Storied athletic clubs tend to create storied athletic venues, and Boston University’s Walter Brown Arena is no different. The hallowed 3,806-seat hockey arena has seen a veritable rollercoaster ride of triumphant victories and heartbreaking losses since its opening in 1971.
Once the base of the much vaunted BU men’s hockey team — which relocated when state-of-the art Agganis Arena opened in 2005 — Walter Brown is currently home to the women’s team, now in its third season as a varsity squad. They are led by coach Brian Durocher, the team’s first and only head coach since its entrance into varsity competition.
The arena already feels like home to the coach. The women’s hockey program is one of the few in the nation that has its own ice rink, which affords the team the convenience of a wide window of open ice time that allows practices to fit into the players’ academic and work schedules, according to Durocher. Only Ohio and Minnesota’s programs are afforded the same luxury.
The hidden gem in the world of women’s hockey has always held a special place in Durocher’s heart. The low, steel ceilings and densely packed cement bleachers contribute to a feeling that is pure vintage hockey.
“When you’re in the arena, the noise reverberates off those low ceilings like a ping pong ball,” Durocher said. “That sort of effect can make three or four hundred people sound like 1500 easily. When the band gets in there too, you’ve got an exciting atmosphere for both the fans and the players.”
The atmosphere even strikes those visiting the rink. In a 2005 retrospective on Walter Brown by U.S. College Hockey, University of Minnesota coach Don Lucia praised the rink the day before the men’s team’s final game at the arena.
“I’ve never been here before, but I’m glad I had the chance to come here,” Lucia said in the article. “It reeks of tradition. It’s that old throwback building — the way buildings were when I played back in the seventies when this was built.”
Durocher himself is no stranger to the playing atmosphere of Walter Brown. He enjoyed great success on Babcock Street as a player in the 1970s, when he was a four-time letterman between the goal posts and co-captain of the Terriers’ 1977-78 NCAA championship team. An accomplished collegiate goaltender, Durocher put up a record of 41-13-1 in the old haunt. His senior year, when the Terriers won the NCAA title, he posted a respectable 3.99 goals-against average, with a save percentage of .871.
Durocher’s career as a coach started out with one of the best, when he was a full-time assistant to BU men’s hockey coach Jack Parker from 1980-85. Following stints at Colgate and Brown universities, he served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the BU men’s program from 1996-2004. The Terriers played in five NCAA tournaments during his time with it.
In its short existence, the women’s hockey team has already created its fair share of memories for Durocher. For a fledgling program, the list of “firsts” represents milestones in their own right. Their 4-1 win against Union College on October 14, 2005 at Walter Brown Arena was the first in the varsity program history.
However, of all the games the women’s team has played in Walter Brown, Durocher remembers a game against BC early in its first season. Despite conceding three unanswered goals early on, the Terriers surged back, ultimately fighting the Eagles to a thrilling 3-3 tie.
“After the game, the BC coaches were telling me how their players were so excited, they couldn’t sit still on the bench,” said Durocher. “The fans were going nuts, and the band was there . . . the atmosphere was electric.
“We were getting terribly out-shot in that game, but the miracle of Walter Brown Arena took over,” he continued.
Whether it’s the product of a miracle or hard-nosed skill, the arena’s history is replete with hard-fought wins and names familiar to any fan of the National Hockey League.
Parker, now in his 35th season behind the bench, made Walter Brown the arena of champions. During the Terriers’ stay at the arena, Parker led the team to two NCAA championships, four ECAC Hockey championships and three ECAC Hockey regular season championships.
The team also went on to capture five Hockey East men’s championships at the arena and six Hockey East regular season championships. Before its move to Agganis, teams that played within Walter Brown’s hallowed walls dominated the Beanpot Tournament, winning 18 times between 1975 and 2004.
“There were a lot of great ECAC games [at Walter Brown] — one game where you’re either in, or you go home,” said Parker in a 2005 interview with U.S. College Hockey, “In those days, if you didn’t make the final of the ECAC, you didn’t make the Frozen Four. A home game here was so pressure-packed all the time: You had to win.”
Parker cited other games that proved to be do-or-die situations — narrow tournament victories and defeats, thrilling rivalry games against fellow hockey juggernaut BC and a game against the University of Massachusetts-Lowell during the 1984-85 season that would come to be known as “The Measles Game.” An outbreak of the disease on a number of college campuses in the Boston area — BU included — turned Walter Brown into a veritable ghost town. The game was played without a single fan in the stands, producing an eerie feeling for both teams, Parker remarked.
But the event that stands out most clearly in the minds of Parker and many BU hockey fans would be the infamous game on October 22, 1995. The game, played against the University of North Dakota, would be remembered not for the celebration of the raising of BU’s fourth championship banner, but for a freak accident that occured early in the first period.
On the ensuing faceoff after a first-shift goal from BU player Chris O’Sullivan, freshman forward Travis Roy skated down the right wing side into UND territory. Fighting his way toward the puck, Roy glanced off of Sioux defenseman Mitch Vig and fell headfirst into the boards behind the UND goal. The impact cracked Roy’s fourth vertebra, paralyzing him just 11 seconds into his first college shift.
Parker never witnessed the original hit — his attention was focused on lambasting O’Sullivan for excessive celebration following the goal. But Parker did remember the disconcertingly still atmosphere of the normally booming arena. Roy lay still on the ice, not moving.
“It was dead quiet in the building after Travis went down, but you never expect the worst,” he told U.S. College Hockey. “You think you’re going to take him to the hospital; he’s going to be out for the year or have a bad shoulder injury or something — he’ll get some feeling back when he gets to the hospital. So it wasn’t until the end of the second period when [the doctor] came back and told me how bad it was.”
BU soon established the Travis Roy Fund to pay for his expenses, and Roy himself started the Travis Roy Foundation, which raises money to help spinal cord injury survivors and fund further research in the field. In recognition of his character and perseverance, the Terriers retired Roy’s No. 24 — the first number retired in the history of BU’s hockey program.
While Roy’s character continues to inspire off the ice, Walter Brown has seen a number of on-ice competitors that have gone on to shape BU’s reputation at the highest levels of hockey.
The list of hockey program alumni who have graced the halls of Walter Brown reads like a who’s-who of NHL stars: NHL veterans Tony Amonte and Keith Tkachuk both got their starts there. Star Rangers forward Chris Drury won the 1998 Hobey Baker Award with the Terriers, and goaltender Rick DiPietro, who backstopped the BU team for a season and was named the Hockey East Rookie of the Year, was the first goalie to be selected first overall in the NHL draft.
Durocher recognizes that it’s that pedigree that has attracted new recruits to the burgeoning women’s team. While recruiting for the inaugural season, Durocher recalls, he was talking to a prospective player when Bruins legend Ray Bourque walked by. New players recognize that BU cares about hockey and that the hockey program has full support of the administration, Durocher said.
Durocher said he built a strong schedule for his third-year program and feels his team is poised for success after fighting through the first two years. Through hard work and determination, history shows that every season at Walter Brown has the potential for even more great things.