Recruiting is a necessity for every college athletic program, harder for some than for others. For the Boston University women’s hockey team, the challenge was convincing high school, club and NCAA transfers that the Terriers were worth a shot. That they would grow into a successful program over the next few seasons.
This onus was left on the shoulders of BU coach Brian Durocher, a former Terrier himself. When the women’s club team decided to make the jump to Division I and into Hockey East, Durocher needed to find enough players willing to go through the growing pains of a young and new program. These new players would lay the building blocks of a team that hopes to find as much success in Hockey East as its male counterparts.
“The biggest part of the task was finding the volume of freshmen that we needed,” Durocher said. “I spent all of last year traveling across the country to recruit. I mainly went out and had to convince people that BU will be a top program eventually.”
Durocher, who was an assistant coach for the men’s hockey team until taking his current position, is no stranger to the recruiting process. But this time around, he had to go out and find enough interested people to fill out a roster on a team that had no history and only a few returning players from the club team.
Of the team’s 27 players, 19 are freshmen and two are from other club squads around the United States. These players came in on a leap of faith. They believed that they could find just as much, if not more reward in building a young team rather than going to an established and immediately competitive program.
Four of the Terriers are transfer students: juniors Jessica Lortie, Cara Hendry and Ashley Watkins and sophomore Stephanie Armstrong.
“The transfers were a little more difficult to recruit because of NCAA regulations,” Durocher said. “The players need to get a release from their former teams before anyone can start recruiting them.”
Lortie transferred from the University of Southern Maine after playing one season with the Huskies. She was second on the team in goals (8) and total points (15). Hendry attended Minnesota State-Mankato, where she netted three goals and made three assists last season.
Watkins, meanwhile, played more locally at New England College in New Hampshire. She was one of the top forwards on the Pilgrims’ squad, scoring 18 goals with 15 assists.
Armstrong is the only one of the four transfers who has played on a team that BU will face in the regular season. As a forward at Union College, she earned team MVP honors last season.
Durocher looked at 10 potential transfer students and narrowed his picks down to these four. He said he’s very pleased to have these four on his team, because they give the Terriers’ roster some experience and depth.
“Since the transfers played college hockey, they had some idea of how hard to work at this level,” he said. “They also give us character.”
Durocher credits BU for making his recruiting job easier. High school and NCAA players have heard of BU for its strong men’s hockey program and for its strong academics.
“It was tricky at first, because potential players wanted to know how long the team would take to evolve,” he said. “I believe that many of our new players picked BU because of its strong hockey history, and if they decide they don’t want to play Division I hockey anymore, they know that they are at a world-class institution.”
Women’s hockey itself has been a part of BU since the 1973-74 season. Back then, it was a club team that competed against other schools with club teams, as well as NCAA Division III programs.
Among the few times the women were able to compete with Division I schools was during the Beanpot. Although it was enormously difficult for the Terriers to match up against Northeastern University, Harvard University and Boston College, it allowed BU to get a taste of local competition.
The Terriers now have Northeastern and BC as Hockey East opponents, and will continue to face Harvard in the Beanpot.
In their final years as a club team, the Terriers improved vastly from previous seasons. They entered the American Collegiate Hockey Association in 2001 and finished ranked first in the ACHA nationwide. BU continued to receive national votes in the ACHA rankings over the following three seasons.
BU began last season ranked 15th nationally, but dropped out of the rankings as the season progressed. The Terriers finished fifth in their division in their final season of club competition.
Even though Durocher is new to coaching women’s hockey at BU, he is certainly not a new face in Terrier hockey. Durocher played for men’s coach Jack Parker as a co-captain goalie in the mid 70s – he later coached alongside Parker until last year, when he was named the women’s coach. In the Terriers’ NCAA national championship-winning 1977-78 season, Durocher posted a 14-2-0 record with a 3.99 goals-against average and an .871 save percentage.
And now, after a close loss (4-3 to Northeastern) and a near win (2-2 tie with Quinnipiac University) to start women’s hockey’s inaugural season, all Durocher has left to do in the early season is to bring home the team’s first win.
From there, it’s just a matter of letting the team settle into its home. And watching as it grows up.
