Bean there

From out of nowhere, or so it seemed, Sean Sullivan spotted Kenny Roche barreling off the bench and through center ice at the TD Banknorth Garden last night.

Then again, that shouldn't be a surprise. Haven't they been looking at each other and charting each other's moves since that day they met in the delivery room?

Sullivan laughed at such an exaggeration. After all, he was born more than two months after Roche, and besides, it's not as if they've known each other their whole lives.

"I think I first met him when I was 5 or 6," said Roche, now 23. "A Mite C team in South Boston."

The days they've been apart since then are few and far between, these teammates having gone together from youth hockey to St. Sebastian's High School to their current positions as Boston University captains. The titles and good times have been plentiful, the latest installment a 4-0 win over Northeastern that catapulted the Terriers into the Beanpot championship game for a head-shaking 13th consecutive time.

BU will meet Boston College, which edged Harvard in the nightcap, 3-1.

You could argue that the result was hardly stunning -- the seventh-ranked Terriers, after all, have won their opening Beanpot game 40 of the last 44 winters -- but you can't debate which goal provided the spark. It was Sullivan's brilliant pass from his defensive end that caught Roche in full stride and sent him between the NU defense and in alone on goaltender Brad Thiessen.

"Coming off the bench, I saw Sully with control," said Roche, who made a pretty move from forehand to backhand and beat Thiessen for a 2-0 lead at 9:47 of the second period, his eighth goal of the year but first since Jan. 5. It came just 48 seconds after Peter MacArthur had tallied the first goal. "I made eye contact and he made just a great, great pass."

Sort of like those days with the South Boston Roadrunners, or even the Cape Cod Whalers, right? Roche laughed, and so did Sullivan, because the teams, the games, the road trips, the thrills, and the heartache have been shared for so long now. Could they venture a guess as to how many games they've played together?

"There have been hundreds," said Roche. "To say thousands seems far-fetched, but who knows?"

They do know this: The Terriers (14-5-8) are where they expect to be, in another Beanpot final, no matter that they came into the game against NU on the heels of their poorest effort of the year, a 0-0 tie Friday with UMass-Lowell.

"It was a huge game for us tonight, because we needed a confidence booster," said BU senior goaltender John Curry, who kicked out all 27 NU shots for his sixth shutout of the season and second against the Huskies. Along the way, he got great defensive help, especially at the end of the second period and into the third when BU killed off an NU two-man advantage of 1:42, part of its 6-for-6 penalty-killing effort.

"The PK has been our savior all year," said BU coach Parker, now 30-4 in Beanpot openers.

Then again, the confidence boost Curry & Co. sought came slowly, for NU (10-13-4) was riding a 5-2-2 stretch since Jan. 3 and the Huskies broke fast, much to BU's dismay.

"We came into this Beanpot thinking we were going to win," said NU senior Mike Morris. "We've been playing good hockey and we are a confident group."

Said Sullivan, who played alongside Morris at St. Sebastian's, "They came out flying, but we held them off."

MacArthur's goal came after two deft passes, freshman Luke Popko first sending the puck down at the low left post to sophomore Chris Higgins, who fed it untouched across the crease. MacArthur merely had to haul in the pass and throw a bullet past Thiessen (33 saves) for what proved to be the game-winner.

Barely had the BU faithful stopped cheering when Sullivan, perhaps the best defenseman in Hockey East, teamed up with his fellow South Boston native. If it appeared that they were reading each other's minds, it's because they probably can do just that, the ice having been shared for more games than they can count.

"I saw him waving his stick," said Sullivan. "He's such a smart player, and you've got to love that he finished it off."

What really finished off NU was the first of Dan McGoff's two third-period scores. It came as the result of a careless play by Thiessen, who skated into the right circle to get a loose puck, then tried to turn and stickhandle away from McGoff's forecheck. Instead, Thiessen swept the puck into his own net at 15:37, a gift BU and McGoff weren't going to turn down. But they also weren't going to move it up on the highlight reel ahead of the one that had been scored earlier.

"I'm just glad he saw me," said Roche, who needn't worry about that.

He and Sullivan always see each other.