What Almost Never Was

For two years, the world of Boston University hockey stalled.

In 1978, 32-year-old head coach Jack Parker won a national championship in his sixth year at BU. In his first seven seasons, his teams never finished below fourth in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference, the Terriers’ home before the creation of Hockey East in 1985.

In his eighth and ninth years, Parker had to acquaint himself for the first time as a head coach, with failure. The Terriers went 11-17-0 in 1979-80 – Parker’s first sub-.500 season – and followed with a 14-15-0 record the next year, missing the ECAC playoffs in both campaigns. In both seasons, BU didn’t make it past the first round of the Beanpot.

“The world stopped,” said Bernie Corbett, the manager for the 1981-82 team, now in his 22nd year of calling BU games on the radio. “Everything was upside-down. It was like, Columbus was wrong – the world is flat.”

Tonight, when the Terriers (15-5-8, 11-4-7 Hockey East) take on Boston College (16-10-1, 12-8-1) in the 55th Beanpot title game – BU’s 13th consecutive championship appearance – it’ll be for BU’s 28th crown and Parker’s 20th.

By now, BU’s appearance in the finals has nearly become a given. But stowed away somewhere in the mass reserve of Beanpot stories is the tale of how, in 1982, a coach and program were resurrected. Twenty-five years ago, pivoting on a tournament as good as any in the Beanpot’s history, Jack Parker and the BU hockey program transformed into the dynamo they would be for the next 25 years.

It was a tournament that sparked a surge in recruiting at BU that brought in freshmen who would compose the NCAA tournament-bound 1985-86 team, including all-time leading scorer John Cullen. But more importantly, it was a tournament that restored the lacking piece in the BU community’s near-religious attachment to the Beanpot: belief.

“It rejuvenated the program,” Parker said. “The Beanpot can do that. We hadn’t played well . . . but then getting into the final and the win was like, ‘Oh, that’s where BU’s usually at.’ We built off that ’82 team. There’s no question that made us feel good about the program again.”

“People probably have a tough time remembering, with the success in the ’70s, but in the early ’80s, the team was struggling” said Cleon Daskalakis, the goalie of that 1981-82 team and one of BU’s all-time greats in net. “That win started changing the mentality of the team – it helped people believe.”

Going into the ’82 tournament, no one on the roster had ever won the title – none of the seniors had suited up as freshmen for the 1979 ‘Pot. In 1980, Northeastern beat BU in overtime in the first round, en route to the Huskies’ first title. A year later, BC cut off BU in the opener, winning 5-2, before losing to Harvard the next Monday.

“I was recruited into a program that had just won an NCAA championship in ’78,” said Tom O’Regan, MVP of the ’82 tournament. “But we lost a bunch of guys due to graduation and the Olympics [in 1980] for part of the year. We went through a rebuilding process. Jack [Parker] wasn’t accustomed to having to rebuild anything.”

The tournament that had become synonymous with BU – the Terriers won eight of 10 between 1966 and 1975 – began to assume different connotations. As BU stumbled, Northeastern and Harvard ascended and BC flew as high as ever.

“Those were probably the best years for the tournament,” Parker said. “What rejuvenated the Beanpot was Northeastern winning it. That got their program going. We won three Beanpots in the ’80s, they won four. That parity in those years, we made it more exciting.”

1981-82 began nearly as drearily as the two seasons before it, with the Terriers dragging out to a 6-8-1 start up to Jan. 19. Then BU got on a bit of a roll, beating St. Lawrence University and Northeastern and tying Vermont University and Clarkson University heading into the first round.

The Terriers knocked off Harvard, 5-1, to get to the championship game. In the other game, BC knocked off Northeastern, 3-2 in overtime.

In the finals, the Terriers met a BC hockey team in the process of outclassing almost everybody around.

“They were by far the most dominant team in the ECAC,” said Paul Fenton, assistant GM of the Nashville Predators and captain of that 1981-82 BU team.

“My class wanted to leave with a good memory,” O’Regan said. “From our standpoint, it would add something we could contribute to BU hockey.”

BC got on the board quick, scoring 3:51 into the game to take a 1-0 lead. But O’Regan, who scored a goal in the first round, sent a pass to Mark Pierog, who found the back of the net with 6:55 left in the first. Pierog returned the favor five minutes later, assisting on O’Regan’s goal with 1:34 left in the period.

The second period was scoreless, as BC couldn’t put a puck past Daskalakis, who made 39 saves on the night. Meanwhile, defenseman T.J. Connelly, captain of the ’83-’84 team, set about compressing every BC forward’s bones, attacking the Eagles with a relentless forecheck.

But with five minutes left in the third period, BU’s Bruce Milton fired a shot from the point that crept out to O’Regan. The senior fired the puck into the net to send BU up, 3-1, and the Garden erupted.

