Photo by: Brody Hannon
Drop the Puck: RPI
October 17, 2025 | Men's Hockey, #ForBoston Files
BC heads to Houston Field House with good vibrations from an undefeated week against Minnesota.
Hockey's exponential growth period of the late-middle 20th century filtered into college hockey by the early-to-mid 1980s. The National Hockey League's two expansion eras redefined a league built around six teams from the Northeast and Canada as it began spreading into the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and California, and the sport enjoyed unprecedented growth after the United States won the improbable gold medal during the homegrown 1980 Winter Olympic Games. Four divisions emerged in two professional conferences, and college hockey followed suit with the creation of the CCHA and the solidification of ECAC's three-division format.
An eventual split within the league's East Division led directly to Hockey East's formation in 1984, which in turn allowed the expanded eight-team national tournament to accommodate equal numbers of at-large teams alongside its four league champions. The brands very much regionalized the game to traditional cold weather markets, but opportunities allowed hockey to deepen its roots in areas untapped or untouched by college football or college basketball's larger and more ominous footprint.
In the Northeast, that specifically meant Rensselaer's emergence as a national championship contender. The school hadn't been much of a hockey power since classifying into the University Division - later Division I - under Ned Harkness, and the last high water mark before the 1980s came when the 1977-1978 Engineers finished fourth before losing a 7-6 overtime game to Boston College in the Quarterfinals of the 17-team ECAC's eight-team postseason. Mike Addesa's arrival in 1979 signaled a return to the postseason as the No. 6 seed after a one-year layoff, but RPI was nowhere near the East Region's 30-win powerhouses.
All of that changed, though, when Adam Oates exploded onto the collegiate scene in 1982. He wound up in the Capital District when assistant coach Paul Allen noticed him during an Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League game, and his first year in 1982 produced a very raw 42 points in 22 games. One year later, his 83 points and 57 assists broke the school's scoring records, and he shattered those marks one year later when he scored 91 points with another 60 assists.
It was that year, in 1984-1985, that RPI burst onto the national scene. The East's top seed in the 1984 NCAA Tournament had lost to North Dakota during a two-game aggregate series that comprised the first round of that year's eight-team tournament, and the lessons learned against that roster led directly to a 10-6 aggregate victory over Lake Superior State in the next year's tournament. Advancing to the single elimination semifinals for the first time since 1964, an offense led by Oates and George Servinis paced the Engineers past Chris Terreri's Providence Friars for their first national championship since 1954.
RPI chased that history over the next four decades with minimal success. A program with consecutive conference championships has appeared in two NCAA Tournaments since advancing to consecutive No. 1 seeds and hasn't won a conference regular season since Oates departed the Albany area. The 1995 tournament team won ECAC as a No. 6 seed after upsetting both second-seeded Brown and top-seeded Clarkson in the conference tournament, and both that and the 2010-2011 team bombed out of the tournament in the first round after losing to either Minnesota or North Dakota, with the latter at-large team dropping a 6-0 decision to the No. 2 team in the nation.
Yet that hasn't stopped RPI from pushing itself to gain heights in the new-look NCAA. It's been able to keep a foothold even if it hasn't broken through ECAC's glass ceiling, and it now has a coach that's known for constructing and drawing winning seasons out of a program that faced elimination. In a college hockey world that's ever-changing, the Engineers are worth a second look, and their one-game series against Boston College represents a golden opportunity to strike Hockey East at its heart before moving to their Saturday game against Providence.
Here's what to watch for::
****
Weekend Storylines (Roadhouse Edition)
Dalton: All you have to do is follow three simple rules: One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice.
The breakdown from Minnesota aside, I figured it would be better to really dive into the opponent this week and focus a bit on the overarching storyline of facing the new-look RPI team.
So flash back to the mid-2010s for a brief moment in time. Boston is in the midst of arguably the greatest sports run in the history of professional sports, and BC hockey is still celebrating its fifth overall national championship after winning for the third time in five years. The Los Angeles Kings are defending Stanley Cup champions, and the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins are starting a regular season collision course that ends in one of the best Stanley Cup Finals ever played.
