It’s only fitting that Brian Durocher’s Case Center office resides feet away from Walter Brown Arena, the storied rink Boston University men’s hockey once called home.
Nearly three years after the opening of Agganis Arena, Durocher remains a fixture within the hallowed halls of the university’s dated athletic facility. After all, he is as versed as any on the history of BU hockey. He wore the scarlet and white as a player in the late 1970s. He was a full-time assistant on men’s coach Jack Parker’s staff in the early 1980s, and served as associate head coach from the late 1990s to early 2000s.
Now in his third season as the head coach of BU’s women’s hockey program, there’s no question where Durocher’s loyalties lie. He is a BU man through and through.
“BU has been highly supportive of Brian Durocher,” Durocher said. “Jack Parker in particular has been highly supportive of Brian Durocher from a student-athlete to a beginning coach. I hope I’ve served Boston University well over the course of time. I’ve loved every moment of it. It’s a place that’s close to my heart.”
1974-78: “The most fun I ever had in my life”
Flashback to 1973. The regional power that has become Boston University hockey features an abundance of Canadian talent. There are few “local kids” on Jack Parker’s squad, but it doesn’t appear Brian Durocher — a goaltender from Longmeadow — will alter the trend of successful Canadian players.
Despite the low odds of landing a Division I roster spot, Durocher kept plugging away. He played in the Boston area once per weekend with a junior program, granting him the prized exposure that eventually made him a Terrier. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Durocher had the support of an influential BU alumnus.
“The rink owner of the Springfield Olympia was a BU graduate,” Durocher said. “He got into contact with Jack and the BU people, and they came to watch me play. They brought me to see the NCAA Tournament and come to the postseason banquet.
“It came down to here and Boston College,” he continued. “I chose BU for a number of reasons. I think the [hockey] program was hot. The School of Education was something I was interested in. Truth be told, I didn’t think I’d ever make much of a splash in college hockey. But I was going to get an education paid for through financial aid.”
Upon arriving at BU, the New England Whalers’ draft choice was met with a daunting obstacle — seven of them, actually.
“Unlike nowadays, where it’s pretty defined that you have three goalies — two on scholarship and one’s paying his way — there were eight goalies when I came here,” Durocher said. “Lo and behold, one of the kids from Toronto went home mid-year and another kid transferred to Michigan State. So we were down to five or six goalies, and I was lucky enough to evolve and play a lot my freshman season (17-2-1 record). The rest was history.”
BU earned an NCAA Tournament berth in each of Durocher’s four years as a Terrier, but Durocher (47-13-1 career record) saved his best efforts for his senior season, when he teamed with future Olympian Jim Craig to lead the 1977-78 squad to a national title. While Craig caught fire down the stretch to claim the No. 1 job, Durocher has fond memories of the historic 30-2 campaign and his entire BU playing career.
“[The national championship] put great closure to a time at BU,” Durocher said. “People always ask me if I would have liked to play in [the title] game and I say, ‘Yeah, I would have liked to, but I respected Jimmy and I respected everybody on the team.’ Having been [in the NCAAs] three times [before] and lost in the semifinals all three, it was a great ending for us to win the national title.
“[My playing career] was the most fun I ever had in my life. It had ups and downs, but never because I was mistreated. I never had an inflated ego of where I was in the pecking order because I had great teams in front of me. A lot of people could have done the job I did here at BU.”
The first stage of Durocher’s post-BU life featured eight days of professional camp, a week that changed his career path.
“I saw how many good goalies there were [at pro camp],” he said. “After [the Whalers] let me go, I made a career decision that I could go on and battle minor league hockey, or I could move into a coaching position that I was offered at [American International College in Springfield]. I think I made the right decision.”
A student of the game
Durocher’s 30-year tenure as a college hockey coach might come as a surprise to some, but not Parker. The longtime men’s coach said the groundwork for his former player’s coaching career was laid decades ago. Parker remembers Durocher as an exceptional collegiate goaltender who studied the game like no other.
“You could see that Brian was a student of the game when he was here,” Parker said. “But I think the goaltending position is one that you can be more of a student. You take care of your own business, but you also have to know what everybody else is doing. That probably gave him a jump in being able to analyze the game.”
“Since I was a little kid, I always envisioned coaching,” Durocher said. “In our day, I lived across from a schoolyard and everyday we were playing a sport. Whatever orchestrating needed to be done, I always felt like I was the orchestrator, saying, ‘OK, let’s get two infielders on this side,’ or when the quarterback ran a play, I always felt the need to dictate.
“Even if I wasn’t playing, I was always watching from a coach’s perspective. [Coaching] was clearly something I envisioned myself doing, but I didn’t know quite how you got into it until I was presented the opportunity. I said, ‘I got to get in this thing.'”
Durocher’s opportunity came in the form of an assistant position at AIC, where he spent two tumultuous seasons that challenged his desire to continue coaching. It took a phone call from his former mentor to keep Durocher on track.
