He didn’t play in the most games. 
He didn’t score the most goals.
He didn’t tally the most assists.
He didn’t win the most faceoffs.
He didn’t score the most power play goals.
He didn’t have the highest shooting percentage.
He’s 23 years old. Normally, he would have graduated last year. Instead, he won’t start his senior year until the fall.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Chris Connolly, your lone 2011-12 Boston University men’s hockey captain.
No co-captains.
No associate captains.
No assistant captains.
Just Chris Connolly.
Head coach Jack Parker announced he entrusted Connolly to be the players’ leader this past Friday evening at the annual Friends of BU Hockey dinner. Connolly, who was only the second junior captain in the 93-year history of the program last season, will extend his tenure one more year.
Alone.
Despite the fact he has four other rising seniors returning to the squad next season, BU coach Parker had a dilemma when it came to naming captains for the 2011-12 squad: No player truly fits the bill.
Forward Corey Trivino would fill the role, but he has one major character blemish on his record: a three-game suspension at the start of last season for “conduct unbecoming of a Boston University hockey player.”
Trivino, along with former forward Vinny Saponari, skipped a mandatory team bike ride last May that served as punishment for a March drinking incident. Saponari was dismissed and Trivino was suspended.
Another returning forward, Kevin Gilroy, doesn’t have as much experience on the ice as most members of the class of 2012, or even most other members of the entire team. He played in a mere 18 games this season, scoring only three goals and three assists. Through his entire career at BU, he’s played in only one-third of the total games for which he was eligible.
The other two rising seniors, Kieran Millan and Grant Rollheiser, are goalies. The pressures of being a goalie often prevent them from assuming the captain’s position. Furthermore, Rollheiser has played second fiddle his entire career to Millan, who was named team MVP at the banquet last Friday.
Which brings us to the man who will be captain, one Chris Connolly. He scored the second-most points for the Terriers this past season, notching 10 goals and 18 assists. He missed five games with a broken finger, but still posted numbers within the same range of his performances the past two seasons.
In the end, Connolly truly is the proper choice to preside, alone, over the Terriers. While one member of his class may have demonstrated conduct unbecoming of a Boston University hockey player, Connolly has done nothing but what it means to be a Terrier.
Five years ago, Connolly was playing for the Fargo-Moorhead Jets, a junior team in the North American Hockey League. Despite posting 37 goals and 98 assists in 118 games over two seasons with the Jets, his chances of going to college or moving up in the junior hockey world were slim.
That is, until he received a call from the Omaha Lancers during the 2007 United States Hockey League draft, asking him to make the seven-hour drive to Nebraska for a tryout with the team. No guarantees that he would make the Lancers’ 2007-08 squad – simply a chance to see if he was possibly ready.
Apparently, he was.
Connolly scored the second-most points on the team that year, his 26 goals and 29 assists combining to fall five short of Barry Almeida’s 22 and 38, respectively. More importantly, however, Connolly captured the attention of one reputable East Coast college hockey program.
That’s basically the story of how, just a year-and-a-half removed from the threat of being completely forced to give up his dream, Connolly found himself on Commonwealth Avenue as a BU Terrier.
From the start, he was productive, scoring 10 goals and 20 assists in his first season donning the scarlet and white. He scored the opening goal of the 2009 national title game and assisted on former Terrier Colby Cohen’s game winner.
The next year, in the midst of the atrocity that was the 2009-10 men’s hockey season, Connolly managed to score the same amount of goals, and added an assist to his total, despite playing in nine fewer games.
In his four years at BU, and in his three in the junior leagues before that, Connolly has shown dedication to his teams. While he has yet to turn pro, he is practically a veteran. He’s won two championships – the USHL’s Clark Cup and the national championship – and played in hundreds of games. No member of the 2011-2012 Terriers will have nearly as much experience as the man picked to lead them.
In the end, though he may not lead any major statistical category, Connolly is the best answer to Jack Parker’s dilemma.
If he had what it took to be the second junior captain in BU history, he has what it takes to be the sole captain of the Terriers.
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