In West Point, New York, Army head coach Brian Riley is welcoming assistant coach Eric Lang into his locker room fold. The former head coach at Division III's Manhattanville College is a former Atlantic Hockey player from his days at American International, but he was brought to the Black Knights after leading the 2011-2012 Valiants to a 6-6 conference record and an appearance in the ECAC West Semifinal appearance.
Hiring Lang touched off a career arc that eventually sent the former Yellow Jacket back to West Springfield as an assistant coach to Gary Wright. Once Wright retired in XXXX, Lang's entrenched Division I name allowed him to take over a program that slowly needed refinement from its decades-long quest to finish outside of the AHA basement. Within two years, a 15-win season reset the program's record books with its first-ever trip to the conference quarterfinals, and one year later, a 23-win team won the AHA championship before defeating No. 1 overall seed St. Cloud in one of the most notable results in college hockey history.
Five years later, AIC was one of the AHA's one the league's most well-known and well-publicized programs, but a rapid about-face from four straight conference championships occurred when the institution decided to lower its program to Division II. Everything Lang built as a 150-win head coach disappeared in an instant,
The college's apparent loss ultimately became RPI's gain when the Engineers separated from head coach Dave Smith after last season's 10th place finish. A move to hire Lang away from AIC's inevitable demise occurred in April ahead of the Frozen Four, and while it represented a clean break from the previous decade, it also fired a shot across college hockey's bow that the program meant business about getting RPI back on the ECAC map.
Wade: I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead.
Lang's AIC teams played a rough-and-rowdy style that consistently tortured opponents with an emotional torture chamber over three periods. They weren't afraid of taking penalties because they knew how to consistently rank near the top of Atlantic Hockey's penalty kill numbers, but last year's Yellow Jackets also rated significantly lower than the league's most penalized teams. Extrapolating that to RPI, where the Engineers took the most penalties while holding one of the lowest kill rates in ECAC, therefore represents a massive shift in both game plan and execution that's already paying dividends.
"Everything's new," said head coach Eric Lang during the ECAC preseason conference call. "We get 28 guys that are hearing things for the first time. We have three coaches that are hearing things for the first time, and we've had really incredible focus in our camp for how hard we need to play and how hard we need to defend. For us, it's about crawling, walking and running in the season, but it's also crawling, walking and running for the development of our program. We're not skipping any steps. There are no shortcuts to it. We're doing it right."
Even through the first two games, RPI's penalty average ranks somewhere near the bottom of the Division I rankings, and excluding Ivy League teams that haven't started their regular season pits the Engineers around ninth best in the nation at both taking and avoiding penalties. The kill hasn't been as successful as AIC's teams, but playing a more physical penalty fest against Miami resulted in a more sloppy, two-goal result in the first game before the fast-paced and wide-open game produced a 5-0 loss on last Saturday night.
Doc: Do you enjoy pain?
Dalton: Pain don't hurt.
Pitting BC against a physical team echoes how Bentley sought to slow the Eagles through the neutral zone of last year's NCAA Tournament game. There were naturally other factors at play in that conversation - namely about ice conditions - that won't exist at Houston Field House on Friday, but the biggest issue facing the Eagles occurred when the Falcons began chopping away at the second and early third periods. The game evened out as ice conditions got sloppier against the long change in particular, so the elements within RPI's game are acclimated to withstand early rushes before delivering counterpunches on dirty ice.
"We're staying away from measurable objectives and quite honestly are figuring out if we're meeting our potential," said Lang. "We are committed to doing the best things that require zero talent right now. The league plays incredibly hard. Up and down ECAC, teams compete hard, and for us, playing hard is a prerequisite."
*****
Question Box
Can BC continue developing its depth beyond the top line?
Ryan Conmy's power play goal during last week's series at Minnesota continued the success and production of BC's top line, but the below-surface scoring broke out in key spots of both games against the Gophers. Both Will Vote and Will Moore scored around Brody Lamb's late first period game-tying goal on Thursday night before Drew Fortescue iced the game in the last minute of the third period, and Dean Letourneau's much-publicized first career goal earned a tie during Friday night's slugfest.Â
It's easy to rely on top-end talent when it gets moving in the right direction, but BC's first three games clearly broke a bit of last year's late-season mold by finding new goal scorers and developing new roles.
