It all comes down to Tuesday.
The 2022 Women’s Beanpot Championship will be awarded to either Boston College or Harvard after both teams advanced in their respective semifinals one week ago. Boston College upset Northeastern, sending one of the nation’s top teams down on home ice, while Harvard overcame a major effort from Boston University goaltender Kate Stuart to punch its ticket to the title game.
Here are some key things to keep an eye on heading into Tuesday’s championship, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET:
The Eagles are red-hot …
Boston College enters Tuesday’s championship with a seven-game winning streak, which dates back to Jan. 21. The stretch certainly has gained the Eagles some ground in the Hockey East race, but the highlight — Beanpot aside — clearly was a dominating defeat of No. 3 Northeastern in semifinal play.
Along the way, Abby Newhook has scored a goal in all seven games while Alexie Guay — who was the hero with two of the Eagles’ three goals against the Huskies — has registered a point in all seven games.
Guay is an integral part of BC’s success on both sides of the puck. The defender enters Tuesday with 49 blocked shots, which ranks third in Hockey East.
But Harvard suffered a setback
The Crimson improved their winning streak to seven games with their defeat of Boston University in the semifinal round. But in their next game, then-No. 6 Harvard was bested by No. 7 Colgate, falling 6-2 after Colgate scored three third-period goals. They rebounded to defeat Cornell the next day (and clinch the Ivy League in the process) but they may have a chip on their shoulder heading into the championship game — for better or for worse.
Anne Bloomer, who led Harvard to the semifinal win with two crucial goals in the third period, scored against Colgate and tallied three assists in the beating of Cornell. Her linemates, Becca Gilmore and Kristin Della Rovere, each cleared the 30-point threshold on the season with multi-point games. It’s safe to say Harvard has the scoring to keep up in the title game.
BC really has Boston bragging rights on the line
After besting Northeastern in the semifinal, the Eagles played a pair of Hockey East games — defeating New Hampshire and Boston University. If they can defeat Harvard for the title, they will have defeated the three other Beanpot schools within a week of each other.
It sure would be hard to claim that isn’t pure Boston hockey supremacy.
We’ve been here before
This title game will be a repeat of the 2015 Beanpot Championship, when Harvard bested Boston College, 3-2. That was the last time the Crimson won the tournament, while the Eagles won it all in 2018 with a 4-3 defeat of Boston University.
Overall, the two sides have played each other in the championship game eight other times. Harvard claimed the title in five of those attempts compared to three wins for BU.
