March Madness Hits TD Garden With Boston College in Driver’s Seat, Boston University Nowhere to Be Seen

It’s March Madness on ice.

On Friday night, while much of the world is keeping an eye on the hardwood and hoping to salvage their brackets after the first day of action, the TD Garden will be rocking with the 27th annual Hockey East Championship. In many ways, this is one of the most compelling final four the conference has seen in years.

There are certain things you can count on in Boston each spring: lilacs blooming, potholes gaping and Boston College skating in the Hockey East semis. Jerry York’s Eagles are back for the seventh straight year and remain the team to beat. They brought the bulk of a national championship team back this season and rolled into the playoffs with a home-and-home sweep of UNH that gave BC its first regular-season conference title in six years. The Eagles took care of business against UMass and take the ice as the top seed.

Eagles at the Garden? No surprise there. The big surprise of the weekend is who is not there. Boston University saw its conference-record, nine-year run of semifinal appearances come to an end Sunday night, when they were beaten by the Northeastern Huskies in Game 3 of the quarterfinals. For the Huskies, it was their first road quarterfinal series win since 1991. Greg Cronin is back behind the bench after serving a school-imposed suspension of six games, the result of NCAA violations related to excessive telephone and text message contact with prospective student athletes.

New Hampshire is back at the Garden after a two-year hiatus. The Wildcats exacted a little revenge in the quarterfinals, knocking out a Vermont team that had ended the conference title hopes of Dick Umile’s team last year. The biggest question surrounding the ‘Cats coming into the season was whether or not goalie Matt Di Girolamo could step in and fill the void left behind by Brian Foster. He’s done everything UNH could hope for, leading the league in minutes played and posting the second-best save percentage and third-best GAA in the conference.

The Cats will face the darlings of the college hockey season, Mark Dennehy’s Merrimack College Warriors. It’s been an unprecedented season for the Warriors, who brought the renovated Lawler Arena crowd to its feet time and time again with a 14-2-1 home record. It’s only the second time Merrimack has ever been to the semis and the first time in 13 years. The Warriors enter the weekend ranked seventh in the nation; they had never been nationally ranked before this season. In February, they received their first-ever first-place vote in the USCHO.com national poll. I was the voter that had them ranked first that week, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to me if they finish this weekend with their first-ever Hockey East title.

BC might be the team to beat, but there are three other teams at the Garden who could do just that.  It’s Madness, again, when they drop the puck Friday night at 5 p.m.