Former Major League baseball player, coach and general manager Branch Rickey once said, ‘Luck is the residue of design.’
Boston University men’s hockey coach Jack Parker and the 2009 Terriers are the exception to Rickey’s rule. For the Terriers, it wasn’t design that produced the fortunate bounces they needed to win their last three games; it was raw desire and determination.
The latest and final example of this was Saturday night, when BU outlasted Miami University for a 4-3 victory in the Frozen Four championship game, giving Parker his third national championship crown as the bench boss of the Terriers.
Just two weeks ago in the Northeast Regional final against the University of New Hampshire, senior forward Jason Lawrence tried to feed a puck through the crease to linemate Colin Wilson in the waning stages of regulation with the game tied at one.
The pass never reached its intended target, instead ricocheting off Wildcat forward Jerry Pollastrone’s forearm and crossing the goalmouth with 14.4 seconds to play for the game-winning tally.
The goal erased 59 minutes of back-and-forth hockey in which New Hampshire seemed to have the upper hand.’
Thursday night, with Lawrence working the weak-side post, fortune struck again.
Senior Chris Higgins’ cross-crease pass to Lawrence didn’t make it to the forward’s stick, but it wound up in the net regardless. The puck deflected in off the stick of a desperate, diving University of Vermont freshman Drew MacKenzie.
The own goal struck Vermont with seven minutes left to play in regulation, and although it was not the winning marker, it erased the Terriers’ 4-3 deficit and drew the momentum back into BU’s corner once and for all.
The Terriers went on to score the game-winning goal just over a minute later. Another cross-crease feed from Higgins to Wilson off an in-zone draw secured a win for a team that looked to be on the brink of defeat.
Saturday night, after scoring a pair of goals in the final minute of regulation to force overtime, an unpredictable bounce off Miami’s Kevin Roeder on a slap shot by sophomore Colby Cohen gave BU the national crown.
The ability to scrape victory from the ashes of defeat is a staple of this year’s Terriers. It originates in Parker’s deep-rooted history at BU, and is hammered home by the team’s senior core.
‘It’s the character of our team,’ Lawrence said. ‘Throughout the year, our mindset has been rock steady. Whether we’ve been up a goal, with a big lead or down a goal, what has carried us through this whole season has been our ability to stay calm and know what we have to do to win the game.’
BU’s confidence stems, in large part, from its talent.
BU boasts 13 skaters with player rights owned by NHL clubs, not including senior co-captain and Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner Matt Gilroy.
‘This team thinks they’re pretty good,’ Parker said. ‘They’ve got some poise. We’ve got a lot of talent. We know we can score goals.’
Scoring goals and relying on offensive firepower, however, are just pieces of a bigger puzzle. BU has proven time and time again that the word ‘rattled’ is not in the team’s collective vocabulary.
‘[This weekend] was emblematic of the type of character and the type of determination and will to win that this club has,’ Parker said. ‘Our motto is desire, determination and the will to win. This club is living up to that.’
The biggest question mark heading into the year was how Parker’s underclassmen would perform on the big stage. From the onset of the regular season, freshman goalie Kieran Millan and the rest of the rookie class have proven they can handle pressure.
With a minute left in regulation against Vermont, Gilroy glided up to Millan, urging the backstop to relax, focus and put the first two-and-a-half periods behind him.
Millan looked at Gilroy through his mask and sent the All-American defenseman back to the faceoff circle smiling.
‘He smiled at me and said, ‘Get out of here. Don’t worry about it,” Gilroy said. ‘That’s the way he is. It’s good to see him get the win here.’
Millan’s casual demeanor exemplifies BU’s unflappable composure.
The Terriers are the greatest statistical team in the history of the program. This year’s team is the first ever to win 35 games in one season.
‘It’s awesome,’ Lawrence said. ‘We’ve been working for this for four years. It’s one of our goals and one of our dreams [to win the national championship].’
For Parker and the Terriers, desire, determination and the will to win are their design.
