BC Hockey Preview of Champions: Quinn Smith, #27

Douglas Jones-US PRESSWIRE

At some point, one begins to realize that Avon Old Farms, an all-boys boarding school west of Hartford, CT, is a farm team for Boston College Eagles ice hockey. Several players already featured went there, and other players who recently left the program attended said school as well. Quinn Smith, a Connecticut native himself, is one of the many.

Smith likely ran into some current and former Eagles teammates along the way at Avon, where he was the team MVP in his senior season of 2009-10. That team, by the way, won its league title, and Smith was the captain of it.

If there’s another thing one realizes about Avon Old Farms, it’s that a lot of their players who end up at Boston College tend to go to the USHL. Smith did that, too, playing for the Youngstown Phantoms for one season before joining the Eagles.

Smith’s freshman year, in which BC hoisted the trophy for the fifth time in program history, saw him get into 32 of 44 games and tally four points, including his first collegiate goal. That came during Boston College’s 6-1 drubbing of Vermont at Burlington on the NBC Sports Network. Arguably the best game of his brief BC career came in December against Boston University; Quinn had two points in the Eagles’ 6-1 victory.

Quinn Smith has the ability to succeed at this level, and given the opportunity, he will. He was a freshman last season on a team that had plenty of upperclassmen carrying the weight, which relegated him to a “roleplayer” position, but this year, we may see his ice time increase a little more. With that said, there is every reason to believe that he can improve upon his four points from last season.