 |
 |
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
Hockey Terriers are concerned with performance, not polls
By Brian Fitzgerald
According to the Hockey East preseason coaches’ poll, BU is this
year’s favorite to win the conference title. However, beware the
opinion survey. Just ask any politician — or mention Alf Landon
to any history buff.
Alf who? The Muppet space alien in that 1980s sitcom? Alf Landon, according
to a Literary Digest poll of more than two million Americans, was supposed
to beat Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election. Instead,
he lost by a nearly two-to-one margin, taking only foliage-rich but delegate-poor
Maine and Vermont.
|
|
|
|
| Captain Freddy Meyer (MET’03) (center) was second in goals among BU’s defensemen last year. Photos by Rob Klein | |
|
In other words, polls can be pretty much worthless. Ask Terrier coach
Jack Parker, the beneficiary of his colleagues’ predictions, and
he’ll be blunt. “It means nothing,” he says. “You
can ask Providence. They were picked number one last year and they had
injuries and problems, and wound up seventh in the league.” Another
case in point is BU’s second-place finish last season. The Terriers
were originally picked to finish fifth.
Better yet, ask BU captain Freddy Meyer (MET’03) and assistant captain
John Sabo (MET’03) about the credibility of such annual prognostications.
“Being picked first came as a little bit of a surprise to us,”
says Meyer. “I assumed it was probably going to be one of four teams.
It puts pressure on us. The only thing we can do is accept the challenge
and make the predictions true.”
Sabo, a determined and energetic player who Parker thinks is “going
to have a breakout year,” says that he also was somewhat taken aback
by the poll. “Personally, I don’t think polls mean too much,”
he says. “Hockey East is a competitive league. Look at those first
few spots.” Indeed, BU received 61 points, followed by New Hampshire
(53), Boston College (51), and Maine (48). If the polls tell us anything,
it is the great balance in the top half of the conference. All four teams
are ranked in the top 10 in the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine poll
and all four are expected to make a run for the national championship.
|
|
|
|
|
| Sean Fields (CAS’04) was twice named Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week last season. |
|
|
“Anyone can win this conference,” says Sabo. “New Hampshire is always tough. They got the better of us last year, and obviously we want to get them back.” The defending national champion, New Hampshire stymied BU with two wins and a tie last season. “Boston College will bounce back after a .500 record last year, and Maine knocked us out.” Maine not only beat BU in the Hockey East semifinal, 4-3, but also eliminated the Terriers from the NCAA tournament in the East Regional, 4-3. The only team to stop the Black Bears was New Hampshire, in the final, 4-3, in overtime. The parity in Hockey East is that even.
So what makes BU (1-1-2) the odds-on favorite? On paper, the Terriers have a lot of depth. At present, there doesn’t appear to be an All–Hockey East forward on the team — graduation took top scorers Mike Pandolfo (MET’02) and Jack Baker (CAS’02). The good news for BU is that 9 of its 16 forwards have been selected in the NHL entry draft. If the Terriers get some offensive production from some of their expected sources, such as Frantisek Skladany (SHA’04), who had 13 goals last year, and from a few surprise players, fans won’t exactly be shocked to see a BU Hockey East title for the seventh time in the past nine years.
|
|
|
|
| John Sabo (MET’03) scored two goals in BU’s disappointing 5-3 loss to Merrimack October 22. | |
|
“On defense, we lost a couple, but we gained a couple,” says
Sabo. Last year’s team allowed just 110 goals in 38 games —
the fifth-lowest goal total a Terrier team had given up in almost 40 years.
The Terriers graduated two of the stars of the defensive unit, Chris Dyment
(MET’02) and Pat Aufiero (MET’02), but a strong group has
returned, including Meyer and some talented freshmen. One of them, Jekabs
Redlihs (SED’06), was named MVP of the Ice Breaker Tournament at
the University of Wisconsin on October 18 and 19. BU won the tournament
after knocking off Northern Michigan, 5-4, in overtime, and stonewalling
RPI in the championship. Goaltender Sean Fields (CAS’04), who was
named to the All-Tournament team (35 saves in the two games), will definitely
play a lot of minutes this year. Of his two backups, Stephan Siwiec (CAS’06)
is a freshman and Andy Warren (COM’03) didn’t see any collegiate
action last season. Still, Fields should be up to the task, having appeared
in 33 games last year and turned away more shots than all but two Hockey
East goaltenders. And he got stronger late in the schedule, posting a
7-0-0 record with a 2.29 GAA and .905 save percentage in February.
Americans love lists, so polls are a necessary evil. The Terriers, however,
even though ranked sixth in the country, aren’t paying much attention
to them. They stumbled after they were ranked fourth: a 1-1 tie to Vermont
October 18 knocked them down a couple of pegs, and their 5-3 loss to Merrimack
October 22 will undoubtedly set them back even further. And after all,
polls showed that Dewey was ahead of Truman in ’48, Dukakis ahead
of Bush in ’88, Bush ahead of Clinton in ’92 — and Providence
better than New Hampshire in ’01. You can’t rely on predictions,
because performance is what matters in the end.
25 October 2002
Boston University
Office of University Relations