Jack Parker walked into the room minutes after the Boston University men’s hockey team wrestled the national championship away from Miami University in an overtime thriller. He pulled out his chair, took his seat in front of the microphone and breathed deeply, the strain of a season’s worth of close calls visible on his face.
‘First off, I thought that was a fabulous college hockey game,’ the Terrier coach said, echoing a sentiment he expressed time and time again throughout the team’s march to the title.
There was no shortage of moments for the legendary coach to marvel at over the last six months. The year kicked off with a tournament victory (Ice Breaker), and before BU collected its final trophy on the grandest stage of them all in Washington, D.C., the Terriers collected five other titles along the way.
By the time Parker and his squad were parading down Commonwealth Avenue, trophies in tow, the team had also garnered awards for the top rookie in the nation (goalie Kieran Millan), the Hobey Baker Award (senior defenseman Matt Gilroy) and the staff award for Coach of the Year. With 35 victories, this year’s Terriers also set a school record for wins in a season.
The effort to hoist that final trophy and earn that final celebration began long before the calendar turned to April. When BU first played in early October, it was clear that this was a talented team.
The defensive corps boasted five skaters whose rights were already owned by NHL teams, with Gilroy being the lone free agent, returning after a summer in which he was pursued by almost every pro franchise.’
‘When we realized that both Gilroy and Wilson were going to be back, we knew we were going to have a really talented, deep team,’ Parker said. ‘I really thought that we’d go as far as our seniors would take us.’
Offensively, there were two former Hockey East Rookies of the Year (sophomore Colin Wilson and senior Brandon Yip), as well as a center coming off a sparkling freshman effort (Nick Bonino). The only question mark remained in goal, where freshmen Kieran Millan and Grant Rollheiser were set to battle for the starting job.
Over the course of the season, the Terriers developed into a championship-caliber team, with three games in particular serving to mold the finished product.
BU first showed its penchant for late-game heroics in a Nov. 7 road game against the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. With the team trailing 3-1 late in the second period, Wilson and senior linemates Chris Higgins and Jason Lawrence took control of the game’s direction. Their chemistry produced four goals, including three in the final 2:14 to overturn a one-goal deficit and steal a victory away from the River Hawks.
In the Hockey East Championship four months later, Millan’s stellar performance in net once again robbed UML of a game that it should have won.
But that November comeback established a trend that carried through to the end of the season. No hole was too deep to climb out of ‘-‘- no odds were too long.
It was not until a month later, in a weekend set with Boston College, that the Terriers goaltending situation finally solved itself. When Rollheiser was forced to miss his turn between the pipes due to injury, Millan took advantage of his first time playing back-to-back games. After a tie at Agganis Arena the night before, Millan’s best work was on display at Conte Forum on Dec. 6. He turned away 18 shots to lead BU to a 3-1 win.
There would be no more questions ‘-‘- Millan was the starter. And he ran with the opportunity, going 19 games without a loss and saving his teammates on many nights when lighting the lamp was a challenge.
One more game, the Beanpot Championship against Northeastern University, played a crucial role in the Terriers’ development into eventual national champions. The team’s play that night exhibited all the facets that helped overturn Miami in early April: strong goaltending, explosive offense and a knack for coming up with the big play whenever necessary.
It was the first score that night that proved to foreshadow the final score of the season. Wilson fed the puck to the point where Kevin Shattenkirk collected it and began to walk down the blue line. He switched sides with Colby Cohen and slid the puck over to the sophomore defenseman for a one-timer from the top of the left circle that blistered through traffic and into the net.
In overtime against Miami two months later, Shattenkirk reeled in a pass from Chris Connolly and repeated the play. Cohen waited anxiously, his stick cocked high over his right shoulder to blast a shot. The puck flipped off a defender and high into the air, tumbling into the corner of the net and sending the Terriers on a victory lap around the arena.
And with that, the season came to a close. Seven championships, 35 wins and numerous individual awards will help carry this team into the BU history books.
For the Terriers, it was a fabulous college hockey season.
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