Many Ohioans have loyalty to The Ohio State University. Whether it is due to a personal diploma, friends, family, or just simply watching Buckeye football on Saturday, many Ohioans create a personal relationship to the Buckeyes.
It does not seem to differ on the Bowling Green campus. In my own experience, I see scarlet and grey daily in BG, whether it be on the sweatshirts of friends, flags lining dorms, football on the TV, or conversations about Columbus and the great school that resides.
This weekend, BGSU hockey will once again see even more scarlet and grey, this time in both the Slater Family Ice Arena and Jerome Schottenstein Center.
After 19 days of no games, the Falcons drop the puck against Ohio State in Columbus on Friday and Bowling Green on Saturday. The Ohio schools have met 180 times since 1969, having played 137 games as members of the same conference, the old CCHA.
BG, historically the better team, leads the all-time series 94-77-9, and the conference series 71-58-8.
The Buckeyes have bested the Falcons 8-4-1 since 2016 after they joined the Big Ten Conference in 2014. Last year, they outscored the Falcons 14-6 in a two-game series via a three-goal weekend by Davis Burnside, Joe Dunlap, and Cam Theising.
It seems as if BG has better odds this year against OSU as the Buckeyes are 6-8-3 overall and 0-8-1 in the Big Ten, good for last place. Their issue has been scoring, especially against conference opponents. They have been outscored by 16 goals overall allowing an opponent rating of +71 to their own -76.
The Buckeyes are on average losing by nearly a full goal a game the largest disparity in their conference.
Sophomore Stephen Halliday has returned to defend his position as the leading OSU scorer. In 18 games he has scored five goals and nine assists, the only player in the first three lines with a positive rating. He is followed in scoring by Burnside with one less goal and nearly the same statistics otherwise.
Goalie work has been rough as well with a below 90% save percentage by everyday starter Logan Terness, who has played 884/1091 minutes and has allowed about 3.3 goals per game and 12 powerplay goals.
Ohio State plays its last non-conference game against Bowling Green on Friday and Saturday at 7:07 p.m., then plays the rest of its conference schedule starting with Notre Dame.
The Falcons look to begin 2024 with a win Friday against OSU in Columbus, then in Bowling Green the day after. The momentum of wins this weekend will carry them into the rest of the CCHA regular season in which they reside in seventh place and have 12 more games to go.
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