Which goalie plays and earns more ice time?
Louka Cloutier's Goaltender of the Week Award earned the first weekly honor for this year's BC program, but Jan Korec deserves a second look before totally anointing any goalie as the top option for the Eagles. RPI is a one-off game on the road, so the question centers on how Greg Brown wants to deploy his netminders - either riding the hot hand with Cloutier or by going back to Korec in a time swap against a team that should provide him with a game style that's more defensive-based.
Why do people take umbrage with my coffee selection?
One of my friends lost his marbles at me after discovering that my morning coffee comes straight from one of those store-bought tins of generic coffee: Folgers, Maxwell House, Chock Full o'Nuts, it doesn't matter. As a self-proclaimed coffee snob, he couldn't understand why I drank something that's mass-produced when so many organic options exist on the shelf next to those coffee brands, and he was equally annoyed at how I poured myself multiple cups of mud-like java when morning smells could easily fill my house with Black Rifle, Peet's and so many other top end brands.
I calmly explained that I drink coffee to wake up, and it never mattered what brand I was drinking. I could eat Sanka out of the can or even drink that Postum stuff from my grandparents' house, and it wouldn't matter. I need to wake up.
After that, yeah, I'll dive into my special brands for an afternoon cup, and I'll sip from the private reserve on the weekends. My parents shipped me home Kauai coffee from Hawaii, and I have multiple pounds of Black Rifle coffee sitting in the drawer.
Bottom line - I'll drink anything if it tastes good with a little bit of milk and an Equal packet or two.
*****
Scoreboard Watching
It's hard to judge which X factor shows up for the weekend against RPI, so I opted to skip this week in favor of a quick look around the country. Since it's the last week of college hockey without the Ivy League, it's also worth quickly checking in on the nation's different conferences and top teams to compare them to BC's current standing.
This week's voted-on poll at USCHO.com moved BC from No. 11 to No. 9 after the win and tie against Minnesota, but slotting back into the top-10 mostly just kept the Eagles from avoiding the demolition derby crowning Boston University as the nation's No. 1 team. The Terriers had 27 first place votes (writer's note: including me), but six different teams earned at least one vote for the top slot. Among them, Maine and Michigan are the only undefeated teams, and undefeated Denver - albeit with a 1-0-1 record - sat fifth and failed to move up or down without a first place vote.
Of the remaining undefeated teams, North Dakota is directly in front of BC after sweeping St. Thomas to start its season, and UMass is No. 11 after moving up three spots with a 3-0-0 record. Nos. 16 and 17 Ohio State and Wisconsin fill out the remaining undefeated teams in the poll after sweeping their opening weekends, and Cornell remained ranked at No. 18 despite dropping a spot without a game on its record.
No. 19 Colorado College is the lone team to break into the rankings after St. Thomas dropped out.
In games surrounding BC, No. 8 North Dakota hosts Minnesota as the Gophers continue hunting for an answer to the start of their season while next week's opponent - Denver - heads to Lindenwood for two games. In Hockey East, Northeastern is at UMass for the start of each team's conference schedule, and UNH heads to Merrimack on Saturday to continue the lone games counting towards the league table.
In other notable games, the Minutemen host Bentley on Saturday night while UConn hosts Ohio State for a weekend set. Down the street at Agganis Arena, Michigan State's arrival for a pair of games against Boston University signals a major matchup between Hockey East and the Big Ten while the defending national champion from Western Michigan travels to Tsongas Arena for a pair of games at UMass-Lowell. Maine is at Quinnipiac for two.
Elsewhere, Michigan defeated Robert Morris on Thursday night before hosting the Colonials in Friday night's second game.
