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Better Know an ACC Opponent: Boston College

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Better Know an ACC Opponent: Boston College


In case you’ve blissfully forgotten, the Pac-12 is dead and Cal is now in a conference named after the other side of the country. If you’re reading this, it means that this new reality is not a deal breaker for you. Over the rest of the off-season, we’ll profile each and every member of this conference that Cal has joined, that will definitely 100% exist it its current form for years if not decades.

Hey, if this is what college sports is now, we’re going to enjoy the absurdity of it all. First up? Boston College!

Boston College is, in many ways, the stereotype of what a college is supposed to be in the broad American psyche. Big fancy gothic buildings, religious but lowkey about it, WASP-y, in Boston but not IN Boston . . . it’s not the Ivy League but it’s pretty damn close. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like to me, 3,000 miles away on the West Coast. Maybe I’ve offended BC fans, or Ivy Leaguers, or both? I dunno, I have trouble distinguishing all of those college in Boston.

This one has Doug Flutie and a really famous play that often competes for the title of 2nd greatest play in college football history, so they’ve got that.

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BC are relative newcomers to the ACC, joining in 2005 at the end of a round of poaching and legal wrangling with the Big East, which sounds depressingly familiar. I really miss the days when all this conference wrangling was largely confined to west of the Rockies.

No, they do not. Cal football is 0-1, with an unremarkable road loss in Joe Kapp’s final 2-9 season in 1986. Cal basketball is 0-3, and the most recent loss was when a bad BC team beat an even worse Cal team in San Francisco in Mark Fox’s debut season. Cal women’s basketball is 1-1, and I don’t have any memories of either game. We’ll do a full review after getting to know every ACC team, but I think there’s a decent chance that this is the single team that Cal has the LEAST amount of pre-existing history against. I vaguely remember being frustrated when Cal MBB lost in 2010-11 but that was the year after Jerome and company graduated and my expectations were low.

This is a tough one. In terms of athletics success, the closest match would probably be Oregon State – mostly blah in both basketball and football, but with one non-revenue sport that is generally excellent and gets a lot of local attention. But big city, private school BC is hardly a match for rural land-grant Oregon State.

Honestly, culturally BC just isn’t very similar to ANY Pac-12 school. And maybe that makes sense – after all, this is the FBS team that is literally the furthest away from Cal and the west coast more generally.

The brutal beauty of hockey as an athletic endeavor, and its perfect cultural expression during The Beanpot. If you can find a way to insult the Boston University Terriers along the way, all the better.

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If you’re looking for more football-based fun, you can praise BC as ‘offensive lineman U’ and then agree that BC is by far the best catholic university in the country no matter what those Golden Domers claim.

I think the lazy answer would be something about how fans in New England don’t care about college football, but I can’t say that trolling BC fans with the same insult we get hurled at us is particularly appealing.

There’s also all of the various Boston stereotypes, but per BC’s website, only about 30% of BC’s student body is from New England. Maybe that would make your lazy Dunkin Donuts Boston accent joke all the more enraging?

I kinda feel bad for BC here, because Wikipedia seriously lists Virginia Tech as a football rival because it dates back to 1993. Syracuse is probably the best answer in terms of frequency and longevity at the FBS level, and Notre Dame for cultural/religious reasons, but BC just doesn’t seem to have a notable football rival.

Jeff Hafley somewhat surprisingly left BC for the defensive coordinator position with the Green Bay Packers, leading to some hand-wringing about how the modern reality of college football is driving away coaches. That didn’t stop Bill O’Brien from accepting the job, and we’ll soon find out if the former Penn State and Houston Texas head coach breaks BC out of their .500 stasis, either in a good way or a bad way.

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I couldn’t find much to say about MBB coach Earl Grant other than to note that he’s got a strong suit game.

I assume it must be Doug Flutie, patron saint of undersized NFL success stories and noted Nugenix pitchman.

I’m sure Matt Ryan is plenty beloved as well, and at least there’s one super-distant Cal connection – Ryan and BC took over the #2 spot from Cal in the insane 2007 season following Cal’s loss to Oregon State, which would last into early November.

Wayne LaPierre, former chairman of the NRA, may well be hated by both sides of the aisle, after a career spent ensuring that the United States leads the western world in gun deaths while ALSO defrauding his organization out of millions!