“Tommy O’Regan is probably one of the most underrated players to ever play at BU,” Fenton said. “He was the Beanpot MVP that year and deservedly so. He took us on his shoulders, made sure we had the offense. Tommy O’Regan was the money guy.”

For the Terriers, it was much more than a win. It was an affirmation, the solidification of a program that could barely afford another year of malaise.

“With 30 seconds left in the game, we were up 3-1, and it was that moment when you know you won but you’re still in the moment,” Daskalakis said. “I could look around and say we won this game, while we were still in it, and there was no way I was letting in two goals in 30 seconds.”

That Beanpot served as the unveiling of a product in-design all year. Toiling through another mediocre season, the Terriers were undergoing subtle changes, while Parker was undergoing larger ones.

The Terriers fell just short of the tournament that year, as only eight of the 17 teams in the ECAC advanced to the playoffs. But they made their return to the playoffs the next year, going 18-11-1 (14-7-0 ECAC), and made the NCAA tournament in 1984, losing to Jerry York’s eventual national-champion Bowling Green State University.

“[Parker] was under a lot of pressure that year,” Daskalakis said about 1981-82. “There were job security questions, all sorts of things going on at that time. The win took a little bit of pressure off the situation, and made everyone a bit more believers. We didn’t have the most talent – that came soon after – but we made the most. A lot of the credit goes to Coach Parker, because he made us achieve more than we thought we were capable of.”

“As a coach I was much too negative on the guys in those years, and I had to adjust to the way I was approaching the team,” Parker said. “It gave me a little humility, a lesson in patience. I never felt I was worried about my job, but I was worried about my ability to do my job. I was questioning everything I was doing and how I was doing it.”

He opened up other avenues of input. He surrounded himself with some of the best assistant coaches in the country – his cabinet’s still brimming with talent. Practices now are more of a cacophonous chorus, with all coaches tossing in their expertise, instead of one voice dictating the direction of the team as they were in the early years.

“Jack was all [former head coach] Jack Kelley’s x’s and o’s,” O’Regan said. “Then he let other guys come in and have some say, add creativity. As the game’s changed, he’s changed.”

His style and personality borrowed from those around him. Associate head coach Ben Smith acted as a balance for Parker, who had been prone to extremes. Both Massachusetts residents and both fervent hockey fans, their similarities didn’t extend much past that.

Parker grew up in Somerville. Smith grew up in Gloucester, the son of businessman Benjamin Atwood Smith II, who roomed with John F. Kennedy at Harvard University. When JFK took the presidency, the elder Smith occupied Kennedy’s seat in the Senate until Ted Kennedy was elected. Smith even introduced Parker to sailing, now one of Parker’s passions.

“Their backgrounds were dramatically different,” Corbett said. “Jack was a city kid that grew up in a Somerville three-decker, and there weren’t many yacht club members in there.”

As the Beanpot has progressed — from local event to national spectacle, from the Garden to the FleetCenter to the TD Bankorth Garden — so much remains that ties this year to every one that’s come before it.

There’s the passion and fervor that comes with pitting four teams connected via subway against each other in their city’s most prized sport. There are the faces from decades past that fill the arena. And there’s Parker.

Of all the reasons behind BU’s reign over the ‘Pot, the strongest common strand is the man behind the bench. The face and mind of BU hockey, he’s inseparable from the team and the tournament he’s made his.

He’ll deflect the attention to his players, especially his seniors – and they’ve deserved it (and will continue to), because they’re the ones who actually play the games. But the sheer excellence of this program in this tournament can’t be just a string of coincidences on February evenings.

“He’s the patriarch, the thing that brings us together,” Corbett said. “If you’re a letterman here, you’ve got everyone else’s back. I’ve got a place to hide all across the country, and it all goes back to Jack.”

“It would be easy to say the two words – Jack Parker,” Daskalakis said. “He’s the first thing that came to mind. You’ve got a guy behind the bench – what difference does he make? It’s in the way he prepares his team, the way you go out on the ice believing you can win this game. A lot of it stems from him, his personality and momentum. Pure momentum.”

The Beanpot was one of the big draws that brought current captain and Braintree native Sean Sullivan to BU. And it’ll be one of his lingering memories, he said, just as it has been for nearly half a century of BU wins.

“As a local kid I dreamt of playing in it,” Sullivan said. “For the Beanpot, I was either there or watching it on TV . . . Then, my sophomore year, we finally won it and I got to grab the trophy and I gave it a big kiss and looked up at my parents in the stands. We have a picture of it in my living room.”

“People look at the Beanpot like an end of the year championship,” said BU goalie John Curry. “If you don’t win the Beanpot, people look at you like, ‘What happened?'”

And in that way, these Terriers are connected to the ones that came five, 10 or 25 years before. They’re connected through the constants that cut through change.

“To tell you the truth, I think people might be getting tired of BU winning it or a BU/BC final,” Parker said with a smile. “The turnover will be better off when BU doesn’t win it or BC doesn’t win it. I just don’t want to be around when it happens.”