By the time the 2016 Beanpot rolled around my freshman year, I’d been watching hockey for about four months and considered myself a fairly casual fan. But those first two weeks in February really changed the way I enjoy the sport, and led me to becoming the fan that I am today.
I knew going into the first week that the Beanpot was a meaningful tournament for all four participating schools, but I really didn’t realize the gravity the tournament held in the greater Boston college hockey community. BC did have really great home crowds that season owing to the strength of the team, but it was unfathomable to me at the time that fans filled up TD Garden to watch college teams duke it out for a mid-season trophy that didn’t really have postseason implications.