Ice Hockey takes the cake . . . and I suppose it would be an exaggeration to suggest that BC fans care about hockey more than football, but the Hockey team absolutely outdraws the MBB team, and why shouldn’t they? There have been 76 editions of the Frozen Four, and BC has participated in 26 of them, winning five. The Eagles just lost in the men’s hockey championship game this past weekend in a heartbreaking end to a dominant season.

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Boston is a major city that’s easy to access and with a ton of history, and if Cal draws a road game during the right time of fall, you’ll get to enjoy the famous New England fall foliage. BC sports may not be much of a draw themselves, but the city is one of the best in ACC country.

Broadly? Probably. But let’s talk specifics.

Boston College basketball answers a question so horrible that none have dared ask it: What if Wyking Jones & Mark Fox, but for twice as long? Behold, perhaps the worst power conference MBB team in the nation:

To be fair, Earl Grant has BC slowly improving and the Eagles managed 20 wins for the first time since 2011 this past season. On the downside, their best player is out of eligibility and five dudes are in the portal so it’s probably the start of another rebuild on Chestnut Hill.

The women’s basketball program hasn’t made the NCAA tournament in 18 years that included an eight year run of below .500 overall records, which YIKES.

To their credit, Boston College’s football program has been remarkably consistent, though I don’t know if BC fans are super thrilled about the nature of that consistency. Since 2013, when Steve Addazio took over as coach, BC has managed 6 or 7 wins and a bowl appearance in 9 out of 11 seasons.

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On the downside, BC has not won more than 7 games in any of those seasons, and much like Cal has not produced a season over .500 in conference play since 2009.

Cal will visit BC in 2025 and 2029 and get a return trip from the Eagles in 2027. Is there any value in trying to predict how good either program will be in two, four, and six years? Probably not. But get your bets in right now on whether or not Cal and BC will still even ben in the same conference once 2029 rolls around!



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Police: Man killed in crash caused by wrong-way driver on I-93 in Boston – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

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Police: Man killed in crash caused by wrong-way driver on I-93 in Boston – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News


BOSTON (WHDH) – A 20-year-old man is dead, and an 81-year-old man will face criminal charges following a wrong-way crash on Interstate 93 in Boston late Saturday night, officials said.

Troopers responding to a reported multi-vehicle crash on Route 93 northbound before Exit 15A around 11:45 p.m. determined a driver in a 2004 Cadillac Escalade got on the highway in the wrong direction and nearly struck two vehicles — a Honda Odyssey and an Audi A4 — causing both to swerve and crash into each other, according to state police.

The occupants of the Honda Odyssey, a family of four, were transported to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.

Shortly after the initial crash, the wrong-way driver, later identified as Antone Carvalho, of Somerset, collided head-on with a Chevrolet Cruze.

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The driver of the Chevrolet Cruze, a man in his 20s from Haverhill, died from his injuries. His name has not been released.

Carvalho will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.

This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.

(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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Beyond the frame: ‘Where’s Boston?’ revisited through new oral histories – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

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Beyond the frame: ‘Where’s Boston?’ revisited through new oral histories – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News


BOSTON (WHDH) – It’s the fall of 1974 in South Boston, and four generations of the Moran family are rushing to church for baby Lila’s baptism. The moment is filled with great anticipation, and one of the most memorable images frozen in time in Constantine Manos’s “Where’s Boston” series.

Now, more than 50 years later, that photograph has taken on a new meaning. 

The Boston Athenaeum has revived the landmark exhibition first shown during Boston’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976. To mark America’s 250th anniversary, the library has paired Manos’s photographs with 12 newly recorded oral histories, giving the people captured in the images a chance to tell the stories behind them.

“These images show one moment in time, but when you talk to someone and ask them to reflect on it, you learn so much more about them and their larger family history,” said Boston Athenaeum curator Lauren Graves. “Then somehow that history, too, ends up relating to a larger Boston history.”

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In their oral history, George and Carolyn Moran reflected on the social upheaval surrounding Boston’s bussing crisis, when court-ordered school integration sparked intense racial conflict across the city. 

While the baptism photograph captures a day of celebration, the Moran family said it also stirs memories of another pivotal moment: their decision to leave the South Boston neighborhood they had long called home. 

