In just the second game of its young season, the Boston University women’s hockey team suffered two losses, as they were defeated by the University of North Dakota and star sophomore forward Marie-Philip Poulin suffered an abdominal injury that will have her, and her offensive production, off the ice until around December.
The Terriers (1-1-0) will, nonetheless, have to lick their wounds and shake off the fatigue from last weekend in another two-game home series this weekend. This time BU will face Niagara University for the first time in the team’s history.
“It’s a little bit of an unknown,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “Because Niagara has a proud tradition but they had a coaching change a little late in the summer and their assistant coach Josh Sciba has taken over the team.”
Last weekend, BU opened up its season for the second-straight time against North Dakota and for the second-consecutive year, split the contests.
“I think we just let North Dakota – they’re a very talented team – have the middle too much,” Durocher said. “If we can clog that up a bit, slow the other team down, I know we’re going to go down and score goals and get opportunities.”
On Friday night, the Terriers scored four goals en route to their 4-1 victory over the Fighting Sioux. Senior forward Jenelle Kohanchuk started off the scoring for the Terriers on a power-play goal in the second frame of the game. This was after five unsuccessful power plays in the first period.
Sophomore forward Louise Warren notched the game-winner seven minutes later and senior forward and captain Jenn Wakefield added on two more goals, one a power-play goal and one a short-handed tally, to bolster the Terriers’ lead.
The next day, however, the team’s only offense came from junior forward and transfer student Isabel Menard who scored her first goal as a Terrier with 6:09 left in the period. Her lone goal, however, was not enough to combat the Fighting Sioux’s five.
“That was an elite team,” Durocher said of North Dakota. “Maybe if we scored one other goal we could have changed the complexion on the game on Saturday, but we couldn’t do that. North Dakota got away from us.”
More devastating for the Terriers was the knowledge after Saturday’s loss that Poulin had suffered an injury in the third period that would likely have her out of play for about three months.
This makes Poulin the third BU player to be injured so far this season. Senior defensemen Tara Watchorn has yet to play so far this season for the Terriers because of a concussion that she suffered over the summer.
“Tara is such a day-to-day thing with how the concussion reacts,” Durocher said. “She’s just about ready, I believe, for step two which is you start feeling well in step one, in step two you start raising your body temperature and doing some fitness work and step three is getting on the ice and playing where there’s a little more concentration, maybe a little bumping and seeing if you come out of there still feeling well without any side effects or ill effects.”
Redshirt freshman defenseman Caroline Campbell, who played in the Terriers’ exhibition game against the Ottawa Senators, did not play last weekend because of an ankle injury that will likely have her out for three more weeks.
The Purple Eagles (0-2-0) had even less luck than the Terriers in their first series of the season.
On Friday night, Niagara faced off against the University of New Hampshire. In the first forty minutes of play, UNH tallied six goals to take a 6-1 advantage over the Purple Eagles.
Despite a late attempt at a comeback where three Niagara players scored, the Purple Eagles were unable to overcome the early deficit and went on to lose 6-4.
The Wildcats took an early lead again on Saturday with two goals in the first period. After teams exchanged goals in the second, UNH held a 3-1 lead over the Purple Eagles. Niagara netted a second goal in the third frame but was unable to take finish the comeback.
“They look like they had a great series with UNH,” Durocher said. “[I’m] disappointed they came out on the short end of both games. They were both nail biters.”
According to Durocher, the key to the game is for BU to be prepared for whatever Niagara brings them.
“I’m sure we’ll have all we can handle against [Niagara] because their kids will be excited to match up against the Menards, [the Kohanchuks], the Bouchers and the Wakefields of the world and a team that went to the national championship game last year.
“We’re going to have to be ready. We’ve always talked about if we give respect to the opponent, most of the time you’re going to be prepared to play.”
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