PC Hockey: Too much!!

For Brown, at least.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Mayor's Cup Champions!!!

Two rivals: Out you two pixies go through the door or through the window!

Apparently, it is rivalry week in Friar Country, an event so momentous that it nearly escaped by attention. As I intimated about a month ago, PC really lacks a truly consistent rival in ice hockey. The same is not true in basketball. The Dribbling Friars (which just sounds wrong, doesn't it?) have the University of Rhode Island Rams, a team that not only plays the Friars even, but who has a fan base that intensely dislikes PC and everything about it! Awesome! It also helps that - unlike with BC, BU, Brown, and UNH in ice hockey, PC has a winning record against Rhody and thus is the obstacle - a nice change from the hockey team.

It helps that PC fans actually acknowledge Rhody as a rival. This comment might be disputed by some Rams fans, I do get the impression that PC fans legitimately care about winning this game. While some arrogantly assume that PC should "always" win this contest, in reality I think most of us realize that this is going to be a tough contest (especially at the Ryan Center where URI never misses a 3 point shot). I don't think anyone really looks down on the Atlantic Ten to the extent where they think URI is a "gimme" - there are too many upsets in this series. Still no one at PC "hates" Rhody the same way they dislike UCONN, Georgetown, BC or Syracuse. And a quick trip to the Providence Journal message board (I wouldn't recommend it) will convince you that a sizable subset of Rhody fans are obsessed with PC and the renovation of the Dunkin Donuts Center to a level that makes the "Yankees Suck" phenomenon look entirely rational.

And on the opposite side of the coin, we have Brown hockey. Not only does no one at Brown seem to seriously hate PC hockey (which these days is like having a personal grudge against the Clippers), they don't seem to care about hockey, period. It's easy to see why. Brown has had precious little success since going to the Frozen Four in 1976. PC fans really don't hate Brown. In fact, I root for Brown when they aren't playing PC. So much for hate.

So we go from the irrational feelings on both sides of the PC/URI rivalry to the feeling of "meh" in ice hockey. So far, irrational wins over meh with PC taking out URI by one free throw on Saturday and the worst season in PC ice hockey continuing on Tuesday.

Rant of the Week: Not a creature was stirring... except for Mr. Hanky!

As far as updates on my beloved Skating Friars, there aren't any. Literally nothing has changed in the past month. It's nice that the team put forth solid efforts in both third periods last weekend, but the result was still two 4-2 losses. One of these days, the team will put together these third periods into a 60 minute game and come up with their third win of the year.

What better time to get this win against winless Brown? The Bears have two less wins than PC, proving that the Friars might not be the most pathetic team in college hockey. Of course, the game is at Meehan Auditorium and will feature ECAC officials, making this an uphill climb. I've never seen a greater variety of insane, imaginary calls than the ones called against PC in ECAC rinks. It looks highly likely that the Mayor's Cup will be going back to Bruno in a game that no one - except a handful of people on both sides - really cares about any more.

The good news is that the Friday night game at Quinnipiac will be on NESN. All of New England will be able to see if PC can FINALLY get off the mat against the Skating Deer Ticks.

Random rants:

-Two things that cracked me up this week: Dave Hendrickson's annual Christmas column where Tim Army refers to Santa Claus as a "pantload" and MeanEgirl's entry on the MTU Blog that is basically Mr. Hanky's cousin. Misery can actually be really funny.

-Also, in the amusing category, yet another Dan Shaugnessy column where he not only jumps the gun, he launches himself into orbit. I'm very close to sending Charlie Chaplin to torch Mr. Shaugnessy's keyboard for this outstanding display of hubris. The Celtics are many things, but "invincible" is not one of them.
Notice the comments section - always a display of idiocy whenever it appears - is full of Portland Trailblazer fans talking smack about their "new" dynasty. Apparently, standards of dynasties have dropped precipitously when 14 wins in December constitutes a "dynasty". And this after people tried to deny the Pats had a dynasty after 3 Super Bowl wins in four years - mostly with logic that would have you laughed out of Socrates' classroom in Athens. If PC wins either the Brown or QU games, I'm declaring the Friars a legitimate dynasty! Go us!

-Hi Mark! and... best of luck!

Rant of Week: PC's greatest rival?

One of the great frustrations in being an alumni of Providence College is the lack of a true rival. Friar basketball fans might dislike UCONN, Syracuse and Georgetown, but all of those schools have more impressive rivals to feud with and - let's be fair here - PC can't beat any of them on a consistent basis. Except maybe UCONN, and that was only last year. Similarly, URI fans dislike PC with the fire of a thousand suns, but not even I would go out of my way to lavish a similar feeling on the Rams. So finding a basketball rival is a bit of a problem.