“Around the corner came a huge swarm of people being chased by police on horseback with clubs,” George Moran said. “Apparently earlier that day there had been a stabbing around the corner of South Boston High School, and the town was in total turmoil over that incident.”

Fearing for their children’s safety as tensions escalated, the two Boston Public Schools teachers made the difficult decision to move their family to Brookline.

“We were very careful in making our decision because we did have a strong allegiance to the schools and to education,” Carolyn Moran said. “I would say our concerns about the education of our daughters was our primary reason for making the move.”

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Courtesy Boston Athenaeum

Many of Manos’s seemingly innocuous photographs reveal the city’s deeply segregated spaces that shaped Boston a half-century ago. An Italian religious process in the North End, young Black men unwinding at Franklin park, and a father looking lovingly at his son at a Chassidic center in Brookline each offer a glimpse into communities that rarely intersected.

But even amid turmoil and division, Manos found beauty in life’s small moments—a bride leaving a church on her wedding day, a young man absorbed in a game of chess, and a father flying a kite with his son. 

Courtesy Boston Athenaeum

“The exhibit shows some of the terrible times of protest, but it also shows the moments of joy,” Carolyn Moran said. “They’re all juxtaposed, and that’s life—these difficult times as well as beautiful times.”

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As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, curators hope the exhibition encourages visitors to reflect on not just how far the city has come, but also the work that still needs to be done in the coming decades.

“We thought this was a unique moment to look back at the Bicentennial, to look back 50 years and think about this recent past,” Graves said. “What do we want for Boston today? What do we want for the future? And what do we want for the future of the country itself?”

Visitors are also invited to become part of the exhibition by filling out comment cards reflecting on where Boston is today.

The Boston Athenaeum says it is still identifying people featured in Manos’s photographs and plans to continue expanding the exhibition’s online oral history collection. 

“Where’s Boston” is open until December 12.

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(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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What JJ Peterka Will Add to the Bruins’ Roster, ‘He’s Got an Elite Shot’ | Boston Bruins

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What JJ Peterka Will Add to the Bruins’ Roster, ‘He’s Got an Elite Shot’ | Boston Bruins


The 24-year-old forward had a career-high 68 points (27 goals, 41 assists) in 2024-25 with the Sabres before getting traded to Utah in June, 2025. Peterka posted 47 points (25 goals, 22 assists) through 82 games in his first year with the Mammoth.

“He’s got an elite shot. Probably gives us another look on the elbows in a power play situation. His power play minutes dipped a little bit last year; his 5-on-5 production has been really good, plays both wings, can probably play with a couple different types of centers,” Sweeney said.​

Peterka had a similar assessment for himself.

“I think a pretty fast game, likes to score goals,” he said. “Just overall, exciting player that loves to make plays.”

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Sweeney also sees a versatility in Peterka’s game that can benefit his new teammates up and down the lineup.

“I think he fits into a good group age-wise because he’s able to have played in the league with all the experience he’s had, the success he’s had, so he can ride shotgun with David because he has had scoring,” Sweeney said. “He can go down and drive a line, which he has done.”

The prospect of him playing with someone like David Pastrnak is something that excites both Sweeney and Peterka.

“That would be pretty sick, not going to lie,” Peterka said. “If you have that caliber of a player, I think everyone wants to play with him. From the past, playing against him, even watching him, was always super special. I would be super honored, for sure.”

While Peterka has already played four full seasons in the NHL, he still has his whole career in front of him. He joins a young new wave of Bruins players – alongside the likes of Reichel, Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov and James Hagens – who will carve the future identity of the team. The ceiling is high for Peterka.

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​“In JJ’s case, he has had success. We have to come in and put him in the right situations so he continues to score at the level we think he can. Morgan [Geekie] is a great example,” Sweeney said. “Did we think he was going to score 39 goals when we first acquired him? No. But that’s always the hope – that a player will take advantage of a new opportunity and playing with different types of players than what they were in their other environment.”

Peterka is ready for the challenge and to prove that he has another gear to his game to help the Bruins win.  

“I think it’s always nice to have a fresh start. I think especially after the year I had last year where I wasn’t really happy with the performance I put on the ice,” Peterka said. “For me, I feel like it’s a fresh start. And for a team like Boston, it couldn’t be any better.”



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