*****
Dan's Non-Hockey Thought of the Week
Viral video circulating this week captured Pope Leo XIV playfully yelling back at a Chicago Cubs fan during an appearance at the Vatican. The fan had yelled, "Go Cubs!" at the Chicago-born pontiff, and he responded by yelling, "They lost!" to the adoring masses who gathered to see him. It very quickly gained steam through the news cycle, and the Chicago White Sox retweeted the video with a prideful recognition of their world famous fan.
To me, it embodied everything that makes sports great. The Cubs won 90-plus games and advanced to the Major League Baseball playoffs while the White Sox lost 100 games for the third straight year. They haven't sniffed the postseason since losing to the Astros in the 2021 American League Division Series, and they haven't advanced to a league championship series since the World Series-winning season in 2005. They've been to three postseason series since ending an 88-year drought, but fans of the South Siders couldn't resist throwing good-natured shade at those fancy fans from the North Side.
Look, there's so many different things going on in the world today, so seeing the first American pope have a little bit of fun with another American baseball fan is pretty fun for all of us. We're all too often consumed with some headline about a news story that's pretty grim, so the ability to sit back and just enjoy a baseball rivalry between two ancient franchises is pretty fun. I know I'd feel the same way if he rooted for the Yankees (thankfully, he doesn't).
All of that said, I need to figure out if Pope Leo roots for BC or BU on an ice rink.
*****
Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts
We're not gonna take it.
No, we ain't gonna take it.
We're not gonna take it.
Anymore.
-Twisted Sister
RPI is an enigmatic hockey program without an established foundation for the upcoming matchup. Its only games were against a single Miami opponent that won three games in its first year under a new head coach that had never been in the NCAA. Those road wins over the Engineers were the RedHawks' first road wins since a December 30, 2023 victory at Niagara and followed the sweep over Ferris State that doubled as the first overall wins since last year's victory over Lindenwood on October 26.Â
In a perfect world, the Engineers enter Friday night without any type of steam engine, but getting those first games out of the way likely mean that RPI enters the BC game with a bit extra edge and some tinkering at the lineup and game plan level. The Eagles are cruising ever so slightly after going undefeated in the Twin Cities, but the collision course with a second defensive style either reveals a trend from the Quinnipiac game or continues the winning ways that were established last weekend.
No. 9 Boston College plays a single game at Rensselaer at 7 p.m. on Friday night, from Houston Field House in Troy, New York. The game can be seen on ESPN Plus' direct-to-consumer subscription service with online streaming available through the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps.
An eventual split within the league's East Division led directly to Hockey East's formation in 1984, which in turn allowed the expanded eight-team national tournament to accommodate equal numbers of at-large teams alongside its four league champions. The brands very much regionalized the game to traditional cold weather markets, but opportunities allowed hockey to deepen its roots in areas untapped or untouched by college football or college basketball's larger and more ominous footprint.
In the Northeast, that specifically meant Rensselaer's emergence as a national championship contender. The school hadn't been much of a hockey power since classifying into the University Division - later Division I - under Ned Harkness, and the last high water mark before the 1980s came when the 1977-1978 Engineers finished fourth before losing a 7-6 overtime game to Boston College in the Quarterfinals of the 17-team ECAC's eight-team postseason. Mike Addesa's arrival in 1979 signaled a return to the postseason as the No. 6 seed after a one-year layoff, but RPI was nowhere near the East Region's 30-win powerhouses.
All of that changed, though, when Adam Oates exploded onto the collegiate scene in 1982. He wound up in the Capital District when assistant coach Paul Allen noticed him during an Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League game, and his first year in 1982 produced a very raw 42 points in 22 games. One year later, his 83 points and 57 assists broke the school's scoring records, and he shattered those marks one year later when he scored 91 points with another 60 assists.
It was that year, in 1984-1985, that RPI burst onto the national scene. The East's top seed in the 1984 NCAA Tournament had lost to North Dakota during a two-game aggregate series that comprised the first round of that year's eight-team tournament, and the lessons learned against that roster led directly to a 10-6 aggregate victory over Lake Superior State in the next year's tournament. Advancing to the single elimination semifinals for the first time since 1964, an offense led by Oates and George Servinis paced the Engineers past Chris Terreri's Providence Friars for their first national championship since 1954.
