Taking Them To School

Brian Strait knows Boston University hockey.

A Terrier fan since the age of seven, Strait has cheered in Walter Brown Arena and watched BU greats like Chris Drury and Rick DiPietro take the ice under coach Jack Parker. So it’s no surprise that when asked to explain why he verbally committed to the Terriers last year, the Waltham native called it a dream to wear the scarlet and white sweater.

Yet, it wasn’t until Saturday – when he and the U.S. National Under-18 team nearly pulled off a stunning upset at Agganis Arena – that he finally got the chance to experience skating with his future team.

And, according to him, it nearly killed him.

With the first period winding down, sophomore forward Boomer Ewing popped out of the penalty box after serving a two-minute minor, skated in a circle back toward the U-18 team’s zone and locked in on an unsuspecting Strait along the boards.

In a flash of red, white, scarlet and blue, Ewing flung all 5 feet, 10 inches and 166 pounds of himself at the 17-year-old defenseman. Strait luckily saw Ewing at the last second, moved enough out of the way to avoid ending up on a stretcher and took the brunt of the check on his left shoulder, spinning while Ewing sprawled onto the ice.

“I’m sure they’ll talk about that when they get together next year,” said U-18 team coach John Hynes.

Next year certainly was the focus on Saturday. Besides being an in-season exhibition game – one BU managed to save face in with a 3-2 overtime win – the match-up with the U-18 team gives the Terriers a chance to welcome some of the nation’s best prospects to BU. Though it can be a great recruiting tool for those undecided about their college choice – which totaled six players Saturday – it’s primarily used to introduce those already committed to the Terriers.

In last year’s inaugural showdown, current BU freshman Jason Lawrence scored the U-18 team’s lone goal in a 4-1 BU win. This year, both Strait (the team’s captain and starting left defenseman) and Greg Squires (a quick 5-foot, 6-inch forward with “electrifying” offensive talent, according to Hynes) took to the ice knowing the next time they played at Agganis, they would be on the home team.

A third player, goalie Brett Bennett, is also verbally committed to play at BU next year but didn’t make the trip to Boston. The highly-touted netminder has been sidelined since the start of the season after undergoing shoulder surgery, but is expected to return to the team in two to three weeks.

“It’s important for us to show these guys the building, but in general, they already made up their mind most of them,” Parker said. “We’re recruiting a couple of guys on that [U-18] team still, but for the year after, not for this year coming up. It would be better if we could play the 16-year-old team, but that would be a little lopsided.”

With the connections BU has within the National Team Development Program, Parker could probably set up that game, too. Hynes is a BU alum who played under Parker from 1993-97, and John Lilley, an assistant on the U-17 team, also played at BU. David Quinn, BU’s current associate head coach, was the U-17 team’s head coach before joining the Terriers last season, and has been an integral part in bringing the U-18 team to play BU.

That’s not to say the Terriers have only recently drawn from the talent-rich pool in the NTDP. Before Lawrence, BU brought in eight players from the program, including DiPietro and four in the same class that included Justin Maiser, Ryan Whitney, Bryan Miller and Brian McConnell.

Both Strait and Squires committed to BU even before they joined the NTDP, and the current Terriers did all they could to make them feel welcome, Ewing’s hit included.

“You can definitely tell they wanted to hit [Strait and me] probably a little more than everyone else on the team,” said Squires, a winger from White Plains, N.Y. “They wanted to give us a little heads up on what’s going on for next year.”

Due to NCAA restrictions, Parker couldn’t give reporters any heads up on Strait or Squires, offering that “he can comment that they’ve agreed to come to Boston University, but that’s all.” Yet, after finishing his press conference, he walked to the door where the two high school seniors were waiting to come in, and greeted them.

“I can’t comment on how good you guys are,” Parker said to them with a laugh. “But you can comment on how good of a guy I am.”

The two laughed, sat down for what may be the first of many meetings with the Boston media and proceeded to describe their experience of playing at BU.

“I actually thought the fans were going to get on our cases a little more than they did,” Strait said at one point. “They were actually praising us a little bit too much, I thought.”

If Strait and his fellow classmates feel the same way about the Terrier faithful a year from now, they’ll be doing just fine. That’s, of course, if Ewing doesn’t pop out of another box anytime soon.