By Owen Kitzan – Sports Editor

Over the past month your BU men’s hockey team hosted two home games against American universities; Paul Smith’s College and Colgate University. With both games heavily expected to go in favor of Bishop’s, the team came in excited to try and meet these expectations.

The first of the two games took place at the Jane & Eric Molson Arena on campus against Paul Smith’s, a college from upstate New York. The other team faced issues at the border and because of this, arrived nearly an hour later than the expected puck drop. Despite this, the two teams managed to finally start the game which quickly became a blowout in favor of BU. After an early goal, it was apparent that the game was headed towards a sweep for Bishop’s. 

At the final buzzer, the scoreboard read 12-0 for Bishop’s, close to the score of 15-0 against the same team the year prior. Standout performances came from Fred Nicolas who put up a four-goal performance, Ryan Massicotte with six assists and Kieran Pike who scored his first BU men’s goal along with two others in a hat trick performance. Jack McFarland also got his first look in net, splitting the shutout performance with Patty Flynn.

The second game took place roughly 25 minutes outside of Lennoxville at the Centre Sportif J.A Lemay in Windsor, Quebec. In an anticipated game against UNYCHL division opponent Colgate, the boys came out soft, giving up a quick two-goal lead to start the first. They responded right back with two of their own making it a 2-2 game headed into the tunnel after the first. In the second it was all BU to start, jumping to a 6-2 lead which Colgate managed to bring back to 6-4 to end the second, leaving it a close game. Bishop’s came out to win in the third however, putting up two more and winning the game 8-4 against Colgate. A three-goal six-point night from Fred Nicolas once again helped to dismantle another team en route to Bishop’s being 9-1-0 on the season. 

Sadly, the team did not meet the game requirement for this year’s national tournament, despite ranking in the top ten and having a near undefeated record. Despite this, the team will have at least one more upcoming game to cap off the season in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned.