Game Day—Breaking the Ice in St. Louis—UPDATED

Tonight, BU begins regular season play, facing the Wisconsin Badgers in the opening round of the Warrior Ice Breaker Tournament at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. Terriers play in the second game of the evening, scheduled for a 8:30 p.m. CT, 9:30 p.m. ET start. They’ll play either Notre Dame or Holy Cross in the finals on Sunday.

This is the second time in three seasons that BU plays in this event. In 2008-09, the Terriers hosted the Ice Breaker at Agganis Arena where a 5-1 win over North Dakota and a 2-1 win over Michigan State earned the team the first of seven championships en route to the national title.

BU and Wisconsin have met 14 times over the years. The first game was the Terriers' 4-1 win the semifinals of the 1972 NCAA tournament. The most recent was the Badgers' 3-2 in the championship game of the 2001 Badger Classic. BU's record in the series is 14-8-6.

GoTerriers.com's preview has game notes and a link to the Radio Webcast on 1510 The Zone with Bernie Corbett and Tom Ryan back to call the action.

The Boston Hockey Blog will be live blogging throughout the tournament, as will WTBU.

Tonight's BU lineup

12 Connolly-3 Coyle-6 Pereira
17 Nieto-18 Megan- 15 Santana
19 Courtnall-28 Gill-16 Gilroy
14 Glass-22 Gaudet- 27 Cisse

5 Warsofsky-4 Clendening
13 Noonan-7 Nicastro
21 Escobedo-2 Ruikka

31 Millan


The Boston Globe’s Nancy Marrapese-Burrel talked with Jack Parker –and former BU co-captain Mike Eruzione—about the longtime coach’s successful recovery from heart bypass surgery this summer.

► The Daily Free Press and The Boston Hockey Blog offer five articles to kickoff the season:
• Terrier season preview
• Chris Connolly’s Amazing Journey
• Max Nicastro profile
• Jack Parker: a new defensive scheme
• Mike Boyle: strength training pioneer

• College Hockey News previews the Ice Breaker Tournament
• WTBU pregame coverage
• St. Louis Dispatch pregame coverage

► Check out College Hockey News' Game Night Scoreboard which refreshes all scores every two minutes.

► If you’re signing up for the Hockey Prime Time pay-per-view Webcasts of the Icebreaker (4 games for $9.95), be aware that the games are only shown live. There will not be any archived viewings.

►USCHO has completed its season preview with Dave Hendrickson's and Jim Connelly's look at Hockey East, which picks the Terriers fourth, exactly as in the preseason coaches' poll. The preview of BU is here.

►The Boston Hockey Blog reported on Thursday that Vinny Saponari, dismissed from the Terrier team last Spring will enroll at Boston College in the fall of 2011 after spending the current season in the USHL with Dubuque.

Looking back
Former BU defenseman David Lopresti has joined the staff of ex-Terrier Matt Wright at New Hampton School. Wright, who scored the final college hockey goal at the old Boston Garden in 1995 in BU’s 3-2 win over Providence in the Hockey East championship game, is in his second year at New Hampton.

Also coaching in the New England Prep ranks are Dan Donato at The Dexter School, Tony Amonte at Thayer Academy, Shawn McEachern at The Rivers School and Scott Young at St. Marks.