After knocking off Merrimack College in consecutive nights last weekend, the Boston University men’s hockey team heads into the final weekend of January with fresh experiences on the horizon.
For the first time all season, the Terriers (11-11-2, 9-7-2 Hockey East) enter a weekend series having swept their previous opponent. Not only that, but this weekend’s foe is not just any ordinary Hockey East competition, as BU visits the Valley of the Sun to face Arizona State University.
The Terriers touched down in Arizona Wednesday evening, set to face off against the Sun Devils (7-14-5) twice this weekend. Friday night’s contest will be held at Gila River Arena, just across the street from the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale where the New England Patriots trumped the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in Super Bowl XLIX.
On Saturday, the two teams will head 30 minutes southeast to Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe for the series finale.
Facing Hockey East competition is nothing new for the Sun Devils. In fact, their last two weekends have been spent hosting teams from New England.
Being that the Pac-12 Conference does not have a men’s hockey division, Arizona State is an independent hockey program, allowing them to schedule series against teams from across the country.
In October, the Sun Devils split a two-game series with the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They met up with then-No. 11 Providence College last month at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Classic and were trumped 6-0.
Most recently, Arizona State hosted the University of Massachusetts Lowell and another New England troup, Quinnipiac University.
The matchup against the River Hawks (14-11, 9-7 Hockey East) yielded mixed results, similar to how the Terriers fared when they faced Lowell the second weekend of December.
The Sun Devils fell 4-0 in the first meeting before flipping the script and hammering the River Hawks by the same margin the subsequent evening.