Shane Foley
Connector Editor

After being eliminated from the NCAA Frozen Four last year, UMass Lowell began the season with revenge over nemesis Boston College with a 5-2 victory.

UMass Lowell earned a long stat sheet Friday night, with many different players contributing, from senior veterans to team captains. 11 different River Hawks registered points in the game.

“Whenever you win against quality opponents, it’s gotta be a team effort,” said Head Coach Norm Bazin. “[We had] a lot of contributions from young guys and upperclassman alike.”

The scoring came from five different River Hawks, one of which was sophomore Evan Cambell and freshman Michael Louria.

“We had a lot of guys contribute tonight, and against a good team like BC you gotta have that,” said Campbell.

The action began with a scare from UMass Lowell fans on Friday. Boston College skater Chris Canlan fit one behind Goalie Kevin Boyle only 2:26 minutes after the opening puck dropped. Boston College got on a 3-2 breakaway, when Teddy Doherty raced down the ice for a slap shot. Boyle made the save, but Canlan popped the rebound in the net.

“They came out real hard,” said Boyle.

Despite the opening shot, UMass Lowell was quick to respond with three goals in the first period. Campbell, Michael Fallon and Louria all found the back of the net.

Freshman C.J. Smith also got the opportunity to stun the crowd in the first half. His assist on Louria’s goal was a play to be remembered. Smith had brought the puck out of center ice and shot the puck from the blue line. While it seemed as though a one-timer from Smith, the puck actually found the back of the stick of Louria, who was racing down in front of the net to take Smith’s shot and put it in the goal.

It was 3-1 at that point, going into the second period.

The seemingly tall UML lead disappeared when Boston College’s Ryan Fitzgerald made a critical goal for the Eagles. From Boyle’s right, he went top shelf, and squeezed the puck in a very tight window.

After making the game 3-2, the win was in jeopardy for a short while going into the third period. Robert Francis ended that jeopardy with UMass Lowell’s fourth goal early in the period. Joe Gambardella also got an empty net goal to officially seal the 5-2 victory.

Coupled with UMass Lowell’s high scoring was excellent defense. The River Hawks only let up 11 shots on goal in the first two periods from Boston College, when their own team got 19.

“I thought our defensemen got good gaps,” said Bazin. “The one thing about playing a quality opponent is you have the guys attention. We blocked a few shots.”

Perhaps the biggest contributor to the River Hawks victory was the formation of a UMass Lowell seventh man. The presence of the student section at Friday’s game was so enormous that it almost constituted another player on the ice. Exactly 2,356 students from UMass Lowell didn’t leave campus, on a long weekend nonetheless, so they could watch their hockey team open the season.

“I thought that the student section was not only noticeable, [but] they carried the momentum,” said Bazin. “When you’ve got a student section like that, the guys are skating six inches in the air.”

The River Hawk faithful expressed a constant support for their student athletes from the beginning of the game to the end, and quite literally. The game began with the customary singing of the national anthem, but the microphone had malfunctioned, leading the singer’s voice to be inaudible for the fans in the stadium. As the singer searched for a course of action, the student section started singing the opening line of “The Star Spangled Banner.” By the second line, the entire structure was singing in unison. The decibel level in the Tsongas Center didn’t drop until the final horn sounded.

“But them singing the national anthem right off the hop, it really set the tone,” said Bazin. “It was one of the greatest things I have seen.”

While earning a key victory, and a vengeful one, the River Hawks remain focused on the rest of the season. “I think it was a big win, but it was only one game,” said Campbell. “We [sic] got a long ways to go this year, and we are going to come to work every day and get better.”