Politics. Revenge. And Boston University vs. Boston College in the title game of the Beanpot.

Our city’s socio-sporting calendar was placed back in customary Comm. Ave. rhythm again Monday when BU and BC opened the 64th Beanpot at TD Garden with impressive victories, the Eagles starting the night with a 3-2 edging of Harvard and BU capping it with a 3-1 trimming of Northeastern.

Now for the 22d time in tournament history, dating to their first title matchup in 1957, the Eagles and Terriers will face off in the late game on Second Monday. The Terriers own a 12-9 edge in the matchups, and the sides have met eight times for the title since 2000, each collecting four championships.

“As we all know, it means so much to each school,’’ said BU coach David Quinn, whose squad rubbed out NU to claim last year’s title. “Obviously, we’ve had an awful lot of success over the years.

“It’s a tournament that means so much to the college hockey community in Boston, and throughout the country. Boston is a college hockey mecca, with all these great teams in such close proximity to each other.

“I don’t know the last time we played BC in the final, but any time you play them, it doesn’t take any of the excitement away from it. It will be an exciting game Monday night.’’

The last title matchup was in 2012, a 3-2 BC victory in overtime. The Terriers last defeated BC for the title in 2007, a 2-1 win, also in OT.

“And we definitely owe them from two weeks ago,’’ reminded BU winger Danny O’Regan.

That would be a lingering debt from mid-January, when BC (18-4-4) and BU (15-7-4) met on back-to-back nights and the Eagles convincingly carried the play, first in a 5-3 win at The Heights and then in a 1-1 tie at Agganis Arena.

The Eagles went without a loss in January (4-0-3) and have feasted all season on Hockey East prey (10-1-4).

“BC did a good job,’’ noted Harvard coach Ted Donato after his squad was dispatched Monday by a speedy, thorough Eagles effort. “They kept putting the puck deep, didn’t give us any kind of entrance with speed or possession off the rush. And they executed with their special teams. They deserved to win the game.’’

NU coach Jim Madigan, whose resurgent club entered the tournament with a six-game winning streak, had similar praise for the Terriers. The Huskies, flat-footed and playing too much on the periphery once gaining the offensive zone, fell into an early 2-0 deficit, trimmed it in half in the third, then ultimately lost out to a Doyle Somerby 150-foot shot into an empty net with 41 seconds to play.

“Credit BU, because they’re tough to play against,’’ said Madigan. “They’re big and they’re strong and they played with more pace than we did.

“We didn’t get a lot of offense generated coming through the neutral zone and we couldn’t feed the forecheck and get the down-low game going. Some of it’s us, but some of it’s your opponent who did a real good job against us.

No. 4 BC and No. 9 BU, both prime candidates to make it to this year’s Frozen Four in Tampa, have disliked one another since the invention of vulcanized rubber.

The campuses are connected by the MBTA’s Green Line, but forever separated by the red line painted the width of center ice, the rivalry’s intensity even greater in recent years amid the Eagles’ gaudy haul of four NCAA titles (2001, 2008, 2010, and 2012) during coach Jerry York’s tenure.

“We talked about compete level, our energy level and structural level,’’ York said following the win Monday, the 1,002d of his storied career. “That’s kind of our formula to be really good as a team.

“I thought we had great compete, great energy, and I thought our structure for the most part was pretty solid.’’

A single goal has separated the two clubs in each of their last six title games, beginning with BU’s 3-2 win in ’03. The Eagles returned volley the following February with a 2-1 win in OT. The Terriers won in ’06 and ’07, 3-2 and 2-1, and BC triumphed in the two most recent meetings, 4-3 in ’10 and 3-2 in ’12.

The matchups are typically tight and often chippy, befitting two schools where hockey for decades, even amid the Doug Flutie years of BC football glory, has been the focus of the sports calendar.

It’s still not hard to find a crusty BC alum who best remembers the ’78 first-round matchup not so much for the night’s notorious blizzard, but for the 12-5 pasting the Terriers doled out.

They’ll be back at it again for a 22d time Monday night on Causeway Street, a ritual and a grudge match renewed.