Leonard Hat Trick Lifts BC in 4-0 Win

Ryan Leonard scored three goals for his second hat trick in two weekends to lift No. 1 Boston College to a 4-0 victory over UMass Lowell in Hockey East play on Friday night.

Leonard, who also scored three goals in a 6-2 conference win at Boston University a week prior on Jan. 24, now leads all NCAA Division I men's players with 22 goals overall after scoring three against the eighth-ranked River Hawks before 7,884 onlookers at BC's Conte Forum. Backup netminder Jan Korec earned the shutout with 22 saves for the host Eagles (19-4-1 overall, 12-3-1 Hockey East), while Beni Halasz made 22 stops for UML (13-8-3, 6-6-2) .

BC, which has now won seven straight games overall, begins the 2025 Beanpot Tournament on Monday night at TD Garden in Boston against Hockey East rival and two-time defending champion Northeastern at 8 p.m. ET. That contest will take place following the opening game at 5 p.m. ET between Boston University and Harvard.

BC Falls to Bentley, 4-2

Boston College men's hockey's non-conference woes continue.

The Eagles fell behind Bentley University, 3-0, on Friday at Conte Forum in the first-ever meeting between the two Bay State schools, en route to a 4-2 loss to the visiting Falcons. Bentley scored two goals in the second period, and added two more in the third, including an empty-net goal with 67 seconds remaining in regulation after BC (3-6-1 overall) had closed to within 3-2.

Tanner Jago and Will Garin staked Bentley to a two-goal advantage in the middle stanza, both with power-play goals, before Matt Lombardozzi scored early in the third period. David Cotton tallied the first Eagles' goal on a power play, his team-leading 10th goal overall of the campaign, with 11 minutes left in the third. Oliver Wahlstrom, the subject of much scrutiny the previous 24 hours as to whether or not he would stay at the Heights, then pulled BC within a goal with 1:31 left before Jake Kauppila hit the empty net for the Falcons, who got 23 saves from Aidan Pelino.

Bentley (4-7-1), a member of Atlantic Hockey, now has nine wins over the last 11 years against Hockey East opponents, and will play at Holy Cross on Saturday. BC, which got 17 saves from Joseph Woll on Friday, has not won a non-conference NCAA contest since defeating Arizona State at Conte Forum in Nov. 2016. The Eagles will return to Hockey East action next weekend with a home-and-home series against Green Line rival Boston University.

Boston College Clinches 2018 Hockey East Men's Title

Boston College clinched its 16th-ever Hockey East men's regular-season title with a 6-3 victory Maine on Friday night at Conte Forum.

Logan Hutsko, Michael Kim and Kevin Lohan recorded three points apiece, and Joseph Woll made 32 saves as the 20th-ranked Eagles recorded their second straight victory over the Black Bears. The two teams will close out the series on Saturday night at 7 p.m. in Chestnut Hill, Mass. The Eagles (17-13-3 overall, 17-6-0 HEA) will have a first-round bye next week in the Hockey East Tournament before hosting the lowest remaining seed the following weekend.

The No. 3 Boston College women's hockey team, which had earlier clinched its own Hockey East regular-season crown, defeated visiting Vermont, 3-1, earlier on Friday. Makenna Newkirk and Caitrin Lonergan  posted two points each for BC, which also got 32 stops from NCAA career victories leader Katie Burt. The Eagles (29-9-3, 19-2-3), who have won 11 of their last 12 outings, will close out their series with the Catamounts on Saturday at Conte Forum at 2 p.m. ET.

BC Does It Again

For the fourth time in five games, third-ranked Boston College did not allow the opposition to light the red lamp.  The Eagles, powered by a six-goal second stanza, overwhelmed UMass, 7-0, on Tuesday night in BC's 2015-16 Hockey East opener at Conte Forum.

Teddy Doherty scored two power-play goals for the Eagles (6-1-0 overall, 1-0-0 Hockey East), who got the game-winning score from Adam Gilmour just 1:33 into a then-scoreless second period. Chris Brown, Matthew Gaudreau and Colin White each set up two goals, while Thatcher Demko turned aside all 26 shots he faced for his fourth shutout this season and seventh of his collegiate career.

Nic Renyard took the loss for the visiting Minutemen (4-2-1, 0-1-1), stopping 21 of 26 shots before giving way to Alex Wakaluk in the middle period.

BC will now host Maine for pair of Hockey East games this weekend, on Friday and Sunday, while UMass will play a Hockey East home-and-home with UConn.

Boston College Raises One More Banner

I was fortunate enough to be at Boston College’s NCAA Championship banner ceremony on Saturday night at Conte Forum. I missed 2008’s event because I got stuck in traffic on the Mass Pike that night, and 2010’s gathering was too close to Halloween to travel to New England and back—so it sure was nice to finally watch one get raised to the rafters. 

I'm still smiling two days later.

Besides the 2012-13 team and over 7,000 of their closest friends in Maroon and Gold, some of the program's past champions made it back to Chestnut Hill to celebrate on Oct. 20, including former coach Len Ceglarski and locked-out NHL players like Nathan Gerbe. Hoisting the newest banner to the skies were graduated seniors Chris Venti and Tommy Atkinson, part of the 2012 team that won 19 straight contests to close out the campaign, including the national title game in Florida against Ferris State.

To top off the festivities Saturday, the Eagles won, 3-0, over local and Hockey East rival Northeastern, which had beaten BC a week before in Boston. Goals came from forwards Kevin Hayes, Johnny Gaudreau and Stephen Whitney, while captain Pat Mullane had two assists and goaltender Parker Milner made 26 saves before a raucous sold-out crowd of 7,884 at Kelley Rink that included almost an entire section of black-clad NU undergrads who surely got back on the Green Line unhappy.

It was a nice night of nostalgia and one final salute to last year’s title team, which not only made mustard-colored jerseys a thing of beauty, but was also the third BC squad in five years to claim a national crown. When I was a student, BC made the 1990 Frozen Four and won a few Hockey East championships, but not the sheer plethora of team prizes that the program has brought home since 1998.

For me, as an alumnus, it was good to be back on an ever-changing campus that still feels like home. It was good to sit again at the Forum, where I covered several scores worth of games as an undergraduate, and to see old friends like Jack Casey and Paul Gallivan. They and the rest of the Zamboni crew work hard to keep the ice smooth for one of college hockey’s top programs, led by head coach Jerry York (915 career wins and counting) and old friend and Eagle defenseman Greg Brown.


Yes, life has been good at the Heights lately. Keep up the good work, all.