It looked like the Boston University Terriers hit their low during a pathetic second period that led to a 3-1 home loss to the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in November. Less than a week later, they sunk even further with a demoralizing 5-2 decision at Harvard University. Then, after turning in what BU hockey coach Jack Parker called the worst effort he has ever seen his team put up against arch-rival Boston College at Conte Forum Dec. 5, it seemed the Terriers could not sink any lower.
They did Wednesday.
In their biggest game of the year, already two games below .500 in Hockey East play and trying to get on the right track before four games against the two best teams in the league, the Terriers (5-6-6, 2-5-2 Hockey East) did not show up at Walter Brown Arena Wednesday to face the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (10-6-5, 6-4-2). The result was a 2-1 loss, though the game was not that close.
It was surprising, especially after the display of heart this version of the Scarlet and White showed last weekend in Minneapolis in two gritty 5-5 ties against the two-time defending national champion University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. But that team must have missed the flight home, and Parker certainly called them on it.
“This team has a tendency to want things to be easy,” Parker said. “They just come off a good weekend, they’re hoping UMass isn’t as good as Minnesota. We weren’t mentally ready to play this game and UMass certainly was.
“Does it take me by surprise that a BU team would do that? Yeah,” Parker continued, taking a direct shot at his current group. “Does it take me by surprise that this specific BU team would do that? No.”
The coach could not say enough about his team’s lack of effort, much like his comments after the Lowell and BC games.
“That’s what I’m so upset about,” he continued. “That this specific BU team wearing this uniform can be so casual, so inept at keeping ready and getting ready and being ready to compete.
“It was embarrassing the difference in the level of competition, the level of competitiveness. That game was not won on talent; that game wasn’t won on systems. That game wasn’t won on power plays or penalty kills — that game was won on heart and effort. They had a lot of both, we had very little of both.”
The press conference came after Parker spent an extended amount of time in the locker room. One can only guess what was said.
The 2-1 score was deceivingly close, at least according to Parker. The game was about as different as it could have possibly been from the Minnesota series. The play went from wide-open, high-scoring hockey to low-scoring, clutch-and-grab style on a much smaller ice in front of a paltry crowd of 2,100. BU looked more at home in front of the hostile fans of Mariucci Arena.
The best player in Boston Bruins history, Bobby Orr, was seated in Section 8. He must not have been very impressed.
“I was disgusted with our play tonight in all three periods, in many phases of the game – in all phases of the game,” Parker said. “But forgetting the technical aspects of it, like power plays and breakouts and collecting passes and dumping it in when you should and making good decisions – forgetting all that, we got so embarrassedly outworked and outcompeted, there’s nothing more to be said.”
But he did say plenty more.
“You can’t win hockey games when you go out there and one team is playing at a level of intensity and drive and effort and the other team is upset that they might have to play harder than they’re playing,” he continued. “‘Oh, boy, UMass is gonna play that hard tonight? I don’t know if I can do that.'”
And so goes the story of the 2003-04 Terriers. Just when you think they are ready to put together some consistency, they fall back into the abyss.
They never led in this one, and only managed to tie the game on a soft goal allowed by Massachusetts goalie Gabe Winer 14 seconds into the second period. Craig MacDonald won it for the Minutemen with his first goal of the year, deflecting Hobey Baker candidate Thomas Pock’s slapper on the power play with just more than five minutes to go in the second.
The damage was not worse because the Minutemen, who were coming off an eight-game winless streak and had never won a game at Walter Brown in their history, were missing arguably their two best forwards — Greg Mauldin was out with a head injury and Chris Capraro was out for personal reasons.
But it was very difficult to find many good BU scoring chances, despite the fact that the Terriers misleadingly outshot Massachusetts 23-20.
Despite all the problems, BU almost tied the game in the final minute with goalie Sean Fields on the bench. In a mad rush led by Kenny Roche toward the Massachusetts net, the puck found its way past Winer just as the crowd knocked the net off its moorings. Referee Conrad Hache waved off the goal, saying the net had already come off.
When asked what he would do about the lackluster effort, Parker said, “It’s hard to instill a competitive spirit into an individual. It’s hard to instill a heart into an individual.
“That was a shameful display in my mind,” he said, declaring the game the lowest point of the season because of the magnitude of the game.
And even though it is January, a time in the season when poor play can no longer be called a bad start, Parker said he did not feel any sense of urgency from his team.
“I don’t know if there’ll be a sense of urgency tomorrow,” he said. “We talked about how important the game was – there should have been a sense of urgency… There was no sense of urgency tonight.”
“I’m hoping this was an aberration,” Parker said, in the only optimism he could muster.
Friday the Terriers host Northeastern University, a team that has won five straight and is showing plenty of heart right now after a dismal start. If BU loses that game, the team will be 2-6-2 in the league entering two games against BC and two more against the University of Maine, both of which are in the top 4 in the country.
It’s getting pretty tempting to hit that panic button.
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