Category: Hockey East (Page 4 of 10)

Battle of Comm Ave DVD Pre-Sale Begins Today

1 October, 2009 / Kat

If you've ever ridden the T, you know the Green Line is the most menancing thing in this poster. Screw being checked by a BC guy.

Just a quick note for those of you who were intrigued in my July interview with Rival Films’ Matt Fults on the Boston University-Boston College documentary, The Battle of Comm Ave. A pre-sale of the DVD begins today and ends on October 9. During this time, you can get the Director’s Cut DVD for half price, with free shipping. The DVD will ship November 1st.

The made-for-TV version – minus the Director’s Cut’s 32 minutes of extra footage – will air several times on NESN in November.

Even if you despise both BU and BC, you can never go wrong with supporting mainstream media coverage of college hockey, especially when the DVD is the price of one beer at an arena.

Five Questions With…Matt Fults of Rival Films (The Battle of Comm Ave.)

12 July, 2009 / Kat

The Boston College – Boston University hockey rivalry has been fought for approximately 91 years, and to some sports fans, it may be one of the best rivalries in all of college athletics. Geography is what makes the rivalry unique, since the two schools lie on the same street, on the same street car line, and in the same hockey conference.

Given that both BC and BU have combined to win the last two NCAA Division I Championships, their tradition-laced rivalry has started to receive additional national attention. Sure to add to this national spotlight will be the November release of The Battle of Comm Ave, a documentary on the rivalry by Utah-based Rival Films. The film will premiere on NESN, with an DVD release following. Rival Films’ Matt Fults agreed to answer some questions about the film, the company’s use of social media, and about his own favorite sports documentaries. Continue reading

What We Know of The Great Outdoors

25 June, 2009 / Kat

The NHL is currently teaching everyone a lesson in basic marketing with its handling of the Winter Classic announcement. Create a buzz by releasing information about a program piece by piece, and make people clamor for more.

It's safe to say hockey fans are becoming obsessed with Fenway Park. (Photo by me.)

But although complete and official information about the 2010 Winter Classic and subsequent events will not be released until July 1st at the earliest, there is enough substantial information out there to piece together five nearly certain pieces of the official announcement.

– The NHL game at Fenway Park will be the Boston Bruins versus the Philadelphia Flyers. After the owner of the Washington Capitals, the Bruins’ most rumored opponent, mentioned that the team had no plans to be part of a January 1, 2010 game last week, the Flyers have been the most reported and substantiated replacement.

– The ice at Fenway Park will be down for several weeks. Having the Winter Classic at a ballpark as opposed to an NFL stadium affords the organizers much more time to bring in the rink system, as the latest baseball runs is the first week in November. When the Winter Classic was held at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buf-town (which is what I’m allowed to call Buffalo because I’m a bitter Rochestarian), the major complaint is that event organizers did not have enough time to lay down the ice surface and troubleshoot any problems because of the NFL season ending only days before. With Fenway Park the NHL’s to play with from mid-November on, not only can any system problems be fixed much before the main event, other events can use the ice surface.

The Saugus versus The Swedish: The Frozen Four Battle No One Is Talking About

9 April, 2009 / Kat

Of all the storylines heading into tonight’s Boston University versus University of Vermont Frozen Four semifinal matchup, one has been overwhelmingly ignored: the fact that UVM’s Viktor Stalberg and BU’s Jason Lawrence are currently tied for fourth in the country in goals at 24 a piece, and are the last two players still playing this season from the top five in that list.

Whoever wins the battle tonight will have the opportunity to move into either second or third on that list, seeing that both MacGregor Sharp (26 goals) and Brock Bradford (25 goals) and their teams are no longer in the tournament. (Air Force powerhouse Jacques Lamoureux’s 33 goals might be a tough target to hit for either Stalberg or Lawrence, but hey, stranger things have happened in two games.)

So who’s going to win the battle tonight, come out ahead on the goal statistics and have the opportunity to add more goals to their stats on Saturday? To figure this out, I consulted with Cameron Frye, fellow hockey blogger, and professed fan of “The Swedish”, and we each took our own positions on the topic. I will let Ms. Frye go first:

The Everyone’s Favorite Goalie Watch: Oh, Mr. Thiessen. I Didn’t See You Over There

5 April, 2009 / Kat

After giving Everyone’s Favorite Goalie, John Curry, a fellow Hockey East alum earlier in the week – Northeastern senior Joe Vitale – the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins surprised us college hockey fans, and it seems others, by signing Northeastern junior goalie Brad Thiessen on Friday.

Although some had speculated he might leave school early (including myself very briefly last weekend before his team’s NCAA semifinal loss to Cornell), I don’t know if it was particularly expected. Especially a move to the Penguins organization, which seems to be stockpiling goalies like 1950s families stocked canned vegetables in fail-safe shelters. (At the end of the world, there is not such a thing as too many cans of creamed corn. Or, it seems, too many undrafted college goalies.)

What does this mean for Everyone’s Favorite Goalie? Is this a confirmation of his spot as the somewhat-revitalized Marc-Andre Fleury’s backup next season? Or does the Penguins organization think that they want to have some grand goalie cage match next training camp? Thiessen, Curry, Fleury, Dave Brown, Chad Johnson and Adam Berkhoel all go at it, and the two still standing get a chance in the NHL? That would make an amazing reality show…in Canada.

As for Thiessen, I’m kind of disappointed he won’t be back next year. Given the youth of Northeastern’s team, they were a lock to compete for the top spot in Hockey East again next year. Since Thiessen started every single game for the Huskies last year, no one is quite sure what type of goalies they have coming up behind him. Thiessen definitely was deserving of the Hockey East Player of the Year award, and really kept the Huskies in the mix all season long. Now the Huskies seem like a giant question mark heading into 2009-10.