Sunday, January 25, 2026

Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist

 

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Tanner Adams PHOTO: PC

The Providence College hockey are officially the hottest team in college hockey.  The Friars swept another blueblood Hockey East opponent for the third weekend in a row.  Six straight wins.

They have now won nine of their last ten games and move to 15-7-2 for the season.

This weekend, the Friars took down the Boston University Terriers with a 4-3 win on Friday night at home at Schneider and a stunning 4-0 shutout Saturday night at BU’s Harry Agganis Arena.

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In case you forgot, the pre-season hockey polls had BU picked #2 in the country and #1 in Hockey East.  And this is a BU team that features two All-American candidates, forward Cole Eiserman and defenseman Cole Hutson.

In Friday night’s game at Schneider, a near sellout crowd and a rocking selection of Queen music helped the Friars to a dominating win, even though PC needed a late score to win it, 4-3.  The score does not reflect PC’s dominance in the game.  PC was in BU’s zone 70% of the game, PC had 40 shots on goal to BU’s 19, and PC won 61% of the face offs.

PC led after one period 2-0, on the strength of power play goals by Logan Sawyer and Hudson Malinoski.  Thanks to PC’s aggressive forechecking, BU struggled to get the puck out of its own zone and managed to get just 4 shots on PC’s freshman netminder, Jack Parsons.

BU countered early in the second period with a bullet slap shot in the slot from Cole Eiserman that PC’s Parsons had no chance on.  PC couldn’t put the game away in the second period as BU’s goalie Mikhail Yegorov was stellar in net.

The Schneider Arena fans were barely back in their seats when BU stunned the Friars with a goal at 28 seconds of the third period.  A sinking feeling was palpable in the home crowd: PC was once again going to dominate its opponent and settle for a tie.  But PC defenseman Kale McCallum brought the home fans to their feet with a goal at 11:49 to give PC the 3-2 edge.

Amazingly, BU answered a little more than a minute later on the same play as BC’s first goal: BU won the draw to the left of Parsons, and an unguarded Cole Eiserman cleanly drilled a goal from the slot that Parsons only heard going by him.

PC’s Clint Levens missed a penalty shot at 14:08, but BU coughed up the puck in their own end with 3 minutes to go and the Friars Aleksi Kivoija hammered home a neat pass from Clint Levens to ice the game for PC and give the Friars a 4-3 win.

Saturday’s game hero was PC goalie Jack Parsons as he stopped all 33 of BU’s shots on goal.  PC got on the scoreboard early with a John Mustard goal at 2:08 in the first period. PC clung to a 1-0 lead after two periods as BU outshot the Friars 22-15.   

PC responded with 3 goals in the last 10 minutes of play, the first one by Julius Sumpf at 10:34, which took the wind out of the Terriers.  PC dominated the rest of the period and got two more goals, both by Tanner Adams, including an empty-netter to put the game out of reach for the Terriers.  Once again, the Friars forced BU into turnovers and cashed in on them to give the Friars the sweep that sent the 5,000 BU fans scratching their heads.

 

Post Game Slap Shots

–The 4-0 Parsons shutout was his second of the season, and the freshman from Cortland, NY, now moves to 7-2-1 in relief of senior Phil Svedeback.

–Parsons and the Friars smothered BU’s power play.  BU went 0-10 for the weekend.

–The 4-0 PC win was the first Friar win at BU since 2018

–The weekend sweep of BU was PC’s first since 1998, 28 years ago.

–When was the last time the Friars swept both BC and BU in the same season?  Never; this was the first time in program history.

–The Friars only have one game next weekend, a tough one at Orono, ME, versus the Maine Black Bears on Saturday night, January 31st.

–The Friars return to home ice at Schneider on Saturday, February 7th, against the Vermont Catamounts.  Puck drop is at 7:00 PM.

Bob McMahon is the former Director of Parks in the City of Providence and a lifelong Providence College Friar fan.


 

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