RPI chased that history over the next four decades with minimal success. A program with consecutive conference championships has appeared in two NCAA Tournaments since advancing to consecutive No. 1 seeds and hasn't won a conference regular season since Oates departed the Albany area. The 1995 tournament team won ECAC as a No. 6 seed after upsetting both second-seeded Brown and top-seeded Clarkson in the conference tournament, and both that and the 2010-2011 team bombed out of the tournament in the first round after losing to either Minnesota or North Dakota, with the latter at-large team dropping a 6-0 decision to the No. 2 team in the nation.
Yet that hasn't stopped RPI from pushing itself to gain heights in the new-look NCAA. It's been able to keep a foothold even if it hasn't broken through ECAC's glass ceiling, and it now has a coach that's known for constructing and drawing winning seasons out of a program that faced elimination. In a college hockey world that's ever-changing, the Engineers are worth a second look, and their one-game series against Boston College represents a golden opportunity to strike Hockey East at its heart before moving to their Saturday game against Providence.
Here's what to watch for::
****
Weekend Storylines (Roadhouse Edition)
Dalton: All you have to do is follow three simple rules: One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice.
The breakdown from Minnesota aside, I figured it would be better to really dive into the opponent this week and focus a bit on the overarching storyline of facing the new-look RPI team.
So flash back to the mid-2010s for a brief moment in time. Boston is in the midst of arguably the greatest sports run in the history of professional sports, and BC hockey is still celebrating its fifth overall national championship after winning for the third time in five years. The Los Angeles Kings are defending Stanley Cup champions, and the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins are starting a regular season collision course that ends in one of the best Stanley Cup Finals ever played.
In West Point, New York, Army head coach Brian Riley is welcoming assistant coach Eric Lang into his locker room fold. The former head coach at Division III's Manhattanville College is a former Atlantic Hockey player from his days at American International, but he was brought to the Black Knights after leading the 2011-2012 Valiants to a 6-6 conference record and an appearance in the ECAC West Semifinal appearance.
Hiring Lang touched off a career arc that eventually sent the former Yellow Jacket back to West Springfield as an assistant coach to Gary Wright. Once Wright retired in XXXX, Lang's entrenched Division I name allowed him to take over a program that slowly needed refinement from its decades-long quest to finish outside of the AHA basement. Within two years, a 15-win season reset the program's record books with its first-ever trip to the conference quarterfinals, and one year later, a 23-win team won the AHA championship before defeating No. 1 overall seed St. Cloud in one of the most notable results in college hockey history.
Five years later, AIC was one of the AHA's one the league's most well-known and well-publicized programs, but a rapid about-face from four straight conference championships occurred when the institution decided to lower its program to Division II. Everything Lang built as a 150-win head coach disappeared in an instant,
The college's apparent loss ultimately became RPI's gain when the Engineers separated from head coach Dave Smith after last season's 10th place finish. A move to hire Lang away from AIC's inevitable demise occurred in April ahead of the Frozen Four, and while it represented a clean break from the previous decade, it also fired a shot across college hockey's bow that the program meant business about getting RPI back on the ECAC map.
Wade: I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead.
Lang's AIC teams played a rough-and-rowdy style that consistently tortured opponents with an emotional torture chamber over three periods. They weren't afraid of taking penalties because they knew how to consistently rank near the top of Atlantic Hockey's penalty kill numbers, but last year's Yellow Jackets also rated significantly lower than the league's most penalized teams. Extrapolating that to RPI, where the Engineers took the most penalties while holding one of the lowest kill rates in ECAC, therefore represents a massive shift in both game plan and execution that's already paying dividends.
"Everything's new," said head coach Eric Lang during the ECAC preseason conference call. "We get 28 guys that are hearing things for the first time. We have three coaches that are hearing things for the first time, and we've had really incredible focus in our camp for how hard we need to play and how hard we need to defend. For us, it's about crawling, walking and running in the season, but it's also crawling, walking and running for the development of our program. We're not skipping any steps. There are no shortcuts to it. We're doing it right."
