Bring on the Baby Pens

The Bears clinched a playoff spot last night with a 5-2 win over the Phantoms. Bridgeport needed to win out and have the Bears lose to clinch a playoff spot, but fortnuately they lost last night, so the Bears are in. Their first round matchup is Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. This is a divisional rivalry between two pretty evenly matched teams. The Bears easily disposed of the Baby Pens in the playoffs last year, so hopefully this year is a repeat. After a skid that almost put their season in jeopardy, Hershey seems to be back on track, going 6-2-1-1 in their last ten games. They conclude the regular season tonight with a game against Binghampton, and then the playoffs begin on Wednesday the 16th. Hopefully everyone is healthy and well rested by then. I'd love to see a third consecutive trip to the finals for the boys in Chocolate and White.

In other news, Boston College beat surprising Notre Dame last night 4-1 to win the NCAA Men's Hockey championship, their first since 2001 and third in program history. I kind of wanted Notre Dame to win because they were the underdog and it would have been their first national championship. They scored what I think was a legit goal that would have made it 3-2 midway through the third period, but the goal review team declared that it was kicked in. The instant replay showed the puck deflect off of the guy's skate and in. This is legal as long as there is no distinct kicking motion. There was a kicking motion AFTER the puck had hit his skate and was on its way into the net, but he did not make a kicking motion when he actually hit the puck into the net. I think it was a bullshit no goal. Thirty seconds later BC went down and scored to make it 4-1 and that was that. That's just how the puck bounces some days.