It’s been a pretty good seven weeks for the Boston University hockey team. Since Feb. 1, the Icedogs have gone 10-2-1, regained the Beanpot championship and avenged last season’s Hockey East quarterfinal loss to Providence College.
They’ve done it with increased scoring punch, solid goaltending and good overall team play.
But they’ve done it without senior defenseman Pat Aufiero.
Victimized by injury in each of his first three seasons as a Terrier, Aufiero suffered a gash to his left ankle last month, completely lacerating his anterior tibialis tendon and chipping a bone in his lower leg. He had surgery to repair the damage the next day, meaning when the puck was dropped at the FleetCenter two nights later, Aufiero would be on crutches, not on skates.
“The season was going well both for the team and myself, and it was just so hard to go down just before my last Beanpot,” Aufiero said. “Our team was doing so well; it was just hard to sit in the stands and watch us. It was nice to watch us do well, obviously, but it was hard not to be a part of that.
“It was tough for me to go out on the ice without my skates on and hold the Beanpot trophy up.”
Should BU get the chance to hoist more hardware, however, Aufiero will most likely be skating the victory lap. He is “95 percent” sure he’ll play in this weekend’s NCAA Tournament East Regional and has joined his teammates on the ice this week as they prepare to face the winner of Saturday’s game between the University of Maine and Harvard University.
The Terriers have struggled with the Black Bears in Aufiero’s absence, losing two-of-three games, including last week’s Hockey East semifinal. The one time BU and Maine squared off with Aufiero on the blue line and the Icedogs at full strength, BU came out on top, 3-2, in overtime on Nov. 9. Later that month, BU handled Harvard, 8-4.
“Having [Aufiero] back there will add a new dimension,” said senior forward Jack Baker. “If Maine plays their game, they’ll probably beat Harvard, but he hasn’t played against Maine this year except at the beginning of the year. It’ll be a different face for them to deal with back there on defense, and it will change the pairings a little bit.”
Now roommates, Baker and Aufiero have been playing together since they were both 8 years old. The young Aufiero was a forward for the first three years of his playing days, before his dad told him the best way to the NHL was to patrol the blue line. Aufiero took his father’s words and flourished, by his junior year becoming one of the Middlesex League’s best defensemen as the captain of the Winchester (Mass.) High School hockey team.
Aufiero probably would have been undoubtedly the league’s best blue liner if it wasn’t for Reading High School’s captain, Chris Dyment.
“We actually had a big rivalry going,” Aufiero recalled. “Our teams tied each other a bunch of times we had played. I remember one game that Coach [Jack] Parker was at, I went down and scored a goal and Dyment was out on the ice, so I pointed at him and taunted him a little.
“But then he came right back the next shift and scored a goal and he yelled at me. It was stuff like that. I remember him being a real good player and we always competed against each other.”
But the next year Aufiero bolted Massachusetts high school hockey, opting instead for the Division I promise of the U.S. National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“It was a real tough decision. I was a local boy, I went to Winchester Public Schools my whole life and I had never moved away from home, but I felt it was just the right thing for me to do hockey-wise. I knew it would be the best chance for me to further my skills and get a chance to play Division I college hockey.”
The move was a good one for Aufiero, who attracted plenty of attention from top-tier hockey programs. After a year in the Midwest, however, he rejected offers from such schools as Michigan State University and the University of Notre Dame, deciding instead to return to Boston and become a Terrier.
“But I knew I wanted to come out East, and I knew I wanted to play in a Beanpot, so the chances got narrowed down quite a bit there,” Aufiero said. “BU seemed like the best fit. I talked to Coach Parker, and he’s such a good coach. All the players that have came through here and made it to the next level, it helped make my decision that much easier.”
Aufiero’s first few days in scarlet and white weren’t very easy. After the Terriers dropped their 1998-99 season opener to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Aufiero broke his wrist the day before what was to be the second game of his collegiate career. He missed the next 14 games.
The season didn’t improve too much from there, as the Terriers stumbled to a 14-20-3 mark, the program’s first losing season in a decade. Personally, Aufiero’s career reached a bit of a turning point in February, when he achieved what he considers still to be his greatest hockey memory: his first Beanpot championship.
After that highlight, Aufiero stepped up his game, scoring six points in his final five games of the season. He carried the momentum into the next year, missing only one game due to injury and earning a spot on the All-New England and second-team All-Hockey East squads.
Aufiero and the Terriers enjoyed a 25-10-7 record in his sophomore year, rebounding from the disappointment of the previous season to advance within a win of the Frozen Four. That version of the Icedogs was very similar to the current incarnation, according to Aufiero, who compared the two seasons to the frustrating campaign in between them.
“The seniors that year were really close to the whole team, and the attitude was really good in practice. This year is pretty much the same,” he said. “Last year I remember going to practice and guys not wanting to show up, and guys complaining about this drill, and guys complaining about doing skating, but this year there has been a real good mood around the locker room.”