A similar situation exists in hockey. I thought I would go down the list of potential rivals. Here are the teams I'm eliminating right off the bat: UML (I actually like them), UMASS (not enough water under the bridge), Merrimack (last year notwithstanding), NU (too much in common), UVM (too new), and Maine (teetering towards complete irrelevance). This leaves the following four schools:

Brown: Bruno makes the cut because the over all series is pretty much dead even (I think the Bears have a one or two game lead) and the results of Mayor's Cup usually have nothing to do with the record of either team. There are several problems here. The first of which is that PC is not Brown's arch rival. That would be Harvard and that particular rivalry dates back to the 19th century. The second problem is that if you compare the strengths of the two programs, PC is out in front by a very wide margin. PC has more ECAC titles that Bruno, and they haven't been in the ECAC since 1984. Third, as horrible as the attendance is for PC home games (probably due to the LOUD SPEAKERS!) the attendance at Meehan is actually worse. That thought always give me pause. How can you lavish hate on a team with a smaller fan base than yourself? The only fans who even deserve a smidgen of dislike are the people in the band. Fourth, and most importantly, I like Brown. And I really shouldn't be able to say that about a rival.

New Hampshire: One of the main motivators for finding a team you hate is jealousy and it's easy to covet certain parts of the Wildcat's program. UNH has a much larger fan base, a lovely rink, a program that's always ranked in the top 10 and gets home ice every year, and a period of competence that dates back to the 70's. The problem with UNH is that "competence" doesn't quite equal dominance. The Wildcats have the smallest series lead of any of the teams PC plays in the Big Four. They also have LESS tournament titles than PC (four is greater than three) and have never won the national title either - even with many more Frozen Four appearances. The other problem is that the days of Kitty fans constantly complainng about how "dirty" the Skating Goons of PC are seem to be in the past. In fact, UNH's constant inability to win the national championship seems to have depressed the entire fan base. How can a team be a rival when their fan base is almost as unhappy as your own? And who in their right mind would want to get rid of Dick Umile?

Boston College: It's much easier to envy BC: better rink, larger fan base (although not as big as UNH), countless conference titles, a massive overall advantage over PC and three national titles. Yet, there's still plenty to dislike. The school considers itself a Football School, which means that as much as some of the fans really like hockey, most of them are more interested in football or even basketball. Also, the band plays "For Boston" about 90 times per game which puts them in the same category as Michigan (but still ahead of MTU and their catchy yet toxic Penalty Kill Ditty). The Eagles seem to enjoy nothing more than ruining my evening, which is an excellent reason to dislike them. The piece de resistance was last year when PC won the season series 2-0-1 against BC only to get drubbed in the playoffs. I hate it when that happens. BC also seems to have at least one completely unlikeable yet insanely talented (and usually diminutive) player on their roster each and every year.
It would seem that BC would be perfect as PC's rival. But there are a few problems. First of all, PC will never be considered a rival with BU around. And certainly not with the Eagles in the ACC. Superfans might take the Friars more seriously if they had a football team. Secondly, we have Jerry York. I have yet to find anyone in college hockey who doesn't love this guy: he's a great coach, a brilliant recruiter and he practically generates class. If the AD at the Heights ever loses his mind and fired Jerry, I will personally drive him to Schneider Arena.

Boston University: The Terriers are the most successful team in the east - nevermind Hockey East - so there's plenty to be jealous of an dislike. The huge fan base, the fantastic rink, the plethora of hardware and that meaningless tournament they keep winning. No team - not even BC - has done more to ruin the Friar's season as BU. If BU isn't actually beating them in the playoffs, they're dragging out the proceedings for two overtimes. It does help that BU has played PC in the playoffs more than any other team. So BU is an excellent choice, even if you disregard the hairy half naked men and Jackie Parker's voodoo mind hold on whatever official Hockey East cares to put on the ice.
But as always, we do have problems. BU has more enemies than any other team in college hockey: ALL of Hockey East, plus Harvard, Cornell, and - for some reason - Minnesota. Clearly, PC is not alone in disliking BU. But the BC rivalry is the biggest in the east - if not all of college hockey. The second problem is the near obsession that the team has with winning the Beanpot. Clearly, it's tough to take a rivalry seriously when your "rival" is looking forward to the first and second Monday in February.

I think that for PC fans, BU and BC are probably the two closest thing we have to "rivals", even if neither team would care to see PC in that light.

Random Rants:
-I'll keep it short... HI MARK!