Even through the first two games, RPI's penalty average ranks somewhere near the bottom of the Division I rankings, and excluding Ivy League teams that haven't started their regular season pits the Engineers around ninth best in the nation at both taking and avoiding penalties. The kill hasn't been as successful as AIC's teams, but playing a more physical penalty fest against Miami resulted in a more sloppy, two-goal result in the first game before the fast-paced and wide-open game produced a 5-0 loss on last Saturday night.
Doc: Do you enjoy pain?
Dalton: Pain don't hurt.
Pitting BC against a physical team echoes how Bentley sought to slow the Eagles through the neutral zone of last year's NCAA Tournament game. There were naturally other factors at play in that conversation - namely about ice conditions - that won't exist at Houston Field House on Friday, but the biggest issue facing the Eagles occurred when the Falcons began chopping away at the second and early third periods. The game evened out as ice conditions got sloppier against the long change in particular, so the elements within RPI's game are acclimated to withstand early rushes before delivering counterpunches on dirty ice.
"We're staying away from measurable objectives and quite honestly are figuring out if we're meeting our potential," said Lang. "We are committed to doing the best things that require zero talent right now. The league plays incredibly hard. Up and down ECAC, teams compete hard, and for us, playing hard is a prerequisite."
*****
Question Box
Can BC continue developing its depth beyond the top line?
Ryan Conmy's power play goal during last week's series at Minnesota continued the success and production of BC's top line, but the below-surface scoring broke out in key spots of both games against the Gophers. Both Will Vote and Will Moore scored around Brody Lamb's late first period game-tying goal on Thursday night before Drew Fortescue iced the game in the last minute of the third period, and Dean Letourneau's much-publicized first career goal earned a tie during Friday night's slugfest.Â
It's easy to rely on top-end talent when it gets moving in the right direction, but BC's first three games clearly broke a bit of last year's late-season mold by finding new goal scorers and developing new roles.
Which goalie plays and earns more ice time?
Louka Cloutier's Goaltender of the Week Award earned the first weekly honor for this year's BC program, but Jan Korec deserves a second look before totally anointing any goalie as the top option for the Eagles. RPI is a one-off game on the road, so the question centers on how Greg Brown wants to deploy his netminders - either riding the hot hand with Cloutier or by going back to Korec in a time swap against a team that should provide him with a game style that's more defensive-based.
Why do people take umbrage with my coffee selection?
One of my friends lost his marbles at me after discovering that my morning coffee comes straight from one of those store-bought tins of generic coffee: Folgers, Maxwell House, Chock Full o'Nuts, it doesn't matter. As a self-proclaimed coffee snob, he couldn't understand why I drank something that's mass-produced when so many organic options exist on the shelf next to those coffee brands, and he was equally annoyed at how I poured myself multiple cups of mud-like java when morning smells could easily fill my house with Black Rifle, Peet's and so many other top end brands.
I calmly explained that I drink coffee to wake up, and it never mattered what brand I was drinking. I could eat Sanka out of the can or even drink that Postum stuff from my grandparents' house, and it wouldn't matter. I need to wake up.
After that, yeah, I'll dive into my special brands for an afternoon cup, and I'll sip from the private reserve on the weekends. My parents shipped me home Kauai coffee from Hawaii, and I have multiple pounds of Black Rifle coffee sitting in the drawer.
Bottom line - I'll drink anything if it tastes good with a little bit of milk and an Equal packet or two.
*****
Scoreboard Watching
It's hard to judge which X factor shows up for the weekend against RPI, so I opted to skip this week in favor of a quick look around the country. Since it's the last week of college hockey without the Ivy League, it's also worth quickly checking in on the nation's different conferences and top teams to compare them to BC's current standing.
This week's voted-on poll at USCHO.com moved BC from No. 11 to No. 9 after the win and tie against Minnesota, but slotting back into the top-10 mostly just kept the Eagles from avoiding the demolition derby crowning Boston University as the nation's No. 1 team. The Terriers had 27 first place votes (writer's note: including me), but six different teams earned at least one vote for the top slot. Among them, Maine and Michigan are the only undefeated teams, and undefeated Denver - albeit with a 1-0-1 record - sat fifth and failed to move up or down without a first place vote.