This summer, despite escaping the 2000-01 season virtually injury-free, Aufiero was in pain. Physically, he was fine, but emotionally, he was unsure of what to do next. Then, when classmate Dan Cavanaugh decided to test the waters of professional hockey, a discontented Aufiero nearly followed suit.
“I came pretty close last year,” Aufiero said. “My dad is really big on academics and he wanted me to stay and get a degree. I knew I wasn’t ready to leave; I didn’t like the way things went last year. I had a really down year on the ice and off the ice, and I was really disappointed in myself and questioning who I was, and I felt like a change of scenery was the right thing to do.
“But this summer, right around the time I was thinking about leaving, I thought about the good times I’ve had here at BU, the good friends I’ve made. And I knew I didn’t want to lose in my last year. It would be fun to come back senior year and turn things around.”
So Aufiero decided to return to BU for his final season, his mission to improve the team’s attitude apparent from the beginning.
In early September, as his freshman teammates attended their first classes in a new city, Aufiero took it upon himself to play rink jester. But instead of practical jokes in the locker room or customary teasing, he hit the streets to get some laughs. In a frog suit.
As students strolled to their first classes of the semester, there was Aufiero, walking up and down Commonwealth Avenue as though he were dressed in plainclothes, high-fiving passersby and doling out handshakes like a green, puffy politician.
“I like to keep everything light, and hopefully there will be a couple more suits once the season is over,” Aufiero said. “I just did that to lighten everything up, and the freshmen really didn’t know me that well yet, so I just walked around campus as a joke.”
For veterans like Baker, though, such antics were no surprise coming from Aufiero.
“He’s always doing strange things,” Baker said. “I don’t know where he came up with that idea, but it was pretty funny. It’s expected of him to do stuff like that just to get a laugh. It’s all in good fun, and that’s his character. It’s one of the many things he’s done like that.”
But things quickly changed, and Aufiero went from sauntering the streets in a costume to hobbling into the stands in a suit. Aufiero was maintaining a plus-3 and his team was enjoying unpredicted success when he was led across the Volpe Arena ice early in the second period on the night of Feb. 1.
He was stitched up in the locker room, and the immediate diagnosis had him shelved for at least four weeks. His senior year had been derailed from its track to the promise land.
“We’d been talking about it for a while, our last Beanpot senior year,” Baker said. “I felt real bad for him, but as it went on and on he mentioned to me once that it felt bad because we were doing so well. I mentioned to him that I was hurt last year and he was lucky that we’re doing well because the season gets to be carried on and doesn’t end. The team’s doing well so he can sit there and cheer us on, and now he’s getting a chance to play.”
Even when forced to watch from the view of the common folk, Aufiero remained more than just a fan. Touted by teammates and coaches all season as a third captain, Aufiero stayed vocal, making contributions to the team in areas other than on the ice.
“Especially in the Beanpot I made sure I went in there and got guys jacked up,” he said. “Even the Maine games and the Hockey East tournament, I was really getting guys ready, just going to lines like Gregg Johnson’s line, which has a lot of talent, and made sure they were ready. A lot of guys on that like can be gamebreakers, like Fero [Skladany] and Johnson, and it’s important for them to have their games for us.”
Even if he couldn’t play his usual positional defense or make the end-to-end rushes that have given his coach cause to tout him as a “one-man breakout,” Aufiero wasn’t going to let an injury effect his impact on the team. After all, he had come back to BU so he could leave on proper terms: as a winner.
“I think the whole senior class kind of sees themselves as a third captain,” Aufiero said. “We’re all pretty vocal in the locker room, and I do whatever I can to help the team. I saw our leadership last year, and the whole team just wasn’t doing well. I don’t know if you can attribute that to the leadership, but I made it one of my goals to make sure the leadership wouldn’t be a question this year. And I find myself real vocal in the locker room, getting guys going, trying to get the most out of all the guys on the team.
“You’ve got to assume a different role once you become a senior. You watch over the years, you watch different seniors come in, and you have a lot of respect for guys who came in here like Tommi Degerman, Michel Laroque and how they handled being a senior. I just feel honored to have played four years of varsity hockey at BU, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure the team is ready for each game.”
Aufiero’s collegiate career is now down to a maximum of three games, and he doesn’t particularly care whether he plays Maine or Harvard first; he just wants the chance to compete.
“I just can’t wait to put the uniform on and get out there and just skate around on the ice,” he said. “Sitting out makes you really appreciate how lucky you are to be out there playing.”
But his playing days will live on even after he takes off his No. 5 jersey for the final time. The New York Rangers’ third-round pick in 1999, Aufiero could someday join former Terrier Tom Poti in the Big Apple, in the process validating his dad’s decision to raise a defenseman.
“I’ve talked to them a bunch of times, and they’re pretty happy with me,” Aufiero said. “We’ll just see how the injury turns out, and I’ll at least be in their training camp in September and hopefully I can make a run at it.”
Aufiero said he thinks he can make it at the next level, but understands cracking the NHL may be a difficult step at the very beginning of his professional career.
But hey, it ain’t easy being green.