Re: BU Off-Season: Forward to the Past
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I just watched the BU - Lake St game in the 1995 NCAA QF, Kai Linna's hat trick game. ESPN displayed a graphic stating it was his 3rd career hatty. Sean?
Boy that doesn't sound right. Any defenseman with a HT is pretty rare, which is what made that game when both Schaefer and Whitney had one even crazier (Princeton?).
Linna was one of my favorite D-men of that era (after Brennan), but I don't think he was that offensive. If he did have 2 others, I feel like one might have been at Matthews.
Wasn't there a BU poster on this site who thought Linna was awful?
Yes, although it might have been on the old AOL boards? He was adamant that Linna was one of the worst defensemen he had ever seen. I met up with him at a Regional or FF once. We agreed to disagree.
I have another memory that could be way off. During Linna's freshman season (91-92), I think that was the year that BC upset us at home in the first round of the HE tourney (they had a bad year, maybe they were #7 and we were #2 seed?). When the outcome was no longer in doubt, there was a small skirmish in the Section 8 (student) corner of the ice. BU was obviously frustrated with the result, even though they knew they were going on to the NCAAs. Someone from BC kept shoving Linna, I think in the cage area (think Marchand and the Sedin twin from 2011SC finals). Linna finally decided he had had enough, and laid into the kid pretty good and took him down. It was small consolation for the BU fans. That was Cegrlaski's last year, so his team gave him a bit of a parting gift with that win.
No, Linna only had the one hat trick; it's likely that ESPN meant to say 1st career hat trick on the graphic. His only other multiple goal game was his freshman season when he scored 2 goals on 6 December 1991 at Matthews Arena.
Yes, I remember that BU poster; I believe that after graduation he moved (back?) to Georgia. I had some online conversations with him, but I never met up with him. Beside Linna being the worst defenseman he had ever seen he repeatedly stated that BU would never win a NCAA title with him on the team. After BU won in '95 I mentioned his statements to him and he refused to admit he was wrong and said that BU won despite Linna (ignoring that BU had won WITH Linna on the team).
Schaeffer and Whitney both had there only career hat tricks on 30 November 2003 vs Yale.
Yes, it was the 1992 tournament where #5 BC came into WBA and beat #4 BU, 5-2. One of the most disappointing losses I've seen by a BU team. BTW, don't bother looking at the standings on the Hockey East website, they retroactively "corrected" the standing to reflect Maine's retroactive forfeits several years later. Here are the actual standings:
<img src="https://www.buhockeyarchives.com/Charts/1991-92 standings on ice.png">
As can be seen BU was tied with Providence, but they lost the tie breaker and were seeded fourth. Here are the "corrected" standings:
<img src="https://www.buhockeyarchives.com/Charts/1991-92 standings with forfeits.png">
As can be seen the major change is New Hampshire winning the regular season and BU tying Maine for second (and taking the second seed as they win the tie breaker). Providence drops from second to fourth, while none of the lower place teams change positions. So, BU would have played Northeastern in the quarterfinals and not BC. BU was 0-2-1 vs BC in the regular season, while they were 4-0 vs NU, although the last two were one goal games. So, BU would likely have had a better chance of beating NU, but if they had then they would most likely have faced Maine in the semifinals, against whom BU is 0-forever (although they were only 0-1 at that time).
Sean
D) or BC