoffs with both Los Angeles and St. Louis before handing building the Broncos into a top-tier CCHA program, and he was widely credited with keeping Western at a level commensurate with the expectations required to achieve the NCHC invitation before Pat Ferschwiler, a Detroit Red Wings assistant coach, returned to his alma mater as an associate head coach and, finally, head coach.
Western ultimately became one of college hockey's more successful upstart programs, but the Broncos only toured east for limited engagements ahead of Saturday's game at Conte Forum. The 2023-2024 team hosted St. Lawrence but didn't travel further east than Bowling Green for a non-conference game, and no Western Michigan roster has played east of Ohio since the 2021-2022 team visited Colgate for a two-game sweep. The team hasn't played in New England since its 5-4 loss to Air Force in the 2017 NCAA East Regional Semifinal in Providence and haven't competed in a true road game in New England since a 2002 trip to Maine.
The Broncos have never played Boston College, which itself is a decided contrast for the Eagles and their reputational penchant for crossing the invisible divide between the eastern and western college hockey spheres. This is one of the last programs that have never played BC outside of the new teams like Lindenwood, and it's the last power conference program from either the Big Ten or NCHC to draw a first matchup against the preeminent eastern college hockey powerhouse. It's also the first team in five years to play its first-ever game against the Eagles, who last achieved the feat when Bentley visited Conte Forum in 2019.
Owing to BC's history, it's a unique cross-section that pairs nicely with the previous matchups against Michigan State and American International. That the Spartans offered a Frozen Four-caliber program for two games in East Lansing at the start of the season was a stroke of coincidental luck considering either team's more recent history outside the top-5, and AIC offered an odd glimpse against an older team with a history of knocking bigger programs out of the national tournament. The given history against the Yellow Jackets predated anyone on the ice and stretched back to five games from college hockey's earliest days, which is why Western looks so different on BC's home schedule in Chestnut Hill.
None of that, of course, links into the hockey component, and it's worth noting that beyond the historical context of a new team, Western enters Saturday with a fast-paced offense and stingy defense. Its 15-goal outburst over the first three games specifically targeted breakouts against Ferris State and Bowling Green for pull-away wins, but each game featured stingy first periods before the Broncos ultimately dusted past opponents in either the second or third frame.
That contrasts differently with BC, which ran away from Michigan State and AIC in its two victories. The two shutout wins were byproducts of a full-sheet brand of hockey that featured varied goal scoring and stingy defense, and in the last appearance against the Yellow Jackets, Jacob Fowler didn't require more than 20 stops to post a 5-0 shutout that featured five different goal scorers.
"AIC kept us on our toes, especially in the first period," said head coach Greg Brown. "They did a great job of winning faceoffs and winning puck battles. They were heavy, especially early on, and they got a lot of pucks in our zone. We did a great job of getting pucks out, and I thought our faceoffs got better as the game went on. I thought we got better each period."
Eight players now have at least one goal for the BC roster, and a dozen different skaters recorded one assist during the 2-1 start to the season. Heavy shot advantages, particularly early on, have built a situation where the Eagles haven't scored in the third period but hold plus-3 advantages in both the first and second individual periods, with a 7-3 differential caressing the second.
"[Fowler's] consistency is really great for a young player," noted Brown. "He showed us that last year, and he doesn't really have off nights. His ability to play at a high level day-in and day-out requires him to take a lot of shots in practice, and he keeps his compete level high. By working so hard in practice, he's able to sustain that consistency in games."
BC and Western Michigan drop the puck at 7 p.m. tonight from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Broadcast for the game is available through the ESPN-Plus streaming platform available through ESPN's family of Internet and mobile device apps.
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