Barry Almeida of

Longmeadow hopes

to lead Boston College

to Beanpot and NCAA title glory

Sunday February 01, 2009, 6:24 PM

By JUSTIN A. RICE

CHESTNUT HILL - Preparing to play a game for the Omaha Lancers last spring, Barry Almeida Jr. of Springfield got word that the latest NCAA Frozen Four champion was Boston College, a team he committed to play for in 2006 during his junior year at Longmeadow High School.

To this day Almeida doesn't let onto the bitter sweetness of hearing the team he was supposed to be playing with won it all.

"It was unbelievable when I heard they won, I was so happy because two years before that they made it to the finals and probably should've won a national championship," said Almeida, now a 20-year-old freshman forward at BC.

A freak eye injury forced Almeida to sit out half a season and spend another season and a half in the United States Hockey League. "You can't really control that, but it's just an honor to come to BC. After they won, we were No.1 in the country, so it was awesome coming in on top."

Barry Almeida Sr., a corrections officer for the Hampden County Sheriff's Department and avid hockey player himself, said the Eagles' championship was harder on his son than most people realize.

"He was supposed to be on the 2007 team, in a way he was happy to see them win, but he was supposed to be on that team," said the elder Almeida, who skated for Ludlow High School in the late 1970s.

Things have a way of evening out, and the younger Almeida, who says a piece of glass cut his retina after a bottle suddenly exploded during a bonfire, not only won a championship of his own last season in the USHL, he scored the winning goal in overtime to take home the Clark Cup. After netting three previous playoff goals, the Game 5 backhander broke the southpaw's scoring slump.

"It was pretty special, I got the opportunity to play with some great players out there," said Almeida, who's had several surgeries on his left eye. "I wasn't having the best playoffs, and I talked to my coach (the game before), and luckily I was able to pull through for my team."

But while Almeida's hockey future hung in the balance after the injury, he never feared losing his scholarship to Boston College and says his eye, which was bloodshot during an interview, no longer causes him problems.

"Coach (Jerry) York and the coaches here were very good to me, and they honored (my scholarship)," said Almeida, who has collected five goals and six assists through 22 games for the No. 14 Eagles this season. "They said even if I couldn't play hockey again I could still come to Boston College, which is unbelievable to hear when you're down."

The elder Almeida said Chicago, which picked his son No. 7 overall in the USHL draft, hounded him to play before doctors cleared his son for action. After the elder Almeida made it clear his son couldn't play, Chicago released him on waivers, and Omaha immediately signed Almeida, who joined the team for the second half of the season. Almeida said he would have returned earlier if his parents let him, but acknowledged everything worked out for the best because he joined BC more prepared than he otherwise would have been.

"That probably made him hungrier," the elder Almeida said. "He just wanted to get out there and start playing again."

After the injury, he also played for the U.S. Junior Select Team that captured the bronze medal in the 2007 World Junior A Challenge in British Columbia. In 2005, he competed for a U.S. Select Team that traveled to the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the Under-18 Junior World Cup.

But the Frozen Four has still eluded Almeida.

"That's all I want to do is win another one," he said. "We have a really good team with great players, great guys. So I think it's very possible, and that's the ultimate goal."

Winning in the Beanpot tonight against Northeastern University at 8 and again Feb. 14 at TD Banknorth Garden is another huge goal for Almeida and the Eagles. Almeida was able to watch last winter's annual tournament between BC, Boston University, Northeastern and Harvard thanks to a teammate with a satellite dish, which also allowed him to stay tuned to the Red Sox season. While Almeida grew up watching BC in the Beanpot, he wasn't surprised to find his Omaha teammates from all over the continent also had an appreciation for the legendary tournament.

"Everyone involved in hockey has an understanding of the Beanpot," he said with the amendment that the Beanpot still wasn't in their blood. "If they didn't know they had an idea of what it is. It was pretty cool. They didn't grow up with it; Massachusetts people have more of an understanding of what it means."