It had been a play that Boston University coach Jack Parker and the BU men’s hockey team looked to throughout most of the season.
Whether on the man-up or at even strength, the through-cycle pass from below the end line to sophomore defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk to set up classmate Colby Cohen for a one-time slap shot was a familiar sight to most BU fans.
On a handful of occasions, Cohen’s howitzer rippled the back of the net without changing direction mid-flight.
On April 11, Cohen’s last scoring bid of the year crossed the goal line to give BU a lead. This time, however, the shot floated into the back of the net after deflecting off a defender’s shin, and it gave BU a national title.
‘I saw it go in and that was it,’ Cohen said. ‘I don’t remember anything after that, and just an unbelievable feeling.’
Cohen scored on a feed from Shattenkirk at the 11-minute mark of overtime to give BU its fifth title in program history, erasing the dismal memories of last year’s futile season.
The goal marked the first time in BU history that the Terriers not only won the trifecta of nationally recognized tournaments (the Beanpot, the Hockey East title and the national championship), but everything else along the way, as well.
It started in late October with the Ice Breaker Invitational at Agganis Arena. The Terriers blew then-No. 5 University of North Dakota and No. 11 Michigan State University out of contention for the tournament crown.
Two months later, BU left Denver, Colo. with a pair of convincing wins at the Wells Fargo Denver Cup.
Exactly two months after that, the Terriers scored two shorthanded goals on Hobey Baker finalist Brad Thiessen to beat Northeastern University for their first Beanpot title since 2006 and followed it up with a regular-season Hockey East title on March 8.
After winning the Hockey East Tournament and the national championship, there is nothing this year’s crop of Terriers did not accomplish over the course of the season.
Even the Hobey returned to Commonwealth Avenue in the hands of BU senior defenseman Matt Gilroy.
This BU team will forever be among the greatest of all time. The Terriers’ 35 wins are the most by any BU unit to date, and hosting two candidates in the Hobey Baker Hat Trick had never been done before.
Parker issued a statement to his players in the first official team meeting at the beginning of the year, and that message was plain and simple: Leave nothing behind.
With Cohen’s overtime tally, the Terriers accomplished what they set out to do in early October.
‘From the start of this year, what this team has done and what we’ve committed to the team, we got here,’ Gilroy said. ‘[Tonight] was unreal, and it’s something the senior class will never ever forget.’ It’s unbelievable to go out the way we did.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
