Garden Variety

After the weekend the Hockey east tournament is now set to four teams, with surprises coming about from the past weekend. Lower seeds Boston College and UMass Lowell handled their first round opponents on the road easily.

The Eagles made a difficult challenge of winning at the Whittemore Center look easy on Friday night. Saturday night's game forced the anti John Muse fans to remain quiet for at least the rest of the week with the 1-0 shutout. Although they entered the tournament as a 6 seed, BC can always be considered a threat in the rest of the tourney.

The next state over the River Hawks came back from a two goal deficit to tie up Game one against Vermont with 30 seconds remaining. As if that was not heartbreaking enough, they went on to win with two seconds in overtime by a Maury Edwards goal to win 4-3. UMass Lowell did not make Saturday's game as close as they won 4-2 to complete the sweep.

While things went easy in northern New England the two series in Boston were stress filled. Maine did not get the message it was supposed to be an easy sweep for BU as the Black Bears won 6-3 Saturday. That hope and potential was lost quickly as they gave up six goals in the first two periods on Sunday en route to a 6-2 blow out.

Northeastern has a closer call against a UMass Amherst team that defeated them twice in the regular season. After falling 1-2 in the first game, and rebounding with a 4-1 victory Saturday, The Huskies were forced into overtime by the Minutemen. Finally, with 10:26 past in overtime the Huskies were able to sneak out with the 3-2 win. Another series that was harder then it should have been have people questioning if Northeastern is in a slump since losing the regular season title, or if they just have a tough time against UMass Amherst.

This weekend will be exciting as UMass Lowell takes on Northeastern at 5:00. At 8:00 p.m. the rivalry continues as Boston College looks to ruin the tournament run of top seed Boston University. Winners move on to play for the Hockey east Championship, and a guaranteed spot in the NCAA tournament.