What Michigan State Men's Hockey Head Coach Adam Nightingale Said About Boston College Ahead of Matchup
The No. 2 Boston College men’s hockey team kicks off its season on Friday evening with a road game against the No. 4 Michigan State Spartans.
The Spartans, on the other hand, have already started their season and will come into the matchup a perfect 2-0 on the year after recording a pair of wins against Lake Superior State over the weekend 2-1 (overtime) and 5-1.
On Tuesday, Michigan State head coach Adam Nightingale spoke about the upcoming series with Boston College and how meaningful it is to have a matchup of this magnitude for the fans.
“We’re excited about having a program like them in our building,” said Nightingale. “Our fans have been awesome and there’s no seats and none of that so that’s a great thing. They’re a program that’s played in a lot of big games too and a proud program, so they’ll be ready to go here but I do think it’s awesome that our fans get to see hockey like this this weekend.”
Nightingale mentioned last year’s series with the Eagles which Boston College swept and how that gave the team momentum down the stretch of the season.
“No doubt,” said Nightingale. “I think that’s the goal every weekend, you want to find things out about your team and we found out some good things and some things we needed to work on. I think after that, we went on a stretch there, I don’t think we lost in regulation until January. Yeah, I think that’s our job as coaches to put our team in positions to challenge them and we’re excited.”
He also called the series a lesson and is hoping to bring what it taught the team into the games.
“That was a great learning lesson for our group and hopefully we can carry some of those things we learned into this weekend,” said Nightingale.
The 44-year-old credited the scheduling to helping build its program and spoke highly of the Eagles, calling them one of the best.
“I think Tom’s obviously done a great job scheduling, I think that’s really important,” said Nightingale. “If you want to be one of the top programs you have to play the top programs. That’s certainly the thought process of adding Boston College.”
Although an important matchup, the third-year head coach believes the focal point is the team and not Boston College.
“We’ve studied Boston College and ton of respect for how they play but we also got a lot to work on in our game and I think you can sometimes go down a rabbit hole of focusing so much on the opponent and you forget to focus on the most important thing and that’s your own team,” said Nightingale.
