With all due respect to Northeastern University in next Monday’s Beanpot championship game, the Boston University men’s hockey team must win the game. But why might you ask?

Well, for the simple reason being that there would be very little drama left in the tournament if the Huskies were to come away with the title for the first time since 1988. The national draw to the Beanpot is to see if Northeastern can somehow find a way to win this thing.

If the Huskies were to win, yes it would be an excellent short-term story. Everyone outside of Boston would love that result, but it would absolutely kill the tournament in the long run.

A Northeastern win Monday night will mean that all four teams will have won in the last four years. That’s never happened in the 66-year history of the tournament.

Hooray for parity? Not so fast.

Say the Huskies were to win. What is the draw for next year’s tournament? The Terriers haven’t won since 2015? I don’t think so. The tournament is already struggling at the gate, and it needs any and all the storylines it can get.

Anyone in the building Monday night witnessed one of the worst crowds in recent Beanpot memory. Long, long gone are the days of five to six full balcony sections packed with students from BU and Boston College.

Yes, Northeastern had a good four sections full, but guess why? That’s right, that drought we were talking about.

The Huskies’ fans come out in droves in hopes to see this thing end. It’s good for the tournament. The Beanpot is Northeastern’s Super Bowl to some extent.

Like I said, for one year if the Huskies finally win, it will be a good story. But then what?

The Northeastern crowds will start to thin again and there will be virtually zero buzz around the Beanpot next February. Having all four schools win in four consecutive years is virtually the worst thing that could happen to the Beanpot.

Look at Major League Baseball. The Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox both ended their astronomical World Series droughts in the 21st century, and the passion and vitriol surrounding both the Sox and Cubs has taken a step back.

Baseball needed the Cubs’ drought to continue. It was a better story heading into each season and rooting for the drought to end was something fans, who didn’t really have a dog in the fight, could get behind.

To have riveting storylines headed into a season or tournament you need two things. One, a villain. You know, a team that wins all the time and every fanbase hates. Example: the New England Patriots. Or, you need a lovable loser that can make a run. Example: the Cubs.

The Beanpot used to have both. BU was absolutely dominant from the early ‘90s all the way into the mid-2000s, winning 15 times, half their total championships, from 1990 to 2009. Northeastern during that stretch? No titles.

The Huskies made the championship game nine times since 1988, losing all nine times to either the Terriers or the Eagles while Northeastern and Harvard have never played each other in the final. In those nine title appearances, three went to overtime.

In 2005, we saw BU forward Chris Bourque backhand home a pass from defenseman Bryan Miller to lift the Terriers to the title. A decade later, in 2015, Matt Grzelcyk wristed in a power-play goal in overtime. Sandwiched in the middle of those two games, BC’s Jimmy Hayes rained on the Northeastern parade in 2011 with his own overtime heroics.

Just to reiterate, the Huskies winning this upcoming Monday night is a bad thing for the Beanpot. This tournament needs storylines and hype. A Northeastern win would be a quick sugar high, a BU win gives the Beanpot some real juice.