Boston College goaltender Tim Kelleher is certainly someone who’s familiar with the Eagles’ rivalry with Commonwealth Avenue counterpart Boston University.
He’s at the Heights now, but he’s seen and cheered a 17-game Terrier unbeaten streak. He’s seen the Icedogs win a national championship game, and he’s seen them lose one two years later. He’s seen Travis Roy and Chris Drury wearing scarlet and white.
And, perhaps most importantly, he’s seen more than a few games in a wild Walter Brown Arena.
So when surrounded by surliness to his right, left and rear, BC’s senior netminder didn’t panic. With the suds of Sections 7 and 8 overflowing through the aisles, Kelleher kept to his comfortable crease, attending solely to the action in front of him and turning aside 30 shots to earn the No. 1 star in BC’s 3-2 win Friday night over host BU.
Tim Kelleher was 14 years old when his brother, Chris, came to BU as a freshman in 1994 and left four years later with 109 points from the blue line. He was a second-team All-American in 1997, and the following season joined Drury as the Terriers’ captains.
‘I grew up with this rivalry,” Tim Kelleher said. “I watched it from both sides, before my brother went to BU, when my brother was at BU, afterwards; now I’m at BC. It’s just so fun. Every game is intense, it’s back and forth.’
Tim and Chris are two of five Kelleher brothers to play college hockey, but the only two to partake in one of college hockey’s most famous and fierce rivalries. In the past, Tim has been subjected to the ‘Brother’s better!’ chants from the Walter Brown crowd, but this time there was none of that.
‘Oh yeah, all the time,’ Kelleher said Friday, admitting his desire to silence Terrier Nation. ‘We’ve got some bragging rights over my brother now.’
In a way, it was a dream game for Kelleher, who finds himself in an alternating platoon with sophomore Matti Kaltiainen between the BC pipes, and having always fancied the chance to crash the party at Walter Brown, was happy to have his number called on Friday.
And after the game, it looked as though the BC players had a sense of that. Sure, it was an emotional 3-2 win over their arch-rival, but most of the Eagles made it a point to find Kelleher in the huddle along the backboards.
‘They know,’ said Kelleher, a Belmont native. ‘I live 15 minutes away from both schools, not even. They know my brother went here. There’s so much tradition at both schools. The BC-BU rivalry is so intense. Each game is just magnified. Everybody looks forward to this game a little bit more than others. Obviously you can’t look too far ahead, but you mark that date on your calendar when you see BU.’
Of Kelleher’s 30 stops, several rattled his face mask when he jumped to assure dump-ins were flying over the net and not just over his shoulder. His best work came late in the first period, when Frantisek Skladany made a bid to tie the game at two before the teams switched ends.
Skladany slid a puck through two defenders to lead himself into the zone, but Kelleher broke off his line, reaching the puck as Skladany did. Kelleher knocked the puck away, but right to Gregg Johnson who put one toward the vacant cage. As he retreated, Kelleher got a piece of the shot and pushed it wide. Minutes later, Freddy Meyer and Brad Zancanaro also had good chances, but Kelleher was equal to the task each time, and the Eagles eventually opened up a 3-1 lead.
‘You’re going to have flurries every game,’ the goalie said. ‘You’ve just got to withstand them, and we did.’
With 7:05 to go, however, Kelleher almost lost BC’s grip on the lead. Steve Greeley’s one-timer caught him crossing the crease and split Kelleher’s pads, but unfortunately for the Terriers, it caught the far post squarely and bounced away. As play transitioned the other way, Kelleher lifted his mask to take a drink of water, revealing a wide grin smack across his face.
‘As goalies we get lucky sometimes,’ he said. ‘Everybody gets lucky out there, but it just gave me a little chuckle knowing it went through my legs and hit the post. We got the bounces.
‘It was a pretty good feeling to see it go through my legs and then look over and see the crowd cover their face or curse or something.’
