Boston College Eagles Hockey (Hockey East) @ (Kelley Rink at) Conte Forum (Chestnut Hill, MA)

The hockey team closest to my childhood home

*This was written over the course of two visits to Boston College - the first one on November 17, 2023, and the second one on February 23, 2024¹. I will also mention that UMass Lowell's home opener is tonight as well, but I've already talked about them.

Boston College is a historic school officially in Chestnut Hill, MA - a “village” that is partially in Boston, partially in Newton, and partially in Brookline. As I recall, much of BC’s campus is technically in the Newton section of Chestnut Hill, which leads to a common jeer towards BC from other Boston schools: “NOT FROM BOSTON”. Given that Newton, MA is my hometown...I will take the advice of my mother (a BC Law graduate) and plead the fifth as to how I feel about that.

As much as Boston College wants to be a “national player” in the college sports landscape as an ACC member (one of the so called "Power Four" conferences), the reality is that they kinda aren’t outside of Doug Flutie (who played for BC 40 YEARS AGO) and the hockey team. Said hockey team has won five national championships - tied for the most among Hockey East teams with a nearby school that BC students love to hate (whilst most Bostonians who didn’t go to BC love to hate BC sports).

In 2023, an influx of players who were drafted in the first round of the NHL draft helped propel the Eagles to the top of the college hockey rankings...but not the world: they got shutout in the national championship game. Fast forward a year, and while some of the talent they had left for the NHL, they still had a very strong core; unfortunately, they STILL didn’t win - getting eliminated before the Frozen Four in their own backyard (technically it was in Manchester, NH, but it’s still pretty close). With the talent that propelled BC to the top now pretty much all gone for the NHL, expectations heading into 2025 are MUCH more muted than in recent years.

Back to the arena, I actually grew up pretty much around the corner from it, and the first time I can remember walking into Conte Forum was sometime in the late 90s (it was opened in 1988). My brother had a karate thing in what essentially amounts to an auxiliary gym, and I remember wandering around the main arena’s seating bowl (I’m pretty sure I went all the way down to ice/court level, and even onto the floor itself). Fast forward 20-something years, and that gym is still there - and it looks like it got a renovation! What does that have to do with this place as a hockey (and basketball) arena? Not much - but it’s still a fun story.

Anyway, one of the biggest surprises about coming to a BC Hockey game: parking is free! Given that BC is, well, BC, and that the hockey program is one of the school's major programs, this is a very welcome "surprise". For some strange reason, however, the school's website does insinuate that for whatever reason, women's hockey games do NOT have free parking while other sports (such as both men's and women's basketball) do².

The concourse here is very open at the ends of the ice (which have cool displays of BC sporting history), but the sides have largely limited views of the ice due to concession and merchandise stands being on the side closer to the ice. Part of this is due to the presence of many, MANY rows of upper seats on the sides of the arena (likely due to the D-1 basketball team in a premier conference); these seats make Conte the second largest arena in Hockey East (and if you sit way up at the top, you’ll feel like you’re in the upper decks at an NHL game with how far the ice is). Fair warning if you want to sit in these upper sections: the seats have no backs (though they’re not metal benches thankfully). In lieu of upper seats, the ends of the rink have large videoboards (plus suites); there’s no center hung scoreboard here (possibly due to a low ceiling plus a bunch of banners), so these are your main sources of game info.

Oddly amongst the Hockey East games I went to...there was no pep band (or at least there wasn’t one either game I went to; a different game I saw on TV had one); given that BC had one of the largest student turnouts I saw at any of these college hockey games, that seems rather odd to me. There was an organist, however, and they also had recordings of BC-related band songs (the fight song after the first and second periods, and BC’s Alma Mater after the game). The student sections behind both goals were pretty full (there was a decent line outside the arena pregame) for a good part of the first game (a 5-4 OT BC win, which was the first college hockey game I went to where the home team won).

However, A lot of people - students and others - left the second game rather early despite #1 BC DOMINATING (or because of that)³. I also have to give them some credit: the second game featured a goalie change, and after waving the starter goodbye after he couldn’t prevent BC from kicking the extra point, they directed their traditional “GOAL SIEVE” chant at the bench and not the new goalie. Also, BC did what can only be described as a “homie goalie change”, and the crowd went wild whenever the replacement did literally anything (he rarely saw the ice because their starter at the time was widely considered one of the best goalies in the NCAA).

If you’re looking for food postgame, there are a few places near-ish campus, but they’re a bit of a ways from the arena itself and I’m not sure when they close on gamedays. However, if you need chips/candy/popcorn postgame, there’s a couple of grocery stores that are open rather late nearby; just be aware that the hot bar and service counters are going to be closed (RIP Omni Foods). There’s also Frank Pepe's (though it may be closed a bit early) and a The Cheesecake Factory at the good ol’ Mall at Chestnut Hill or whatever it's officially called now (RIP Atrium Mall and the store where I bought my first Pokémon cards back in 199-I-forget-when).

Because the first game I went to fell on one of our unfortunately increasing “randomly warm days in what’s supposed to be fall and winter”, there was a special “fan fest” going on before the game at BC's adjacent football stadium - it was kinda unimpressive IMO: one concession stand where the grill wasn’t working properly and a merchandise table with VERY limited merchandise. Seemingly, they also hold these in a different location for colder weather games, so maybe that’s better (I WAS thinking of checking out one of these, but decided not to).

MERCH

Conte is somewhat unique amongst the college hockey arenas I’ve been to in that not only are there dedicated merchandise stands amongst the concession stands, there’s more than one of them. I actually don’t recall if I bought anything from these stands, however, as I got most things from other areas: the main campus bookstore and a secondary store on the way to the arena from the parking garage. This secondary store seems to specialize in BC athletics merch; it’s typically open before games, and MAYBE after (though I can’t be certain; I think it was open after one game but closed after the other).

The second game I went to also featured something I didn’t see anywhere else: customizable jerseys! I believe this is tied to the NCAA’s NIL movement or something, but you could have them heat press a name and number onto a jersey - so if you were, say, driving up for a game from Philadelphia, you could have not-so-wisely spent $215 on a Cutter Gauthier jersey to...do whatever you want to do with it (or heckle the crap out of him on the ice if security let you in)⁴.

One final note: BC is getting new jerseys this year, and while I am interested in their new maroon jersey, the combination of a $245 price tag plus the bookstore website saying the jersey is sublimated has me scared...