“I was almost ready to get out because there wasn’t much money involved,” Durocher said. “It was $800 a year to coach at AIC, so I was doing some manual labor at the same time to make ends meet. Then Jack called and said he had a second full-time position on his staff. I said, ‘I’m there.'”
Durocher’s triumphant return to his alma mater lasted just five seasons. He relished the opportunity to coach alongside Parker, but knew he’d never acquire the qualities needed to become a head coach without increased responsibility. Durocher left BU in 1985 for Colgate University, where he worked as the primary recruiter and on-ice assistant to the late Terry Slater for seven seasons. While difficult, the decision to leave BU ultimately molded Durocher into the man he is today.
“[Colgate] was a chance to grow as an individual,” Durocher said. “We had two assistants and a volunteer guy [at BU], so I moved into a position where it was just myself at Colgate. It was great because I had to do all the recruiting and I had to be one of the two coaches on the bench to help out. Slater was kind of a one-man show, but he had enough respect for me that he put me on the bench.
“The volume of recruiting and the monitoring of the kids was at times overwhelming, but it forced me to get out there and make contacts. It was great because Terry Slater was almost the polar opposite of Jack Parker. Terry was far from an X’s and O’s guy; he was more of a psychologist. I think I have a good chunk of [Slater] in what I do as a coach. It was a great experience to learn from someone other than Jack.”
After losing out on the chance to succeed Slater at Colgate, a dejected Durocher moved on to Brown University, where he spent four seasons (1992-96). He rejoined Parker’s staff in 1996 as associate head coach, a position he held through 2004. Despite the contrasting personalities, Durocher considers Parker the driving force behind his coaching longevity.
“[Parker]’s been somebody that’s given me opportunities multiple times as a player and coach,” Durocher said. “I can’t be Jack Parker and I don’t try to be those things. He’s very much an intense, pedal-to-the-metal guy all the time. My personality is different than his. I gotta make sure kids are comfortable with me, and that if I keep the kids a little loose they’re going to play a little looser on the ice.
“I picked up some of the psychology from Terry Slater and I took an awful lot of the X’s and O’s aspect from Jack. I also learned to watch the game as [Parker] does in that he sees what’s happening on the ice. I hope I see what’s happening on the ice and know how a mistake started or a play started.”
The right place at
the right time
Maybe it was his personality. Maybe it was his winning track record. Maybe it was his dedication to BU hockey. For whatever reason, Durocher was named the first head coach of the women’s team in the summer of 2004. The foundation for the program had been laid in 2000 — the midpoint of Durocher’s second go-around with the men’s team. His interest in the job was evident. The only question: Could he coach women?
“The biggest thing I needed to do was figure out if I liked coaching women,” Durocher said. “The word was on the street that I might be interested, so I had to find out if I liked it — and I did.”
Otherwise, the job appealed to Durocher in every way.
“It was Boston University. It was a real good place to be in my life for a number of reasons. More than anything, it was my love of BU and the unquestioned support I knew was going to be here with this program. As we kept inching toward the situation, I let Jack know I would be very interested in the position. Fortunately they thought the same of me and gave me the opportunity. I was just in the right place at the right time to know about it.”
“I thought [Durocher] would be a terrific candidate,” said Parker, who worked closely with BU Director of Athletics Mike Lynch during the hiring process. “We had a few others, but I thought he was easily far and above the other candidates for a couple of reasons. He had great experience being on the men’s side. And I think he knew what was good and bad about the men’s game, and would try to bring the good and leave the bad to keep the women on the right track.
“That said, he also had to have the different personality,” Parker continued. “I don’t think a lot of guys on the men’s side can transfer over the women’s side. He was the perfect guy to do that from a personality and a caring point of view.”
A fixture in BU hockey
Durocher’s greatest asset can’t be measured in a win-loss record, because his impact runs much deeper. For more than three decades, he has carved out his place as one of the classiest individuals in all of college hockey. He has no adversaries, only admirers. Among those who know him, it’s hard to argue that Durocher just might be the most caring coach in college sports.
“His personality has a lot to do with [his success],” said women’s hockey co-captain Gina Kearns, who is in her third season under Durocher’s tutelage. “But more so his dedication to the game. He loves to play it, watch it and coach it. When you have that type of dedication to the game, you can’t help but succeed.”
Thirty-four years after coming to BU as a teenage goaltender from western Massachusetts, Durocher has never really left. His devotion to Terrier hockey — as a player and coach — is unparalleled by anyone not named Parker. Years from now, when his BU days are reduced to memories, how does Durocher wish to be remembered — as a national champion goaltender or a revered leader of men and women?
“I think you’d rather have your legacy be that you were a coach that treated people well and did right by people,” Durocher said. “A guy named Leo Durocher once said nice guys finish last — I’m hoping he’s wrong. I consider myself a good person and someone who’s always trying to communicate with the parents and kids.
“Hopefully somebody out there will remember I was OK as a player. But if you roll it all together, I hope people remember me as a fixture in BU hockey — somebody who helped his team win as a player and coach, but also somebody who did it with class and did it with success.”