Six months ago, they took to the ice for the first time, a mix of talent and energy, but not quite a team. Tonight, they will stand together at the blue line, collectively poised to take one step closer to winning a national championship. Somewhere in the interim, between changing lines, battling for ice time and being benched, they settled into their roles and became a group of ‘Boston University hockey players,’ as coach Jack Parker likes to call them. Now, after earning the right to play into April, they have in front of them the opportunity to elevate their names into Terrier lore.
But before they can dream of victory laps and raised banners, there’s plenty of hockey to play.
The Terriers, venturing out of New England for just the second time this season, head to the nation’s capital for the Frozen Four, set to meet the University of Vermont at the Verizon Center tonight. Though BU has rolled along all year on the path to Washington, D.C., a date with the dangerous Catamounts is surely not what they had hoped to find upon arrival.
Vermont beat the Terriers twice during the regular season, the only team to do so, and the Catamounts have only improved with time. So tonight, Vermont, too, will line up at the blue line, hoping to prevent BU from avenging those losses, hoping to take one step closer to raising a banner of its own.
‘They play a certain style, and we play a certain style,’ Parker said. ‘Sometimes, our style trumps theirs and vice versa. But all the time, the team that works the hardest wins.’
This is not the first championship the Terriers are fighting for this season. In fact, they have become accustomed to winning since kicking off the year by skating past the University of North Dakota and Michigan State University in the Ice Breaker Tournament. Just after the New Year, they flew west and took down the then-No. 5 University of Denver to hoist the Denver Cup.
In early February, the Beanpot trophy returned to the eastern end of Commonwealth Avenue with a win over Northeastern University. And if there was any doubt about BU’s tournament abilities, it ended when the Terriers won both the regular-season and postseason Hockey East titles.
For Parker and the Terriers, the ultimate goal has always been to reach the Frozen Four and win a national championship, but that does not mean that the season hasn’t already been a success.
‘If we don’t win the national tournament, it will be very disappointing, but it won’t take away from the fact that we won everything else all year long,’ Parker said. ‘But that’s not as if to say, ‘We’ve had a great year, so we’re satisfied.”
‘The only team in the nation that will have a better year than we did is the team that wins the national championship. We’d like to be that team.’
For the Terriers to become that team, they will need to counter Vermont’s efforts to clog up the middle and slow the game’s tempo. There will be no room for pretty skating and nifty passes on the way up the ice. Offensively, BU must remain focused on controlling the puck with smart play deep in the Vermont end.
Facing Swedish goal-scoring sensation Viktor Stalberg, the Terriers’ defense will have its hands full. He skates with plenty of size and speed, and can snipe a wrist shot from anywhere on the ice ‘-‘- his 24 goals this season are proof. The onus will be on senior defenseman Matt Gilroy and his crew to keep Stalberg off the puck and away from the net.
If BU can dictate its own dump-and-chase style and limit Stalberg’s chances, one more game awaits.
‘It’s hard to win the national championship in December,’ Parker said. ‘It’s hard to win the national championship when you’re playing in the Hockey East finals. It’s hard to win the national championship when you’re playing in the Northeast Regional, but it’s not hard to win the national championship now. You just have to win two games, and they’re right in front of you. It is hard, but it’s right there.’
And what does Parker expect from his team in the final weekend?
‘I expect our team to play very well,’ Parker said. ‘What happens after that, I have no idea.’
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.
