BC soars back to Frozen Four in Motown

WORCESTER – The Boston College hockey team has played on some pretty grand stages already this season with games at TD Garden and Fenway Park but now the Eagles are off to play on the biggest stage college hockey will have ever had: Ford Field in Detroit.On Sunday at the DCU Center, the Eagles punched their eighth ticket to the Frozen Four since 1998 and 22nd in program history thanks to a wild and wacky 9-7 win over Yale in the Northeast Regional final of the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championships.How wild was the game? BC defenseman Carl Sneep actually had a 170-foot shorthanded goal in the first period that put the Eagles ahead to stay.BC will play either Miami (Ohio) or Michigan on Thursday, April 8 at 8:30 p.m. RIT, the shocking winner of the East Regional, and West Regional champion Wisconsin will play in the first semifinal in Detroit that night.Ironically, the Eagles and Badgers also were participants in the last Frozen Four held in Motown in 1990 when Wisconsin beat the Eagles, 2-1, in the national semifinals en route to a national championship.”The games are all different here in the national tournament,” BC coach Jerry York said. “Yale was as talented an offensive team as we’ve had the chance to play all season. I was never comfortable that the game was over, even with that big lead, because of their skills.”The records fell at a furious pace in Worcester on Sunday.BC tied a regional record for goals in a game with nine tallies while the 16 combined goals blew the old record of 13 out of the books. Eagle freshman Jimmy Hayes set a record with his goals 23 seconds apart in the third period while Yale’s Mark Arcobello had a hat trick and three assists to tie Maine’s Steve Kariya for the all-time single game scoring mark in a regional.”I am so proud of this club, especially for the seniors because they’ve been unbelievable leaders for us this year,” York said about a senior class that is now 20-1 in postseason play during their careers.Nothing came easy to the Eagles on Sunday as Hayes’ record setting explosion had staked them to a 9-4 lead with 12:44 left in regulation. The Bulldogs (21-10-3), though, didn’t pack it in as Arcobello, Brian O’Neill and Broc Little punched home goals over the next five minutes to give the Eagles something to think about down the stretch.”I was very proud of this team,” Yale coach Kevin Allain said. “There were numerous times when they could have packed it in and they never did.”Sophomore Cam Atkinson was named the region’s Most Outstanding Player for the Eagles as he had a hat trick and an assist and was a plus-5 in the game for the Eagles. Linemates Joe Whitney and Brian Gibbons helped to combine for a six-goal, 10-point night at a plus-14 for the Eagles.”Cam’s emergence has been remarkable,” York said. “He was a terrific player in high school at Avon Old Farms and it took him a while to adjust to the quickness of the college game. But he’s progressed very, very well and has to be considered one of the best players in the country right now.”Atkinson and Arcobello were the first players from opposing teams to record hat tricks in the same game since Clarkson’s Scott Thomas and Northern Michigan’s Scott Beattie did it in the 1992 West Regional semifinals.The game was tied 1-1 late in the first when Sneep’s 170-foot shot took an evil bounce in front of Yale goalie Ryan Rondeau and got past him to put the Eagles ahead after one period.”There’s not a lot you can do about a goal like that,” Allain said.Sneep’s goal gave BC a major lift as it tried to blow the Bulldogs out of the DCU Center in the second period, scoring four times in a 12-minute span to turn a 2-1 game into a commanding 6-2 lead. Yale fought back late in the period as Arcobello and Denny Kearney scored 1:27 apart to cut the lead to a pair after two.Atkinson completed his hat trick early in the third for a 7-4 lead before Hayes’ two goals in 23 seconds finally had BC fans resting easy. But Yale fought back to make it close before