UMass Lowell owns the nation’s longest winning streak at six. What’s most impressive is that the last five of that streak came on the road. That leads this weeks’ three things that I’ve learned.
1) UMass Lowell doesn’t mind the road
It was a gamble of Lowell coach Norm Bazin. Send the team on the road for six games. The fact that it spanned a long period – beginning in the final game before the break and ending next Saturday at Massachusetts – made the gamble a bit measured. But a four-game stretch that began at the Ledyard Bank tournament at Dartmouth on Dec. 30, included a Tuesday game at Rensselaer and then a Friday league contest against New Hampshire certainly meant negotiating many thing, including nutrition and conditioning on the road.
It has paid off for Lowell, thus far. Winning the Merrimack game before break and the four games, including the Ledyard Bank title, since then leaves the River Hawks with a six-game winning streak heading into a non-league game against Massachusetts next Saturday. Lowell is the nation’s hottest team right now and we’ll see if this trip pays dividends as the season goes on.
2) Fenway isn’t “Frozen” but snow covering makes us question the event
We all knew on Saturday there was no way that games were going to be played at Fenway Park, the fourth installment of what is becoming an overdone event for Hockey East. The games were pushed from Saturday to Sunday and played in front of a near empty-stadium based on television shots. Can this event continue? Who knows. The fact that league points remain on the line is befuddling and we’ll talk more about this later in the week. But another weather hiccup makes one shake a head about this event.
3) Without many, BU continues strong play
A win at Fenway on Sunday against Massachusetts was a good one for BU, but nowhere near as incredible as Thursday’s 5-4 overtime victory over Union on Thursday. That same night, seven BU teammates battled for the gold medal in the World Junior championship. Somehow BU pulled out a win, paced by Jacob Forsbacka-Karlsson and Bobo Carpenter, which combined with Sunday’s Fenway win give the Terriers a four-game winning streak, pacing them to the second half. Hats off to BU for its World Junior player tally but a larger hat needs to be tipped towards that win on Thursday.