Of the remaining undefeated teams, North Dakota is directly in front of BC after sweeping St. Thomas to start its season, and UMass is No. 11 after moving up three spots with a 3-0-0 record. Nos. 16 and 17 Ohio State and Wisconsin fill out the remaining undefeated teams in the poll after sweeping their opening weekends, and Cornell remained ranked at No. 18 despite dropping a spot without a game on its record.
No. 19 Colorado College is the lone team to break into the rankings after St. Thomas dropped out.
In games surrounding BC, No. 8 North Dakota hosts Minnesota as the Gophers continue hunting for an answer to the start of their season while next week's opponent - Denver - heads to Lindenwood for two games. In Hockey East, Northeastern is at UMass for the start of each team's conference schedule, and UNH heads to Merrimack on Saturday to continue the lone games counting towards the league table.
In other notable games, the Minutemen host Bentley on Saturday night while UConn hosts Ohio State for a weekend set. Down the street at Agganis Arena, Michigan State's arrival for a pair of games against Boston University signals a major matchup between Hockey East and the Big Ten while the defending national champion from Western Michigan travels to Tsongas Arena for a pair of games at UMass-Lowell. Maine is at Quinnipiac for two.
Elsewhere, Michigan defeated Robert Morris on Thursday night before hosting the Colonials in Friday night's second game.
*****
Dan's Non-Hockey Thought of the Week
Viral video circulating this week captured Pope Leo XIV playfully yelling back at a Chicago Cubs fan during an appearance at the Vatican. The fan had yelled, "Go Cubs!" at the Chicago-born pontiff, and he responded by yelling, "They lost!" to the adoring masses who gathered to see him. It very quickly gained steam through the news cycle, and the Chicago White Sox retweeted the video with a prideful recognition of their world famous fan.
To me, it embodied everything that makes sports great. The Cubs won 90-plus games and advanced to the Major League Baseball playoffs while the White Sox lost 100 games for the third straight year. They haven't sniffed the postseason since losing to the Astros in the 2021 American League Division Series, and they haven't advanced to a league championship series since the World Series-winning season in 2005. They've been to three postseason series since ending an 88-year drought, but fans of the South Siders couldn't resist throwing good-natured shade at those fancy fans from the North Side.
Look, there's so many different things going on in the world today, so seeing the first American pope have a little bit of fun with another American baseball fan is pretty fun for all of us. We're all too often consumed with some headline about a news story that's pretty grim, so the ability to sit back and just enjoy a baseball rivalry between two ancient franchises is pretty fun. I know I'd feel the same way if he rooted for the Yankees (thankfully, he doesn't).
All of that said, I need to figure out if Pope Leo roots for BC or BU on an ice rink.
*****
Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts
We're not gonna take it.
No, we ain't gonna take it.
We're not gonna take it.
Anymore.
-Twisted Sister
RPI is an enigmatic hockey program without an established foundation for the upcoming matchup. Its only games were against a single Miami opponent that won three games in its first year under a new head coach that had never been in the NCAA. Those road wins over the Engineers were the RedHawks' first road wins since a December 30, 2023 victory at Niagara and followed the sweep over Ferris State that doubled as the first overall wins since last year's victory over Lindenwood on October 26.Â
In a perfect world, the Engineers enter Friday night without any type of steam engine, but getting those first games out of the way likely mean that RPI enters the BC game with a bit extra edge and some tinkering at the lineup and game plan level. The Eagles are cruising ever so slightly after going undefeated in the Twin Cities, but the collision course with a second defensive style either reveals a trend from the Quinnipiac game or continues the winning ways that were established last weekend.
No. 9 Boston College plays a single game at Rensselaer at 7 p.m. on Friday night, from Houston Field House in Troy, New York. The game can be seen on ESPN Plus' direct-to-consumer subscription service with online streaming available through the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Hockey
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